Lead Product Owner, WPP Open (Work Management)

About WPP Open:

WPP Open is at the forefront of transforming how WPP delivers value to its clients. We are building a unified product ecosystem that empowers our agencies and clients with cutting-edge tools and data-driven insights. Our product organisation is driven by a clear vision, strategic execution, and a commitment to continuous innovation.

About Work Management: This program of work is central to WPPs’ continued success, helping augment their world class AI with a back-office workflow platform. The value add is to enable agencies to manage their work end to end within our innovate platform.

The Opportunity:

We are seeking a Lead Product Owner to drive comprehensive product delivery planning for a group of capabilities within our WPP Open product team. In this pivotal role, you will be responsible for translating the strategic vision for a group of capabilities into a comprehensive delivery strategy and high-level roadmap, defining the end-state, direction, and an overarching plan of work across other product areas with a +6-month horizon.

You will lead high-level discovery, define strategic roadmaps, and provide strategic direction to Senior and Product Owners, empowering them to drive the detailed execution, ensuring operational readiness, and delivering measurable impact. Working closely with the Director of Product Ownership, engineering leads, and key senior stakeholders, you will drive the successful and timely realisation of product value, champion best practices, and contribute significantly to the overall product delivery strategy.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Delivery Planning & Cross-Capability Direction:

• Own the translation of strategic vision for a group of capabilities, defining the end-state, direction, and an overarching plan of work across other product areas with a +6-month horizon.
• Lead high-level product discovery to deeply understand strategic user needs, market opportunities, and technical feasibility relevant to your group of capabilities, informing the strategic delivery plan.
• Develop and maintain the strategic delivery plans and high-level roadmaps for your group of capabilities, outlining the prioritised sequence of feature development, enhancements, and initiatives for execution by the pods.
• Provide strategic direction and guidance to Senior and Product Owners, ensuring their detailed planning and execution align with the +6-month horizon and overall delivery strategy.

Comprehensive Product Delivery Planning & Alignment:

• Translate overarching strategic vision into comprehensive, actionable delivery strategies and high-level plans for your group of capabilities, ensuring seamless alignment with the broader product strategy.
• Collaborate closely with engineering leads and Product Design to ensure technical feasibility, optimal implementation, and user-centric design are integrated into overall strategic delivery plans.
• Facilitate cross-team prioritisation and dependency management across multiple development teams and product areas, working to resolve conflicts and ensure smooth flow of value.

Rollout Strategy & Operational Readiness:

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (e.g., enablement, marketing, sales, support, operations) to ensure overarching operational readiness for product launches, including coordinating training, documentation, and support processes.
• Assess and mitigate broader operational risks associated with new feature releases across your capabilities, ensuring a smooth transition and stable post-launch performance.

Stakeholder Management & Communication:

• Proactively engage with a diverse range of senior stakeholders, including the business SMEs, product leads, design leads, delivery leads, engineering leads, and key senior stakeholders, to gather feedback, clarify strategic intent, and build consensus for complex product initiatives.
• Communicate overall product progress, strategic plans, and insights to senior stakeholders, ensuring clarity in complex discussions and articulating the measurable impact of delivered capabilities.
• Influence prioritisation decisions at a cross-team level, advocating for the most impactful work and managing expectations effectively.

Performance Measurement & Value Realisation:

• Define and track relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for your group of capabilities, measuring both delivery efficiency and the realisation of intended value from executed features.
• Ensure product outcomes directly contribute to the business KPIs established by key senior stakeholders, demonstrating a clear understanding of the value being created through execution.
• Drive continuous iteration and improvement across your group of capabilities, leveraging user feedback, data insights, and market performance to optimise execution and value delivery.

What you'll need:

• Progressive experience in product ownership, with demonstrable leadership in strategic delivery planning.
• Proven ability to translate strategic vision into comprehensive, actionable delivery plans and roadmaps for a group of capabilities.
• Extensive experience in leading high-level product discovery, defining end-state and direction, and providing strategic guidance to other Product Owners.
• Deep expertise in Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban) at scale, including practices that support rapid, iterative delivery and post-launch optimisation.
• Proven ability to lead, influence, and align multiple cross-functional teams and senior stakeholders towards efficient and outcome-driven delivery.
• Analytical mindset, with the ability to leverage data and user insights to drive process improvements, measure delivery performance, and inform continuous product iteration.
• Demonstrable experience in developing comprehensive rollout strategies, managing product launches, and ensuring operational readiness.

 

Why WPP Open? At WPP Open, you'll be part of a pioneering team building the future of marketing and advertising. We offer a collaborative and innovative environment where your leadership and expertise in product delivery will directly shape how we build, launch, and continuously improve products across a significant portfolio. You'll have the opportunity to drive substantial impact, influence strategic delivery, and grow your career within a leading global organisation.