Sr Product Owner, Sales & Customer Experience

At Equity Residential, we are embarking on an exciting transformation journey to revolutionize our technology capabilities to drive operational excellence and fuel digital innovation across our company.  Our Product Owners serve pivotal roles in shaping this future, acting as the dynamic force to ensure we are meeting our evolving business needs and delivering groundbreaking value.   

As visionary leaders, Product Owners are responsible for  the entire lifecycle of applications and platforms for their business teams, driving strategic innovation, architectural breakthroughs, and operational excellence. Product Owners serve as the essential link between technology and business, championing bold execution, igniting innovation, and spearheading digital evolution across their spheres. Fueled by Agile principles, they bring a collaborative and solutions-driven spirit to every endeavor, pursuing continuous improvement, forging powerful cross-functional alliances, and cultivating a vibrant culture of innovation, agility, and operational excellence.

Please Note: This role is a hybrid opportunity.

WHO YOU ARE:

• A Strong Leader: You effectively lead cross-functional teams, providing clear direction to help both direct and indirect team members achieve goals and collaborate cohesively.
• Intellectually Curious: You are driven by a natural curiosity, always seeking to understand the "why" behind challenges in order to uncover unconventional solutions.
• Detail-Oriented and Process-Focused: You excel at enhancing and enforcing control processes to ensure operational efficiency and consistency.
• A Trusted Team Player: You thrive in collaborative environments, building constructive relationships that foster teamwork and deliver outstanding results. You take ownership of your commitments and hold yourself accountable to your colleagues.
• Organized and Composed: You are adaptable, confident, and able to prioritize multiple tasks and deadlines while maintaining composure in high-pressure situations, interacting seamlessly with individuals at all levels of the organization.
• A Strong Communicator: You are articulate, persuasive, and effective in both verbal and written communication, enabling you to connect with and influence others with ease.

WHAT YOU’LL DO:

• Collaborates, influences and partners with leadership across all Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience focused teams to align business strategy, technology priorities and roadmap, both near and long-term.   Serves as hybrid team member, effectively positioned in both IT and with their assigned team(s) as a key technical and business domain team member.  
• Leads the planning and execution of key sales, CRM/relationship management, and B2C multi-channel (web, social, email, and mobile applications) technology replacements, ensuring minimal disruption to business operations.  Evaluates and selects solutions that meet the organization's needs and long-term strategic goals.
• Manage the full lifecycle of key sales, CRM/relationship management, website, and B2C multi-channel customer experience-related system implementations, including data migration, system configuration, testing, and training.
• Drives the strategic evolution and integration of core operational platforms, including Property Management Systems (PMS), billing systems, and contact center technologies, ensuring seamless workflow distribution and enhanced efficiency across IT and business functions.
• Facilitates effective collaboration and resource allocation across technical teams to ensure seamless integration and optimal performance of interconnected systems, particularly those supporting centralized back-office operations.
• Serves as the ultimate single-point-of-contact and/or escalation point to major technology related priorities for the assigned business area(s).  Helps to navigate questions or concerns for assigned business area(s) across IT domains (including applications, infrastructure, hardware, etc.) and implements continuous improvements for the applications and end-to-end technology platforms.
• Delivers on the technology roadmap.  Executes on projects.  Accountable for project charter, deliverables, and overall project delivery and success and communicate key milestones and metrics to all stakeholders
• Drives innovation, stays current on industry trends, and researches and pilots new technologies.
• Owns the application suite for assigned business areas, key business, and vendor relationships; develops RFPs and negotiates cont