Lead Product Owner

The Lead Product Owner (LPO) within Kroll’s Chief Data Office (CDO) is responsible for end‑to‑end ownership, consistency, and execution excellence across multiple data, analytics, and reporting products or domains. This role ensures alignment between business priorities, product strategy, and delivery execution.

The Lead Product Owner acts as the central accountability point across a portfolio of related products, coaching and guiding Product Owners, establishing standards, and partnering closely with Program Management, Data Engineering, and Governance to deliver predictable, high‑quality outcomes.

This role is critical to enabling product‑led execution at scale within the CDO.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio‑Level Product Ownership

• Own the overall product vision and execution strategy across a defined product portfolio or domain (e.g., Reporting, Self‑Service Analytics, Finance Analytics, Data Platforms).

• Ensure each product has: 

  • A clear purpose and roadmap

  • Defined success metrics

  • Consistent experience and standards

• Act as the final decision authority on prioritization, scope tradeoffs, and acceptance across related products.

Leadership & Coaching

• Lead, mentor, and coach Product Owners to ensure consistent product ownership practices and decision quality.

• Set and enforce standards for backlog quality, roadmap clarity, and stakeholder communication.

• Serve as the escalation point for complex prioritization, dependency, or scope conflicts.

• Raise the overall product ownership maturity across CDO.

Stakeholder Alignment & Business Partnership

• Serve as an interface between CDO and business, finance, and functional leaders for assigned domains.

• Translate enterprise priorities into sequenced, realistic roadmaps.

• Manage competing stakeholder demands by making transparent, value‑based trade‑offs.

• Ensure stakeholders have confidence in what will be delivered, when, and why.

Roadmap, Backlog & Delivery Governance

• Maintain a portfolio‑level roadmap, aligned with capacity, dependencies, and strategic priorities.

• Ensure Product Owners maintain well‑defined, ready backlogs that support predictable delivery.

• Partner with Program Managers and Scrum Masters to: 

  • Align sprint and release plans

  • Surface risks and constraints early

  • Manage cross‑team dependencies

• Ensure delivery adheres to CDO governance, readiness, and release standards.

Quality, Governance & Trust

• Partner with Data Governance, Architecture, and Platform teams to: 

  • Enforce consistent KPI definitions and semantic standards

  • Uphold data quality, lineage, and trust expectations

  • Ensure security and compliance requirements are met

• Ensure products are operationally ready and supported post‑release.

Value Realization & Continuous Improvement

• Define and track adoption, usage, and value metrics across the product portfolio.

• Ensure products deliver measurable business impact, not just functionality.

• Identify opportunities to: 

  • Simplify or consolidate products

  • Reduce technical or vendor dependency

  • Improve scalability and user experience

• Continuously refine product direction based on feedback and performance insights.

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• 7+ years of experience in Product Ownership, Product Management, Business Analysis, or Analytics/Data‑centric leadership roles.

• Proven experience owning multiple products or domains in a complex enterprise environment.

• Strong understanding of enterprise data, analytics, reporting, and BI platforms.

• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with senior business stakeholders and technical delivery teams.

• Experience leading or mentoring other Product Owners or equivalent roles.

Preferred

• Experience within a Chief Data Office, Analytics COE, or Enterprise Reporting organization.

• Familiarity with platforms such as Databricks, Power BI, semantic models, and self‑service analytics.

• Experience modernizing legacy reporting or analytics platforms.

• Background in professional services or financial services environments.

Leadership Behaviors & Expectations

• Thinks and acts portfolio‑first, not story‑by‑story.

• Brings clarity, structure, and discipline to ambiguity.

• Comfortable making—and defending—trade‑off decisions.

• Focused on outcomes, adoption, and trust, not just delivery.

• Acts as a role model for product ownership maturity.

Role Relationships (Clarity of Accountability)

• Lead Product Owner: Defines long‑term strategy, investment priorities, and value realization. Owns execution alignment, product standards, and delivery outcomes across a portfolio.

• Product Owners: Own day‑to‑day product execution and backlogs within specific domains.

• Program Managers: Own delivery coordination, milestones, and dependency management.

Why This Role Matters

The Lead Product Owner ensures CDO can scale product‑led execution without chaos, reducing reliance on individual heroics while increasing predictability, trust, and impact across enterprise data and analytics investments.

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