Product Owner II (Institutional Services)

Location: Hybrid within the M&T/Wilmington Trust footprint, or open to remote if based outside of footprint.

The Wilmington Trust Institutional Services (IS) division is experiencing rapid business growth and has initiated a strategic program of continuous improvement to support the growth objectives. The goals of the program are to reduce operational issues and risks by standardizing processes, implementing best-practices in key areas, and adding new governance and control functions. In addition, long term digital transformation is required to grow revenue through new and transformed digital-first trust and agency service products, to move from a product-centric to client-centric operating model, to move from market-specific to global solutions, and to dramatically lower the cost to serve. These two strategic focus areas are driving growth in overall business investment.

The Product Owner II serves as owner of a large product or set of products by representing the voice of the customer and stakeholders to ensure that the product provides value to the customer, while aligning with the business strategy.   The Product Owner II defines their product vision and roadmap, prioritizes the product backlog, anticipates client needs and serves as primary communicator between product stakeholders and teams while evaluating product progress at each iteration.   In addition, the Product Owner II plays a key role in the company’s strategic direction, defining and articulating new opportunities, and working in close concert with key stakeholders, including senior leadership and their dedicated agile team.  

• Build and own the large product or set of products vision and roadmap that aligns with the overall strategic intent and communicate them with the team and all stakeholders.  Prioritize the backlog(s) based on the overall product vision and strategy.
• Represent the voice of the customer within the team and convey story details to the team; make autonomous decisions, quickly and thoughtfully, to move delivery forward in alignment with overall product vision and strategy.
• Write user stories and groom the backlog in partnership with the team.  Specify acceptance criteria for each user story in support of moving the team to Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD).
• Work directly with the delivery team to create appropriate information radiators and other communication tools for internal team and stakeholder use to show progress on a large product or multiple products.
• Participate in all team activities and ceremonies.
• Use a matrixed influencing approach to work with essential business partners throughout the organization, often at a more senior level and irrespective of hierarchy or divisions, advocating for the benefit of the customer.
• Understand and engage with your customers.
• Focus on outcomes over outputs, incorporating design thinking methods and analytics to inform product design.  Due to the scope of these product(s), these efforts are often more complex.
• Collaborate across teams and with other Product Owners to align the customer journey and dependent backlogs.
• May act on behalf of the Senior Product Owner as required by absence.
• Understand and adhere to the Company’s risk and regulatory standards, policies and controls in accordance with the Company’s Risk Appetite.  Identify risk-related issues needing escalation to management.
• Promote an environment that supports belonging and reflects the M&T Bank brand.
• Maintain M&T internal control standards, including timely implementation of internal and external audit points together with any issues raised by external regulators as applicable
• Complete other related duties as assigned

No direct management responsibility, but while an individual contributor, the jobholder must manage activities through influence, accountability and ownership, functioning in an agile environment.

Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 6 years’ business, analytical, technical and/or product experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 10 years’ higher education and/or work experience, including a minimum of 6 years’ business, analytical, technical and/or product experience

• Prior experience prioritizing across competing priorities and quickly-changing landscape
• Prior experience actively seeking out multiple opinions, yet making independent decisions and influencing positive outcomes
• Understanding of Design Thinking principles
• Knowledge of product design and development best practices
• Knowledge of Agile and Lean principles and practices
• Experience working in partnership with user experience teams on product design
• Experience developing/managing digital capabilities
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Specific subject matter expertise as required by assigned product