Director, Product Management - Auto Finance & Risk Intelligence

About the Role:

Automotive lenders, captive finance companies, securitization issuers, and investors need

a timely, explainable view of how vehicle values are changing across vehicle loan and

lease portfolios and the securities backed by that collateral. Black Book already has a

strong, differentiated position in automotive valuation and residual intelligence. It observes

wholesale outcomes every day and combines that independent market view with

proprietary vehicle valuation, predictive analytics, and deep automotive knowledge. This

role will turn that advantage into products that help customers identify risk and make better 

financial decisions.

Black Book is looking for a hands-on product leader to grow our Auto Finance & Risk

Intelligence product portfolio. This person will turn Black Book's vehicle value intelligence,

predictive analytics, market data, and automotive expertise into differentiated products that customers 

understand, adopt, and pay for.

You will own product strategy for Auto Finance & Risk Intelligence, serving lenders and

captive finance companies, securitization issuers, institutional investors, and banks, while

working closely with Data Science, Residuals, Automotive Valuations, Data Operations,

Product Engineering, Sales, and other Black Book teams. Your priority will be building and

validating a net-new product for automotive finance risk and valuation workflows, from

customer discovery through a sellable product, while managing the existing Auto Finance

portfolio.

This is not a backlog-administration role. We are looking for a product leader who enjoys

getting close to customers, framing ambiguous problems, prototyping with AI tools, making

hard prioritization decisions, including what not to build, and taking ownership from

opportunity through launch and measurable performance.

What You'll Do

• Own the Auto Finance & Risk Intelligence product strategy, roadmap, and portfolio 

  prioritization across net-new opportunities and the broader product portfolio.

• Lead customer and market discovery with lenders, captive finance companies, securitization

   issuers, institutional investors, banks, and other automotive finance participants.

• Identify and validate high-value opportunities across automotive finance risk, portfolio analytics,

  collateral intelligence, valuation decision support, and scenario analysis.

• Build product theses and business cases that connect customer value, data feasibility, commercial 

  potential, competitive differentiation, and delivery investment.

• Translate customer needs and Jobs to Be Done into clear product outcomes, workflows, prototypes,

   and requirements.

• Use AI-native tools to prototype concepts, accelerate research and analysis, and make ideas 

  tangible for customers and internal teams.

• Partner with Product Engineering, Data Science, Residuals, Automotive Valuations, and Data

  Operations to validate feasibility, align on requirements, and keep delivery connected to the 

  customer problem.

• Secure early customer validation, including anchor customers willing to pay, before significant 

  product investment is committed.

• Own launch decisions, launch readiness, sales enablement, and the feedback loop from early 

  adoption into the roadmap.

• Partner with the SVP Product & Technology on packaging and pricing and take increasing ownership

  as the product and commercial model mature.

• Define and monitor product performance, including customer adoption, usage, retention, expansion,

  revenue contribution, and evidence of customer value.

• Coach and develop one Product Owner while establishing clear product practices across the Auto 

  Finance & Risk Intelligence portfolio.

What Success Looks Like

• A clear Auto Finance & Risk Intelligence product strategy, portfolio roadmap, and criteria for what 

  gets built next that teams can execute against.

• Anchor customers validated and the first contract signed at or above target pricing.

• A validated net-new product brought to market, supported by clear positioning, packaging, 

  pricing, and launch readiness.

• Strong alignment between customer needs, Black Book's proprietary data and analytics capabilities,

   and Product Engineering delivery.

• Products that demonstrate measurable customer value and improve Black Book's position in 

  automotive finance and risk intelligence.

What We're Looking For

• 8+ years of product management experience, including 3+ years owning a product portfolio 

  or leading cross-functional product initiatives, across product strategy, customer discovery, 

  requirements, delivery, launch, and post-launch product performance for complex data, analytics,

  SaaS, or workflow products.

• Deep experience in automotive finance, with a strong understanding of the decisions and workflows 

  of lenders, captives, servicers, issuers, or investors, including how recovery, loss severity, and residual

  values drive credit loss and lease economics.

• Working fluency in asset-backed lending, structured finance, or securitization, with an understanding of 

  collateral performance, risk monitoring, and the information needs of lenders, issuers, servicers, and investors.

• A track record of taking data, analytics, or complex domain expertise and turning it into products 

  customers will buy and use.

• Experience leading 0-to-1 product discovery and validation, including customer interviews, prototypes, 

  business cases, willingness-to-pay conversations, and design partner development.

• Strong ability to work hands-on while influencing Data Science, Engineering,
  Operations, Sales, and executive stakeholders.
• Experience using customer feedback, product usage, and commercial results to make
  product decisions.
• Ability to partner effectively with Data Science and Product Engineering, with an
  understanding of predictive models, APIs, analytics workflows, data quality, and
  product instrumentation.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to make complex
  automotive and financial concepts clear to both technical and commercial audiences.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience using AI tools for product discovery, prototyping,
  research, or workflow design.
• Willingness and ability to travel, including occasional travel to Canada.

Nice to Have

• Direct experience applying or commercializing vehicle residual values, automotive
  valuation, lease or loan portfolio analytics, collateral surveillance, or remarketing
  intelligence.
• Experience commercializing API, SaaS, data, or analytics products for enterprise
  customers.
• Experience with pricing and packaging for data or workflow products.
• Existing relationships with automotive lenders, captives, servicers, ABS issuers,
  investors, or related industry participants.

How We Work

• We start with the customer problem and stay close to the customer through launch.
• We move quickly from hypotheses to evidence using research, prototypes, data, and
  feedback.
• We use AI as a product-building multiplier while maintaining human judgment, data
  governance, and commercial accountability.
• We value clear decision s, practical collaboration, and ownership of outcomes.
• We expect product leaders to work across functions and to make complex work easier
  for the teams delivering it.

Why Black Book
Black Book combines deep automotive expertise with data science, predictive analytics,
valuation intelligence, APIs, and modern technology. As part of the Hearst Transportation
group, we have the scale and stability of a larger organization while giving product leaders
the opportunity to shape important products, work directly with customers, and build new
capabilities in a market where better data can improve financial decisions.
If you are energized by automotive finance, complex data, customer discovery, and
building products from 0-to-1, we'd like to talk.