Product Owner

Work Arrangement: To be confirmed

Industry: Banking / Financial Services

Role Focus: Discovery Leadership, Product Enablement, Delivery Planning & Governance

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Product Owner with strong Payments, Cards, or Digital Banking experience to lead the discovery phase of a strategic ecosystem enablement initiative.

This role owns the journey from initial discovery through blueprint approval and execution readiness. You will serve as the central point of coordination between business stakeholders, PMO, architects, technology teams, and delivery squads to ensure scope, assumptions, risks, estimates, and solution direction are fully aligned before implementation begins.

The ideal candidate combines strong product ownership with delivery planning, stakeholder management, and financial services domain knowledge. You should be comfortable operating across both business and technical discussions while driving clarity, decisions, and accountability.

Key Responsibilities

• Discovery Leadership & Accountability

• Lead the Ecosystem Enablement discovery phase from initiation through blueprint approval

• Own scope clarification, discovery outcomes, and readiness for execution

• Coordinate activities across Business, Rubicon, PMO, Architecture, Technology, and Delivery stakeholders

• Ensure all discovery outputs are complete, aligned, and sufficient to support internal SBC approval processes

• Maintain visibility across open decisions, risks, dependencies, and action items throughout discovery

• Business & Stakeholder Alignment

• Serve as the bridge between business stakeholders, PMO, and technical architecture teams

• Translate business objectives and product enablement needs into clear requirements and delivery considerations

• Facilitate workshops and working sessions to validate scope, assumptions, dependencies, risks, and priorities

• Drive stakeholder alignment on outcomes, timelines, trade-offs, and decision points

• Manage expectations and ensure key stakeholders remain informed throughout the discovery process

• Solution Blueprint & Delivery Planning

• Partner with architects and technical teams to shape the target solution blueprint

• Drive the development of delivery options, implementation approaches, and high-level solution roadmaps

• Ensure estimates are based on validated scope, architecture inputs, delivery dependencies, and resource assumptions

• Coordinate the creation of the definitive delivery plan required to proceed into execution

• Ensure the blueprint is practical, traceable, and ready for handoff to delivery teams

• Estimation, Governance & Internal Process Support

• Lead the consolidation of estimates across business analysis, architecture, development, testing, integration, and deployment activities

• Prepare and coordinate required documentation for internal SBC governance and approval

• Identify delivery risks, constraints, dependencies, and decisions requiring governance attention

• Ensure all discovery outputs are structured, traceable, and fit for approval and execution planning

• Support governance discussions with clear recommendations and decision-ready information

Experience Requirements

Strong experience in payments, cards, acquiring, issuing, digital banking, or financial services delivery

Proven track record leading discovery, solution shaping, product enablement, or pre-delivery planning phases

Experience working with PMO, business stakeholders, architects, technology teams, and delivery squads

Strong understanding of delivery estimation, planning, governance documentation, and execution readiness

Ability to operate effectively across both business and technical domains

Experience working in Agile, hybrid, or waterfall delivery environments

Key Skills

Payments and cards domain knowledge

Product ownership and discovery leadership

Stakeholder management and executive communication

Delivery planning and estimation

Governance and approval documentation

Risk, dependency, and assumption management

Cross-functional coordination

Workshop facilitation and decision-driving

Scope definition and requirements alignment

Execution readiness and delivery mobilization

Abilities

Accountability: Takes ownership of discovery outcomes and ensures work progresses toward approval and execution

Decision-making: Drives clarity when scope, assumptions, or priorities are still evolving

Stakeholder leadership: Aligns business and technical teams around a common solution direction

Commercial awareness: Understands how delivery scope, estimates, risks, and dependencies influence business decisions

Structured communication: Presents complex delivery information clearly to both executive and technical stakeholders

Cross-functional coordination: Keeps multiple workstreams aligned without losing sight of dependencies or deadlines

Execution mindset: Ensures discovery outputs are not theoretical but usable by delivery teams

Success Measures

Success in this role means completing the discovery phase with a clearly defined scope, validated assumptions, agreed solution direction, and a blueprint that is ready for approval.

The Product Owner will also be accountable for delivering definitive estimates and a practical delivery plan accepted by Business, PMO, and Technology stakeholders, with risks, dependencies, and execution constraints identified and managed early.