Are you an experienced Product Lead who has experience working in start-up environments and developing valuable, usable, viable and technically feasible products that users love from inception? Do you have the ability to understand the user problem and put yourself in the shoes of the customer to address their needs and add value? Are you comfortable with developing rapid prototypes and experiments to validate hypotheses while working with the Engineering team to build new features?

If this sounds like you, continue reading….

ABOUT US

In 2035, Africa will have the largest workforce in the world and will need to catalyse transformation by empowering its largest untapped resource - its people. Fuelled by this, the African Leadership Group is an ecosystem of institutions with a shared vision to harness Africa's abundant human capital and transform the continent and the world by selecting, developing, and connecting 2 million young leaders to opportunities by 2030. ALG was founded over 15 years ago by Fred Swaniker, a serial entrepreneur recognised by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019. ALX and The Room are two brands of the African Leadership Group.

ALX is our training arm, focused on developing skills for the fourth industrial revolution (software engineering, devops, data science, etc.) to ensure that Africa is able to compete effectively as the world undergoes a digital transformation. To cement this, through our legal entity  African Leadership International (ALI), we have signed an agreement to acquire Silicon Valley based Holberton Inc. – a project-based, college alternative educating the next generation of software engineers. This will give us ownership of the advanced technology program that will enable us to provide global organizations access to significant untapped pools of talent that can bridge the growing global shortage of technology talent. For more on this, please read this article here.

The Room our talent placement arm, is a community that our young talent join to access global work opportunities. To learn more about us, please read this article about why we launched The Room & this article about the impact of our development programs on African youth. View this pitch deck to see how we present ourselves to employers.

ABOUT THE PRODUCT & UX DEPARTMENT

We are a team of passionate and dedicated data-driven Product Managers and  Ux Designers who are on a mission to to define and develop  valuable, usable, technically feasible & commercially viable digital products that our customers (internal and external) love

We adopt a lean startup mindset and are constantly testing, measuring and learning to get to product market fit and start scaling to achieve our ambitious and transformative goals.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are looking for a Product Lead to own and lead all aspects of product development for our key platforms in our business. Platforms currently in the works include our Community platform which will build an engaging value-added community for  our graduates fostering long term relationship, two-sided Jobs Portal to help place our talent with employer partners and our Directory of innovative startups across Africa and globally to build an entrepreneurship  ecosystem.

As a Product Lead, You will be responsible for overseeing the development of new products. You will coordinate with a variety of different stakeholders including designers, engineers, marketers, and other product managers to ensure that the product fits the various users’ needs.

A director of product management typically has a wide range of responsibilities, which can include:

• Evaluating new technology and incorporating it into existing products or creating new products based on new technology
• Maintaining relationships with suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors to ensure that product quality is maintained throughout the production process
• Developing marketing campaigns to promote new products or services to consumers
• Meeting with clients to discuss product development needs and providing proposals for solutions
• Reviewing sales reports to determine which products are performing well and which need improvement
• Collaborating with designers to create prototypes of new products or improve existing designs
• Reviewing customer feedback to understand how customers are using products and how they could be improved
• Identifying market trends and consumer preferences to predict which products will be popular in the future
• Holding meetings with staff members to discuss upcoming product developments or changes in company policy

Your KPIs (dependent on product):

• User and Customer NPS & CSAT
• Customer Engagement & Stickiness
• On time delivery
• Usability to increase CLV
• Loyalty

REQUIREMENTS:.

• Master’s Degree in Product Leadership, Business Administration, Marketing, Finance, Economics, or an equivalent in work experience.
• 10-15 years experience in performance of functions as a Head of Product Management  with a proven track record in product planning, defining and launching successful products, unifying product portfolios, and working with SaaS product lines.
• Experience in thought leadership in order to be better positioned to drive and inspire such a large and important department.
• Ability to synthesize diverse and complex information and data and design refined strategies, solutions, workflows, and procedures that are presentable to the Chief Product Officer and stakeholders.
• Passion for coaching more junior PMs.
• Strong customer-centeredness mindset
• Experience running large projects using software development tracking tools (e.g. Jira) and project management tools (e.g. Asana)
• Proficient in Ms Word, the Ms Excel analytical tools and PowerPoint in order to create engaging content for presentations made to the Chief Product Officer, the stakeholders, as well as external partners.
• Strong familiarity with product management methodologies and best practices & proven ability to complete projects on time, on budget, and to scope defined
• Clear and concise communication abilities to be a bridge between multiple teams, both technical and non-technical
• Experience managing projects with remote teams across multiple time zones is a plus