Show Database Product Owner, London

Show Database Product Owner

Reporting to: VP, Product, FREMANTLE                            

Location: London, W1T 1AL                                

Contract: Permanent

Type of work: Hybrid/Personalised working                          

About Us

Join the place creatives call home

Fremantle is a powerhouse of the TV and Film industry. We’re one of the world’s largest and most successful creators, producers and distributors of Entertainment, Drama & Film and Documentaries .

From critically acclaimed dramas like The Responder , starring Martin Freeman, award winning films including Paolo Sorrentino’s Oscar nominated The Hand of God to incredible entertainment like The Rap Game, Too Hot to Handle, The Apprentice and Britain’s Got Talent , we make shows with global appeal.

Our Purpose

We aspire to tell stories that connect people around the world. We believe our shows should reflect and celebrate the world we live in and we want to create irresistible entertainment and engage with our audience. To achieve this, we must have people from all backgrounds and cultures working in our teams and on our shows, and we commit to creating opportunities for talent by being inclusive in all that we do.

The Role

This is an exciting newly created role, ideal for an experienced product owner looking to challenge themselves with a new implementation. As part of the digital transformation, this role supports a key pillar in Fremantle’s digital future. It offers lots of autonomy and a “green field” landscape both in terms of the product itself and the product function. The role holder will need to evangelise, educate, and embed the product within the business.

The Show Database Product Owner will lead the definition, capture and delivery of this brand-new product to the organisation. This will include defining metadata schemas, standards and configuration, key process journeys, access controls, data migrations and integrations between systems. In addition to this, the product owner will input to and manage the roadmap for continuous improvement. 

The Show Database Product Owner will develop a deep understanding of both the business and the chosen application. They will work with global, cross-functional teams to gather requirements, agree new standard operating processes, and ensure that all Fremantle business units are interacting with the global Show Database in a consistent manner. The role holder will also be responsible for configuration, working with the chosen supplier. Flexibility and understanding will be required to deal with changing requirements, priorities and organisational paradigms to win business change support and build relationships.

They will be expected to lead a Show Database product council and actively communicate with stakeholders including the business, technology, external vendors, and consultants. In this role, they will partner with global internal stakeholders to gather requirements, define standards and processes, coordinate deliveries, and work with the necessary teams (internal and/or external) to manage product releases.

The Show DB Product Owner will be aligned to the Digital business and report into the VP, Product.

The Products:

Show Database (Show DB) application – The Show Database will be the central application where all past, present, and future Fremantle programmes (produced, licensed, and acquired) are recorded with associated metadata. This metadata includes (but not limited to), producer, talent, title, brand, show, season, episode, version, year of production, territory of production and other key data points. As the system-of-record for Fremantle’s content, the Show Database will integrate and synchronize with a wide range of other internal applications, ensuring a consistent global view of Fremantle’s content estate.

Key Responsibilities:

Provide business ownership of the solution 

Represent the business and develop a deep understanding of the existing business and intended purpose of the systems. Take business ownership of the application driving the development and delivery of the products to meet current and future business needs.

Execute the vision for the application

Work with VP, Product, and other senior stakeholders to execute the vision of the system and ensure business wide adoption.   Mitigate risks and issues and ensure alignment with the target operating model, strategy, and growth areas. The Product Owner should be able to confidently articulate the strategy, benefits and the roadmap required to deliver on the vision. Needs to be able to articulate to various levels within the organisation the purpose and benefits of adoption and continued usage of the product. Where required, create compelling business cases for specific use cases or solutions.

Own governance and stakeholder liaison

Manage internal governance forums and take responsibility for communicating with stakeholders across the organisation – subject matter experts, IT, vendors etc. – to ensure the vision and benefits are clear and understood. Maintaining regular contact with key stakeholders. Run efficient, delivery-based governance meetings (requirements gathering and prioritisation, process mapping, sprint ceremonies). Coordinate and identify answers/solutions to address business needs. Remove blockers (within scope of control and escalate where necessary) for the product. Define and manage an access control framework and ensure healthy, secure functioning of the application.

Gather requirements

Gather and document business requirements for the application, working closely with business users across different sales, operational, finance and delivery units. Design and determine priority of user stories.

Coordinate and prioritise business requirements

Build consensus across the business to prioritise requirements, issues, and risks, determine if needs are worth satisfying, build validation, drive decision making. Resolve any conflicting or competing requirements between our global business units.

Product roadmap

Collaborate with stakeholders to define a product roadmap that is both feasible and achieves business and user goals. Break down complex business challenges and products into a minimum viable product and prioritized roadmap with clear next steps.

Develop KPIs

Define relevant product KPIs and aid in analytics setup.

Oversee development stages

Oversee the end-to-end stages of analysis and development including requirements gathering, prioritization, sign off, development, backlog management, acceptance testing, release management and implementation.

Manage the backlog

Manage the application backlog for the development team and set priorities for addressing the backlog working with the business. Map out and manage dependencies, issues, and risks.

Super Admin

Manage the configuration of the application and support users with any issues that may arise.

Act as the voice of the business

Ensure that software development delivers the maximum possible business value.

Own integrations

Define and understand required integrations with third party services and ensure their successful implementation in partnership with our IT team.

Knowledge, Skills, Experience:

• At least 5 years previous experience working as a Product Owner, ideally within new product launch.
• Must be excellent at in-depth analysis of complex business processes.
• Proven delivery of enterprise products – demonstrate experience in successfully delivering elements of programmes and own projects including managing stakeholders in small to medium size business.
• Solution oriented with a high sense of quality, attention to detail, accuracy, efficiency, and meeting tight deadlines.
• Ability to work with and influence peers, development teams and management Working with business partners and third-party vendors.
• Ability to clearly and confidently articulate ideas, solutions, and recommendations.
• Experience in an agile environment.
• Experience with user acceptance testing and general QA practices.
• Experience with SaaS products and integrations between systems.
• Experience with data governance and data quality management.
• Enthusiasm for collaborating with multidisciplinary teams in a fast-paced environment.
• Eagerness to embrace challenges daily, including consensus-building.
• Comfortable with ambiguity, showing leadership and problem-solving.
• Possess a positive attitude and inquisitive personality.
• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent relevant industry experience.
• Strong organisation, documentation, change management and experience with continuous improvement initiatives.
• Excellent written and verbal communication with presentation experience and interpersonal skills with strong sense of customer service.

Desirable Criteria:

• Experience working with metadata
• Experience in the television and/or film industries.
• Experience with a PM framework, e.g. Prince 2, Agile.
• Evidence of personal development and attendance of training events.
• Commercial understanding, strong understanding of business functional issues, interdependencies, and business structural concerns.
• Ability to construct and present a business case.

Our benefits include: generous company pension, summer Fridays, audience tickets, personalized working, employee assistance programme, access to free courses and training, local discounts, free coffee and snacks in the office, cycle to work scheme, season ticket loan, business coaching sessions and volunteer days.

If you need any of this information in a different format or would like to suggest a different form of application, please contact

Fremantle is part of RTL Group , a global leader across broadcast, content and digital, itself a division of the international media giant Bertelsmann .  

For more information, please visit  Fremantle.com , follow us @ FremantleHQ or visit our  LinkedIn  and   Facebook  pages.

Company:  FremantleMedia Group Ltd  

Country:  United Kingdom 

State/Region:  London 

City: London 

Postal Code:  W1T 1AL 

Job ID:  274106