Director, Solutions Design and Development, Product, UK

Posted 5 Days Ago
Be an Early Applicant
London, Greater London, England, GBR
In-Office
Senior level
AdTech • Marketing Tech
The Role
Leads product strategy, roadmaps, stakeholder alignment, and delivery across WPP Media Solutions. Manages Product Owners, drives agile practices, oversees requirements and UAT governance, coordinates with engineering and solutions architecture, and aligns products with commercial, operational, client, and platform objectives. The role balances short-term priorities with long-term scalability while improving delivery predictability, team capability, automation, and business value.
Summary Generated by Built In

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth. 

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com.

About the Role


The Product Manager is the most senior PM role in the Development team and shapes and drives the strategic direction of products, platforms, and capabilities across WPP Media Solutions. The role works across business, technology, data, and operations to ensure priorities are understood, delivery is aligned to business objectives, and strategic initiatives can be executed effectively at scale. The Product Manager is accountable for product direction, stakeholder alignment, roadmap management, and supporting a connected, scalable, product-led delivery model.

The Product Manager is the direct manager and functional lead for Product Owners, supporting their development, alignment, delivery effectiveness, and adoption of consistent product and agile practices. The role provides regular updates on roadmap progress, risks, dependencies, and strategic opportunities.


What You'll Do

Strategy and roadmap leadership

  • Define and maintain product roadmaps aligned to business priorities, client outcomes, operational requirements, and strategic growth opportunities
  • Translate leadership objectives into structured product initiatives and delivery plans
  • Balance short-term commercial priorities with long-term platform maturity, scalability, maintainability, and sustainability
  • Ensure alignment with wider WPP and Choreograph data, technology, and platform strategies

Commercial and client value alignment

  • Partner with Solutions Design as well as Commercial, Activation, Planning, and Client Leadership teams to support scalable client growth and measurable business value
  • Shape solutions that balance client ambition, operational practicality, commercial sustainability, and delivery feasibility
  • Improve operational efficiency, transparency, automation, and client outcomes through product and platform evolution

Cross-functional leadership

  • Lead through influence across multiple teams and disciplines without direct ownership of delivery functions
  • Align business, operational, and technical teams around shared objectives and delivery momentum
  • Facilitate decisions across complex stakeholder groups with competing priorities, timelines, and pressures
  • Act as the strategic escalation point for delivery, prioritisation, dependencies, and stakeholder management

Product Owner leadership and team development

  • Provide leadership, guidance, and line management to Product Owners
  • Ensure Product Owners align to strategic priorities, roadmap objectives, governance standards, and delivery expectations
  • Champion agile and product-led working practices, including consistent documentation, definition-of-ready/definition-of-done, and backlog discipline across the team
  • Support Product Owner development, capability growth, and career progression through objective-setting and regular 1:1s

Delivery and engineering liaison

  • Act as the primary interface between the Product Management function and the Engineering Lead/Solutions Architect, ensuring requirements are engineering-ready before entering delivery
  • Own the development cycle cadence in partnership with the Scrum Master (sprint/release planning, backlog grooming, capacity planning)
  • Own overall user acceptance testing (UAT) governance across the team - standards, sign-off criteria, and escalation of failed UAT cycles

What You'll Bring

Skills & Experience

  • Proven track record leading a product management function for at least 8 years within a technical/engineering environment, ideally in adtech, martech, or data-driven media
  • Experience managing a team of Product Owners or Product Managers, including performance management and development planning
  • Strong command of agile delivery frameworks (Scrum/Kanban) and the mechanics of sprint/release planning
  • Ability to operate at both the strategic (roadmap, commercial alignment, stakeholder leadership) and tactical (requirements, UAT, backlog) level
  • Excellent stakeholder management — able to lead through influence across teams with no direct delivery ownership
  • Experience working with data infrastructure, reporting, automation/AI, or platform integration products is a strong advantage
  • Proven experience working in a highly matrixed global to local organisation and comfortable managing external dependencies for deliverables.

Success Measures

  • Roadmap delivery against committed timelines across all product verticals
  • Consistency and maturity of Product Owner practice (backlog quality, UAT pass rates, requirements traceability)
  • Product Owner team retention, capability growth, and succession depth
  • Stakeholder satisfaction (Design, Engineering, business) with requirements quality and delivery predictability
  • Oversee and own the ways of working for the solutions product owners to deliver the bigger picture.

#LI-Promoted

Please read our Privacy Notice for more information on how we process the information you provide. 

Skills Required

  • At least 8 years leading a product management function in a technical or engineering environment
  • Experience in adtech, martech, or data-driven media environments
  • Experience managing Product Owners or Product Managers, including performance management and development planning
  • Strong command of agile delivery frameworks, including Scrum or Kanban
  • Experience with sprint and release planning
  • Ability to operate strategically across roadmaps, commercial alignment, and stakeholder leadership, as well as tactically across requirements, UAT, and backlogs
  • Excellent stakeholder management and ability to lead through influence without direct ownership of delivery functions
  • Experience with data infrastructure, reporting, automation, AI, or platform integration products
  • Experience working in a highly matrixed global-to-local organization
  • Experience managing external dependencies for deliverables

WPP Compensation & Benefits Highlights

The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about WPP and has not been reviewed or approved by WPP.

  • Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing support includes a global Employee Assistance Programme and company-wide initiatives, with modern multi‑agency campuses and on‑site amenities positioned as part of the experience. This indicates a holistic focus across mental, physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing.
  • Retirement Support — Retirement offerings commonly include a US 401(k) with employer matching, though specifics can differ by operating company. This provides a recognizable savings framework that many candidates expect in large employers.
  • Parental & Family Support — Family benefits can be above average in parts of the network, such as VML’s paid parental leave for adoptive and foster parents. These signals suggest meaningful support for certain family‑forming needs.

WPP Insights

Am I A Good Fit?
beta
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.

The Company
HQ: London
90,589 Employees

What We Do

WPP is a creative transformation company. We use the power of creativity to build better futures for our people, planet, clients and communities.

Similar Jobs

bet365 Logo bet365

Infrastructure Engineer

Digital Media • Gaming • Software • Esports • Automation
Hybrid
Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, GBR
10000 Employees

Wise Logo Wise

Lead Researcher, Verification Experience

Fintech • Mobile • Payments • Software • Financial Services
Hybrid
London, Greater London, England, GBR
9000 Employees

ServiceNow Logo ServiceNow

Forward Deployed Solution Engineer – Applied AI FDE

Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • HR Tech • Information Technology • Productivity • Software • Automation
Remote or Hybrid
London, Greater London, England, GBR
29000 Employees

Mastercard Logo Mastercard

Manager, Technology Risk & Control Management

Blockchain • Fintech • Payments • Consulting • Cryptocurrency • Cybersecurity • Quantum Computing
Hybrid
London, Greater London, England, GBR
38800 Employees

Similar Companies Hiring

MFour Data Research Thumbnail
Marketing Tech • Software
Irvine, CA
98 Employees
Golden Pet Brands Thumbnail
Digital Media • eCommerce • Information Technology • Marketing Tech • Pet • Retail • Social Media
El Segundo, California
174 Employees
Blee Thumbnail
Artificial Intelligence • Marketing Tech • Software
New York, New York
33 Employees

Sign up now Access later

Create Free Account

Please log in or sign up to report this job.

Create Free Account