ITSM/Employee Center Capability Lead / Product Owner

ITSM/Employee Center Capability Lead / Product Owner Location: Kansas City, MO (preferred) or Cary, NC
Work Arrangement: Hybrid 3 days a week on-site (Open to relocation)
Employment Type: 6-Month Contract-to-Hire

Required Qualifications

• Experience serving as a Product Owner, Capability Owner, Product Manager, or similar leadership role within a ServiceNow environment.
• Strong background in IT Service Management (ITSM) processes and best practices.
• Experience owning product roadmaps, backlogs, and enhancement prioritization.
• Proven success driving capability maturity and organizational adoption.
• Strong stakeholder management, facilitation, and communication skills.
• Ability to translate business needs into product improvements and strategic initiatives.
• Experience leading governance, process improvement, and operational transformation efforts.
• Self-starter with the ability to drive initiatives independently and influence without direct authority.

Required ServiceNow Experience

• Employee Center
• Employee Center Pro
• IT Service Management (ITSM)
• Incident Management
• Request Management
• Change Management
• Knowledge Management
• Backlog Management
• Product Roadmap Ownership
• Stakeholder Engagement and Governance

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with AI-enabled service management capabilities and employee self-service solutions.
• Experience improving employee experience through ServiceNow platform enhancements.
• Familiarity with workflow automation and digital transformation initiatives.
• Experience in large enterprise environments with multiple stakeholder groups.
• Knowledge of ServiceNow reporting, dashboards, and platform analytics.

Technical Expectations

• Primarily focused on product ownership, governance, strategy, stakeholder management, and capability maturity.
• Approximately 10% hands-on involvement within the ServiceNow platform.
• Ability to perform light configuration and effectively collaborate with administrators, developers, and technical teams.
• Comfortable participating in solution discussions and evaluating enhancement requests.

Current Challenges and Focus Areas

The selected candidate will help client address several key initiatives, including:

• Maturing Employee Center and Employee Center Pro capabilities and user adoption.
• Improving and standardizing Incident, Request, and Change Management processes.
• Reducing excessive customization and driving alignment to best practices where appropriate.
• Establishing Knowledge Management governance, ownership, and lifecycle processes.
• Enhancing employee self-service experiences.
• Developing and executing a long-term capability roadmap aligned with business objectives.