Senior Director - Product Management

At Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) – it all starts with animals!

As a global leader in animal health, we are dedicated to innovation and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets. We’re driven by our vision of ‘Food and Companionship Enriching Life’ and our approach to sustainability – the Elanco Healthy Purpose™ – to advance the health of animals, people, the planet and our enterprise.

At Elanco, we pride ourselves on fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is the driving force behind innovation, creativity, and overall business success. Here, you’ll be part of a company that values and champions new ways of thinking, work with dynamic individuals, and acquire new skills and experiences that will propel your career to new heights.

Making animals’ lives better makes life better – join our team today!

Location: Hook, UK (Hybrid)

Your Role:

At Elanco, we believe that strong products are the foundation of a successful product company, and strong product teams are essential to our success. As the Senior Director of Product Management, your primary responsibility will be to develop strong product managers, drive a clear product strategy, and enable empowered decision-making at the product team level.

This role is anchored in creating a strong product discipline by staffing, coaching, and growing product managers who adhere to high standards and best practices while fostering a culture of continuous learning. You will provide strategic context through a unifying product vision, strategy, and objectives, ensuring teams understand the strategic alignment deeply and can operate with clarity, autonomy, and accountability. Collaborating closely with senior leadership and cross-functional teams such as engineering and design, you will build robust, multidisciplinary teams driving innovation.

The focus of this role will be to lead the strategy and roadmap for Core products, emphasizing AI, data capabilities, and other essential products to drive outcomes across Elanco. This role is crucial for driving product strategy for these critical capabilities, ensuring our solutions are both valuable and viable, and solidifying Elanco's position as an industry leader in animal health.

Your Responsibilities:

• Staffing, Coaching, and Managing: Recruit, mentor and guide product managers to excel in their roles, ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to drive product success.

• Building Empowered Product Teams: Ensure product teams have the necessary context and relationships to make informed decisions; Support product managers by ensuring that their primary engagement with customers is direct and effective, maintaining the focus on the real problems being solved.

• Business Acumen: Ensure product managers possess a solid understanding of various business constraints (marketing, sales, service, finance, legal, and privacy).

• Customer Focus: Ensure product managers have a deep understanding of our users and customers, as well as how they interact with our products, using data-driven insights.

• Market Analysis: Oversee the tracking of industry trends and competitive landscapes relevant to our products, ensuring alignment with market opportunities.

• Accountability for Results: Develop product managers who are committed to driving outcomes and are accountable for their results by collaborating and working through others to achieve desired results.

• Leadership: Collaborate with Senior Leadership to gain buy-in, support, and funding for new product innovations; Build relationships and partnerships with people and teams across the company, and align on strategy, vision, and execution.

• Quarterly Planning: Assist with quarterly planning and assigning objectives (problems to solve) to product teams.

What you need to succeed (minimum qualifications):

• Education: A bachelor's degree in a relevant field such as Computer Science, Engineering, Business or a related discipline.

• Required Experience: 15+ years of technology experience, with 10+ years experience in leadership IT roles

• Learning Agility: Demonstrated ability to quickly learn new domains and grasp all major parts of the business.

What will give you the competitive edge (preferred qualifications):

• Multiple years of experience as a product leader or individual contributor product manager, with a proven track record of delivering valuable and viable solutions.

• Coaching Mindset: Clear understanding of the role as the primary coach for product managers, distinguishing it from direct product management.

• Collaboration: Proven ability to engage constructively and collaboratively with individual contributors and leaders at all levels.

• Servant Leadership: Demonstrate servant-based leadership and knowledge of leading by context rather than control.

Additional Information:

• Travel: Up to 10%

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Elanco we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive work environment. If you think you might be a good fit for a role but don't necessarily meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply. You may be the right candidate for this role or other roles!

Elanco is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status