Lead Product Manager

Aegon is a company focused on retirement products, and they are seeking a Lead Product Manager to drive the long-term strategy by researching and designing retirement products from inception to launch. The role involves managing existing product portfolios, analyzing market trends, and collaborating with various stakeholders to ensure profitable sales and product innovations.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the analysis of market trends and competitive landscape to discern product opportunities and translate market conditions into valid value positions
• Research and guide potential market opportunities; build the business case for product innovations by gathering distribution and consumer feedback, reviewing industry sales trends, and understanding demographic shifts/consumer preferences
• Lead team efforts to define product features, competitiveness, profitability, sales goals and launch date. Drive collaboration across all functional areas as needed
• Conduct feasibility studies, research and development (R&D), and participate in labs to evaluate ideas. Drive collaboration with sales and margin analytics team and other business groups to conduct hypothesis testing and opportunity sizing; develop capabilities based assessments (CBA) and execution approach
• Partner with distributors, Marketing, Finance, IT and other key stakeholders to recommend product features, competitiveness, profitability, sales goals and launch dates
• Negotiate needs and bring consensus/closure to issues, and facilitate decisions on new business portfolio issues
• Ensure customer centric product ideas are efficiently sourced and prioritized. Work with margin analytics, marketing, sales and operations teams to build a strong pipeline for future product enhancements
• Collaborate with distribution partners, including retail, wholesale, TPA’s and outside vendor organizations as needed
• Develop and deliver presentations to communicate research outcomes; provide R&D results to senior management and peers to highlight strategic recommendations for new products and enhancements
• Provide mentorship to peers regarding the product process, product development and product ideation

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in a business related field or equivalent experience
• Six years of product development experience in the retirement industry
• In-depth knowledge of retirement product features and riders
• In-depth knowledge of retirement sales and marketing techniques
• Understanding of profitability metrics
• Analytical skills and attention to detail to perform market analysis, customer research, opportunity sizing, profitability assessments, and risk/legal/compliance assessments
• Communication and interpersonal skills to educate audience and advocate recommendations with team members and stakeholders at all levels of the organization
• Decision making skills to create scope and content for consumer market research, and use insights to develop product design and features
• Strategic thinker and facilitation skills
• Leadership and coaching skills to mentor peers and guide team members
• Presentation skills to provide research data and recommendations to senior leadership
• Advanced proficiency in MS Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word)
• Willingness to pursue and complete higher education/professional designations
• Professional designations (e.g. ChFC, CFP, MBA, PMP)