Director, Ignite - Product Owner - Core Modernization

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical company. We follow the science to deliver lifechanging medicines and build an inclusive culture that empowers diverse perspectives, collaboration, and continuous learning.  

About the Team: 

Ignite’s Decom Factory Platform operates the integrated Application Decommissioning & Archival service across AZ’s IT estate. The platform partners with Enterprise Technology Services (ETS), Enterprise Archival Services (EAS), CMDB Governance, Procurement, Risk/Compliance, and Business Owners to accelerate safe retirement of legacy applications, ensure compliant data preservation, and realize measurable savings.  

About the Role:  

The Product Owner (Director) leads the strategy, delivery, and ongoing improvement of the enterprise Decom Factory Platform. You will define the operating model and governance, and set SLAs and quality standards. You will lead a cross geography team to improve turnaround times, ensure adherence (GRAD/legal hold), and realize value. Your customers include Business Application Owners, Platform/Infra teams, Compliance/Records Management, and Finance/Procurement. For Business Owners, this service removes ambiguity and delays, provides a guided path to closure, and ensures their data obligations are met. For ETS/EAS, it clarifies handoffs and increases throughput. For Compliance and Finance, it strengthens control evidence and makes savings visible.  

Key Responsibilities  

• Product Strategy and Roadmap  

• Define vision, objectives, and OKRs for the integrated decommissioning + archival service, prioritized by compliance risk, cost to serve savings, and technical debt reduction.  

• Build and maintain a quarterly roadmap: single intake (NextGen) enhancements, ServiceNow workflow automation, Snowflake ingest patterns/QA standards, and reporting/value realization improvements.  

• Translate strategy into epics/features; prioritize backlog based on customer value, risk reduction, and expected return on investment.  

• Operating Model, SLAs, and User Journey  

• Establish end to end operating model across intake validation, change preparation/approval (CAG), infrastructure ticketing, archival planning/ingest/UAT, CMDB updates, and value confirmation.  

• Set and maintain SLAs, WIP limits, and paths for critical issues; plan capacity for concurrent application / parallel execution.  

• Define a clear user journey with standard communication touchpoints (orientation, CR submission, soft delete confirmation, archival plan approval, UAT, prod ingest, CMDB update, closure) and templated status updates.  

• Configuration Governance (Policy Ownership)  

• Own service configuration/data governance policies: CMDB data quality standards, CI reconciliation rules, “Non-Operational” status criteria, approval thresholds, and audit evidence requirements.  

• Sponsor single source of truth adoption (registry/CMDB alignment) and targeted cleanup/audits.  

• Stakeholder Engagement and Change Leadership  

• Engage senior leaders across Ignite, R&D IT, Commercial IT, ETS, EAS, Procurement, and Compliance to align priorities, remove blockers, and communicate outcomes.  

• Chair governance reviews on throughput, SLA adherence, compliance findings, CMDB quality, and savings realization.  

• Drive change management for the single intake and onerepository