VP of Product Management

VP of Product Management

Full Time

Exempt position

Reports to: EVP Operations

Location: Remote

Brief Position Description:

Under the supervision of Chief Technology Officer EVP of Operations, the VP of Product Management is responsible for managing the company’s strategic product direction, product roadmap, and is principal point of contact for all facets of Aptys product and services offerings. VP of Product Management is responsible for exploring and developing product ideas, interviewing customers, analyzing competitors, researching market trends, working with UX, engineering and architecture to build development plan, prototype, and work with leadership to prioritize, define and execute product strategy to maximize value and competitive marketing positioning while ensuring profitability, on-time, on-budget and on-scope delivery of projects and initiatives. VP of Product Management must have a clear understanding of the businesses requirements as it pertains to servicing the technology needs of the Aptys and addresses all development backlog including contracts, enhancement requests, defect backlog, and paid development.
 

The VP of Product Management directs the activities of Product Managers delivering work within their portfolio. This is a position that requires a strategic thinker who is analytical, detail and results oriented with excellent research and problem-solving skills, a strong work ethic, and has a positive can-do attitude with a growth mindset. VP of Product Development excels in a fast-past complex working environment, effectively manages ambiguity, and can refine fuzzy ideas into concrete requirements, specific use cases or solutions for customer pain points. Demonstrated ability to exercise influence without direct authority. Comfortable communicating with all levels from the c-suite to support departments. Active listener that is passionate about creating high quality payment solutions for correspondents, respondents, retail, and business.
 

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Recruit and lead a team of high performing product management personnel, helping to develop their craft and career paths to continuously improve Aptys’ product management team’s impact and productivity, building a culture of excellence
• Develop relationships with customers and ensure Aptys has direct customer input when building our product
• Works effectively with Technical and non-Technical team members and customers
• Shares similar mentality as existing team members toward customer satisfaction and success 
• Can effectively facilitate meetings, demonstrate brainstorming / consensus building skills, and interact with executive level project sponsors
• Can be called on to take a lead subject matter role in sales initiatives 
• Collaborate effectively with other departments within Aptys, including Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and Support to create, plan, and maintain the Aptys product roadmap
• Clearly communicate goals, roles, responsibilities, and desired outcomes throughout the company
• Build and maintain a rolling twelve-month release plan, manage feature delivery from discovery to validation in production to product end of life
• Recommend appropriate tradeoffs to senior leadership team to optimize time-to-market and ensure that those tradeoffs are effectively communicated to all stakeholders
• Rapidly respond to changing business priorities and requirements and work with the leadership to re-prioritize delivery plans, as required
• Assist the Chief Technology Officer with strategic planning and budgeting activities
• Maintain a strong understanding of strategies, market dynamics and competitive landscape. Analyze industry, competitors, client needs and existing products to develop business requirements 
• Articulate product ideas into well-crafted business requirements, functional specifications, and prototype
• Participate in the marketing process to conceptualize and create marketing materials for the target market(s) for the Aptys products
• Respond to product related questions from Development, Customer Support, Sales, and Marketing. 
• Reinforce continuous innovation and a safe-to-fail environment where it’s okay to take chances, while also mitigating business-threatening risks
• Develop and evaluate new product ideas and opportunities, as well as improve existing products and features
• Build a strong customer engagement model
• Guide creative brief and influencing design to ensure an intuitive and delightful UI/UX.
• Develop metrics to assess the success of product development team, initiatives, products, and features and determine necessary enhancements

Required Skills/Abilities: 

• 10-15 years of product management leadership experience in the financial services industry
• Demonstrates leadership skills including setting deadlines for Product Management team members, assigns responsibilities and directs work, monitors progress, and follows-up. Provides respectful feedback, escalates where necessary, analyzes/Identifies areas of risk and develops plans to minimize, and seeks opportunities to develop professional skills. Ability to learn quickly and think creatively
• Detail-oriented individual with strong business and technical acumen and the ability to quickly assimilate and apply new concepts, business models, and technologies
• Strong leader with proven ability to conceptualize solutions and deliver features from inception to end of life
• Excellent quantitative, written, and verbal communication skills, including executive level presentations
• Ability to adapt to rapidly changing priorities and to resolve issues and make decisions 
• Experience with prototyping, writing functional, business requirements, and deep understanding of the Agile development process 
• Values collaboration and seeks opportunities to build relationships. Work collaboratively in teams and develop meaningful relationships to achieve common goals
• Demonstrated passion for building high-quality user experiences and a commitment to product excellence
• Ability to travel 30%

Experience:

• Undergraduate degree in either a technical field such as Computer Science or Information Systems or in a business field such as Accounting or Finance or comparable work experience
• Knowledge of payments including real-time payments, cards, digital, and traditional payments
• Knowledge of payments processing
• Working knowledge of product management methodologies
• Experience having scaled a Product Management organization
• Experience hiring, managing, and mentoring high performance organizations

About Aptys

Here at Aptys, we build systems used by thousands of financial institutions every day to process payments; in fact, we are responsible for providing these payment processing services to approximately one-third of the nation’s financial institutions! You may have already benefited from our software without even realizing it. That’s because we’re good at what we do. That doesn’t mean we’re complacent, though. Our mission is to be the financial industry’s most customer-centric company, offering payment solutions that enable financial institutions to grow, innovate, and become even more effective at servicing the nation’s consumers with cutting-edge technology. This role will play a key part in our continued success moving forward. If the idea of being an integral part of our nation’s financial system is exciting to you, you’re in the right place.

We believe that our employees are our organization, which is why we have gone 100% remote. It is important to us to find the very best people wherever they are, and that doesn’t just mean having great skills; we take our culture very seriously! We are bound together by a shared set of core values and you can expect the following principles to be embodied in our company and team culture:

• Cooperation - We believe wholeheartedly that we succeed or fail together as a team. If you need help, or even just a sounding board, you will always have somewhere to look or someone to ask.
• Independence - We are all adults! We rely on each other to do great work even when nobody is looking, and in exchange we trust one another enough to give each other the space we need to be our best.
• Respect - We are all human, and we don’t forget that. Your personal life will be respected, and your manager’s (virtual) door will always be open if you have any questions or concerns.

As an employee of Aptys Solutions you will also enjoy the following benefits:

• Excellent work-life balance
• Generous PTO and holiday schedule
• Health, vision, and dental insurance
• 401K with company match

Aptys Solutions is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, sex, religion, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy status, marital status, military or veteran status, genetic disposition or any other reason protected by law.