Director, Structured Finance Product Owner / Agile Product Lead - New York

At Fitch, we have an open culture where employees are able to exchange ideas and perspectives, throughout the organization, irrespective of their seniority. Your voice will be heard allowing you to have a real impact. We embrace diversity and appreciate authenticity encouraging an environment where employees can be their true selves. Our inclusive and progressive approach helps us to keep a balanced perspective.  Fitch is also committed to supporting its employees by advancing conversations around diversity, equity and inclusion.  Fitch’s Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) have been established by employees who have joined together as a workplace community based on similar backgrounds or life experiences.  Fitch’s ERGs are available to connect employees with others within the organization to offer professional and personal support. 

 

With our expertise, we are not only creating data and information, but also producing timely insights from every angle to influence decision making in this ever changing and highly competitive market. We have a relentless hunger to innovate and unlock the power of human insights and to drive value for our customers. There has never been a better time to make an impact and we invite you to join us on this journey.

 

Fitch Ratings is currently seeking a Director- Structured Finance Product Owner / Agile Product Lead based out of our New York.

 

About the Team:

 

Ratings Workflow Solutions (RWS), part of the Ratings COO organization, is a cross-functional, agile team responsible for designing, implementing, and optimizing applications and workflows used by our Ratings staff. Our goal is to streamline processes, mitigate risks, and advance standardization and automation across Fitch’s ratings platforms and workflows.  The team partners closely with analytical, business, and technology staff to ensure our systems support the needs of the Ratings organization and enable our staff to work effectively.    

 

How You’ll Make an Impact: 

 

We’re looking for an experienced and dynamic Product Owner to lead an agile delivery team supporting Fitch’s Structured Finance credit analysts and their internal workflows. In this role, you’ll lead the squad, work closely with different groups to understand their needs, solve problems, and ensure we’re building solutions that advance our business objectives. You’ll work alongside analytical groups and technology teams to align priorities and deliver key outcomes. Strong leadership, communication, and organizational skills are important, and you should enjoy working with colleagues who have different levels of experience with Agile. A collaborative, customer-first mindset is essential.

 

• Define overall strategy and direction of the applications covered based on understanding of organizational goals and analytical groups’ needs.
• Own the backlog, feature prioritization, roadmap, and the MVP in support of business objectives.
• Communicate and align with stakeholders to prioritize features and ensure a shared vision of sprint goals and backlogs.
• Lead the Agile squad to define and align sprint goals, ensuring "ready" user stories and supporting the squad to deliver on sprint commitments.  Supports squad in identifying dependencies and other execution risks.
• Work closely with the squad to provide timely feedback and answers to their questions; ultimately accept or reject the product increments of the sprint.
• Oversee the overall squad’s quarterly delivery, ensuring that the squad meets their goals and deliver business value.
• Identify opportunities for process improvements and drive initiatives to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the Ratings business.
• Enhance and automate processes to improve data quality, standardize workflows, and integrate key systems.
• Analyze and break down complex workflows and system processes for both current (As-Is) and future (To-Be) states in support of automation and standardization.
• Oversee and guide user training, rollout, and change management processes.

 

You May be a Good Fit if:

 

• Bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of product ownership experience
• Agile practitioner capabilities & experience working with or in Agile teams.
• Proven track record of delivering workflow and data-driven solutions with a customer-first mindset.
• See the business as a customer and translate requirements into technical solutions.

• Ability to create and maintain a backlog and roadmap, and to prioritize that backlog based on business value and technical feasibility.
• Track record of delivering results in a high-deman