New Product Launch Readiness & Strategic Change Lead (Customer Function)

About the role

We are seeking a talented individual to own customer launch readiness for New Product Development (NPD) and to drive strategic change in this area working across the Customer function. You will be the voice of the owner across the product lifecycle for a portfolio of new products, assuring service readiness at launch while also shaping and delivering high impact change that elevate the end-to-end ownership experience and our approach to NPD readiness.

Operating globally in a matrix across new product development, service design, Go to market, Quality, Digital teams and more, you will set governance, orchestrate cross‑functional execution, and deliver measurable outcomes. This role balances near‑term delivery (launch readiness) with long‑term capability building (operating model, processes and value stream improvements).

Key responsibilities:

1) Product/NPD Launch Readiness

Champion our owners throughout the NPD lifecycle: embed owner journeys and service needs from concept to post launch, encompassing the end to end lifecycle of an owners product ownership

Project assessment and definition: Lead the assessment of new projects by collating and evaluating critical project information to define NPD readiness requirements, clearly identifying new elements, areas of change, and the appropriate scope of activities for each project or new category.

Integrated planning: build end to end readiness project plans, identify and manage the critical path and inter-dependencies at portfolio level. Identify and proactively manage risks and issues to ensure transparency, and resolve cross‑functional constraints and trade-offs at pace

Readiness governance: brief and manage cross functional multi site global teams, track projects, chair readiness forums and surface pass/fail recommendations to product milestone gateways. Establish new support models and ensure we are ready to deliver them. Continuously evolve our governance approach to ensure accountability and optimum integration across the functions.

Development Partners: Represent the cross organisational team with our development partners, supporting negotiations on key contract topics to ensure we secure the right foundations for strong long term relationships

Operational readiness in markets: support and track key market readiness activities, ensuring our owners can self serve, and our support teams have everything they need to care for our owners from day 1.

Launch monitoring and handover: Represent our owners in early life monitoring activities and ensure early stage improvements are delivered. Ensure the smooth closedown of NPD readiness activities and their handover to ‘business as usual’

Performance & Reporting: track appropriate launch readiness KPIs, publish readiness reports and brief stakeholders on all products across the NPD readiness portfolio. Prepare summaries for all levels, integrated right up to executive level.

2) Strategic Change

Change leadership: lead multi-initiative portfolios of change projects to ultimately improve our owners’ experience, using Agile / waterfall / hybrid methods as appropriate. Define objectives and key results, business cases where relevant, and structured plans for delivery and adoption

Process design: create and re-engineer cross team processes with the opportunity to support better owner outcomes - to improve experience, speed, and cost to serve

Product Creation Framework: Evolve the product creation framework for After Sales & Support to ensure clear responsibilities and accountabilities across functions involved in NPD readiness, while retaining customer function ownership of the end to end owner experience

Continual Improvement: Capture lessons learnt and key data insights and ensure we continually evolve what we do and listen to our owners to deliver exceptional customer experiences from day 1

About you

Proven portfolio delivery leader with experience working in global customer support environments with a passion for our owners and for delivering of world class services

Outstanding programme/project management capabilities, to deliver projects, cross portfolio programmes and strategic change (typically 5+ years)

Demonstrable matrix leadership of project managers and workstream leads, coaching best practice and elevating cross functional delivery

Creative problem solver with a bias for action. Strong attention to detail when it matters, with the ability to zoom out and prioritise

Excellent communication and governance – including concise reporting through all stakeholder levels and clear decision framing

Advanced use of Microsoft tools; familiarity with project/portfolio tools (e.g. Jira) and an ability to adapt and learn new ones as required

Qualifications: Degree or equivalent experience; APM/PRINCE2/Scrum/Agile certifications preferred.

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