Lead / Senior Product Owner

Position summary:The RA is looking for a performance oriented, data driven, and collaborative Lead Senior Product Owner (LSPO) who will be responsible for managing a team of Product Owners. The LSPO will ensure the implementation and continuous optimisation of organizational capability, delivering multiple digitally enabled products and business services. The LSPO will be part of our global Technology team reporting directly to the Technology Director.

Responsibilities:

• Own the portfolio product roadmap and budget across multiple product streams, identifying new features, setting portfolio priorities, and implementation schedule;

• Work with the Portfolio Director and Technology Directors to define the roadmap, refine and update the customer journey, and share results with key stakeholders;

• Working with the release manager and stakeholders, ensure digitally enabled products and business services are relevant, timely, user-friendly, and deliver value to our customers, members, and staff;

• Develop with the PO’s an engagement plan, which supports a distributed rollout

• Responsible for setting, prioritizing, and evaluating the work of PO’s and Business Analysts in their team and 3rd parties where relevant

• Work with the PO’s, and as appropriate, manage the combined internal and 3rd party scrum teams, to identify cross product dependencies, risk, and opportunities

• Develop and maintain good relationships with all stakeholders involved in creating and delivering the products and services such as architecture and technology teams as well as external service providers;

• Work with and support key stakeholders in developing and refining predictive key indictors and dashboard, communicating progress with senior stakeholders

• Promote design thinking, lean and agile ways of working

• Manage and continuously develop the PO team, by providing direction, goal definition and target setting

• Demonstrate RA’s core values (Impact, Change, Collaboration, Openness, Trust) through daily actions and behaviours.

 Delivery:

• Analyse business processes to optimise efficiency / value delivery in close partnership with business owners, enterprise architects and process modellers as appropriate; set and manage development priorities with the PO’s based upon business needs

• Assess EPICs and User Stories for quality and fitness as defined by the PO’s

• As appropriate, develop and or support the formation and development of the more complex prototype mock-ups, and guide the design team in their creation;

• Translate complex IT solutions into digestible concepts for business stakeholders, and complex business process into functional IT designs;

• Identify IT solution technical challenges and review with the development teams;

• Coordinate with business owners, project managers and delivery partners to develop detailed planning and set delivery step prioritisation

• Write, and or guide in the creation of acceptance criteria, including NFRs, and testing as part of user stories;

• Manage the ongoing backlog of updates, change requests etc.

• Approve work packages for execution by our Technology development Partners

 Qualifications:

• Master’s degree, preferably in IT, business administration or a technical field.

• At least 10 years’ work experience with 5+ years experience as a Product Owner

• Deep understanding of Lean principles, thinking and methods; Agile, Scrum (SAFe, LeSS, DAD etc) Design thinking;

• Experience working in a global, culturally diverse team is essential;

• Excellent interpersonal skills with ability to interact culturally, linguistically, and diplomatically with diverse internal and external individuals; 

• Experience with managing staff and 3rd party vendor mixed teams

• Results-driven, accurate, structured, good analytical and communication skills; 

• Team & Relationship Building: Building and maintaining contacts using trust, rapport and cooperation with persons inside and outside RA;

• Works in partnership with other colleagues, responds to request for assistance respectfully and helpfully, contributes to team environment and supportive workplace and;

• Knowledge of MS Office and proficient in Excel;

• Fluency in English, both verbal and written. Other languages are a plus;

• Ideally experience with Certification management systems and / or processes, preferably in an agricultural setting, will be a plus but is not essential.

Job level: 2A

Deadline: 31 May 2024

Notes: Only candidates authorized to work in the Netherlands or the UK will be considered.

If you have any questions about the job vacancy, please contact the HR department: recruitment@ra.org


WHO WE ARE:The Rainforest Alliance is creating a more sustainable world by using social and market forces to protect nature and improve the lives of farmers and forest communities. To achieve our mission, we partner with diverse allies around the world to drive positive change across global supply chains and in many of our most critically important natural landscapes.

Our alliance spans 70 countries and includes farmers and forest communities, companies, governments, civil society, and millions of individuals. Together we work to protect forests and biodiversity, take action on climate, and promote the rights and improve the livelihoods of rural people.

As an international nonprofit organization with more than 30 years of experience in sustainability transformation, we understand that the social and economic well-being of rural communities is tightly connected to ecosystem health. This knowledge has shaped our rigorous programs to advance sustainable land-use and commodity production.

At the Rainforest Alliance we combat climate change, protect forests and biodiversity, promote human rights, and improve livelihoods. The enormity of the social and environmental challenges we are facing requires working together in a broad alliance. This is why we bring farmers, forest communities, companies, and consumers together to change the way the world produces, sources, and consumes.

WhyTo protect nature and improve lives it’s becoming increasingly urgent that we approach the way we use our land and produce food and other products in more sustainable ways. For this to succeed we need to fundamentally change the way that businesses operate and source, and the choices we all make as consumers.

HowOur growing global alliance aims to transform our relationship with our natural resources and each other, to create a better future for people and nature together.

The Rainforest Alliance encourages diversity and inclusion across the global organization. With this commitment to diversity, we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, ages, disability, and any other protected group.