Overview
The Associate Product Manager will serve as a trusted advisor to task teams, regional leadership, and product teams in identifying opportunities to optimize operations through technology solutions and business processes. The role will identify, analyze, and promote innovative solutions that enhance business processes, service delivery, and knowledge management.
Key Responsibilities
- Engage with business stakeholders to understand product requirements and goals; synthesize needs, pain points, and opportunities across the Financing domain.
- Direct market and user research to inform hypotheses to be tested in product strategy; incorporate user feedback and analytics to validate and refine requirements.
- Define and communicate the product strategy, roadmap, and overall vision; ensure alignment with ITS/WBG priorities and client outcomes.
- Drive product decisions by balancing business value, operational risk, compliance requirements, technical feasibility, and user experience considerations.
- Identify opportunities for process simplification, automation, and operational efficiency across the financing lifecycle.
- Lead collaboration with the Agile Release Train to ensure timely and successful delivery of the product roadmap and continuous value delivery.
- Design clear governance structures for the product (decision rights, roles, cadences) and ensure compliance with WBG governance policies and standards.
- Balance new investments, enhancements, and technical debt to maximize value and manage risk.
- Facilitate stakeholder communication to identify opportunities for improvements to the product roadmap and vision; build consensus across business and technical teams.
- Serve as primary point of contact for the product; communicate roadmap, status, risks/issues, and outcomes to leadership and user groups.
- Oversee vendor relationships (as applicable) to ensure resource availability, scope/quality adherence, and successful product vision delivery.
- Propose strategic investments to support product development and manage technical debt; prepare inputs for governance and funding decisions.
- Monitor the financial management of the product to ensure budget availability and adherence to WBG processes.
- Define and track success metrics (OKRs/KPIs) for outcomes, adoption, reliability, and operational efficiency; guide prioritization using evidence and analytics.
- Monitor product operational health and support volumes; drive actions that improve user value and reduce total cost of ownership.
Required Experience
- Demonstrated expertise in product management for a complex product portfolio including backlogs, performance, portfolio health etc.
- Advanced expertise in stakeholder engagement, product performance management, value proposition development, data driven decision making, human centered design, product roadmap and requirement analysis, sprint planning and product development lifecycle.
- Demonstrated expertise in emerging technologies, systems thinking, change management, and innovation methodologies (e.g., AI, design thinking, agile)
- Experience working in large, complex organizations or international development settings and delivering solutions in a global delivery model
- Plans and coordinates crossteam delivery within Agile/SAFe environments (e.g., Azure DevOps); understands technical constraints and tradeoffs
- Demonstrated ability to provide thought leadership, and experience in developing and presenting high-impact business cases, portfolio analysis to large stakeholder group
- Expertise in World Bank financing operations, operational policies, lending instruments, and project lifecycle management preferred.
- Strong understanding of operational modernization initiatives, process simplification, workflow automation, and digital transformation within operational environments preferred
- Knowledge of World Bank’s Financing domain, business value drivers, and operational constraints preferred
Qualifications
- Master’s degree in computer science/STEM with 8 years of relevant experience; or bachelor’s degree with a minimum of 10 years of relevant experience; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
- Certified in SAFe Product Manager/Product Owner, SAFe Agile Product Manager, Certifications in other areas such as Design Thinking, AI would be preferred.
