Lead Product Owner

**Hiscox UK**

Hiscox UK is a leading brand in the insurance market, recognised as setting the standards which others try to emulate. We consistently deliver strong growth and exceptional returns, recruiting only the very best and empowering them to deliver. We are knownfor insuring the homes of the rich and famous through to the most innovative technology companies. Our customers are diverse and unique and are only united by our ability to provide specialist insurance tailored to their needs.

**The role**:
The Lead Product Owner is a key role that sits within the Hiscox UK Retail Change team and holds responsibility for developing and leading the team of Product Owners, and leading the Product Ownership Community of Practice (Chapter). The role will definethe standards, processes and deliverables for Product Owners across Hiscox UK, and will work collaborative with other chapter leads across Change and Technology teams to constantly improve how we deliver. When needed, the role will also be hands on and definingthe scope of what is delivered in a given the value stream, being that key interface between technology and the business need to engage effectively with stakeholders in both areas to best deliver functional business outcomes. The role will also review performanceacross the team of Product Owners and ensure that work delivered in value streams is aligned to both the individual value stream strategies, and the overall Hiscox UK strategy and roadmap.

You'll be someone who enjoys leading and coaching others, challenging and defining new ways of working and making things happen. You will consider stakeholder management one of your strengths, with the ability to effectively engage with both business andtechnical stakeholders at all levels. You will thrive on ownership and autonomy, and will be an outstanding collaborator.

**What you'll be doing**:

- Leading and developing a team of Product Owners - recruiting new Product Owners when needed
- Creating and developing the Product Ownership chapter / community of practice
- Helping to embed a new Agile change model across Hiscox UK, including with the UK Leadership Team
- Providing hands on coaching to Product Owners and value stream sponsors
- Ensuring high performance from team of Product Owners
- Working across all value streams to understand relative value delivery and helping to determine future value stream funding levels during periodic reviews
- Owning the overall portfolio roadmap
- Where required, performing the role of a Product Owner:

- Attending stand-ups and other scrum team meetings helping to resolve questions, reaffirm priorities and make quick decisions
- Triaging new requests coming into the value stream
- Managing the refinement and prioritization of the backlog
- Prioritising incidents and other maintenance / health activities against value stream capacity and priorities
- Working with technical teams reviewing, testing and approving user stories within each sprint
- Acting as the voice of the customer to the development team, constantly providing feedback on features
- Evolving the roadmap based on customer, business and squad feedback, linked to business outcomes
- Feeding into the Vendor Manager's performance appraisal of the vendors in the value stream
- Assessing progress against business outcomes
- Taking a keen interest in self-learning and upskilling to ensure a strong understanding of technology trends and build new skills in line with the pace of change of technology
- Delivering formal performance reviews, celebrating hard work, individual and team success

**Our must haves**:

- **Someone who has been a product owner before within, ideally within a regulated industry**:

- **Experience of leading a team of professionals and driving high performance**:

- **A willingness and ability to help coach and develop others**:

- **Accomplished in Agile methodologies, ideally a certified Product Owner**:

- **Exceeds at stakeholder management skills**:

- **Excellent communication skills**

**Our nice to haves**:

- **Financial services or insurance industry experience**:

- **Experience of working with digital channels / automation and/or Insurance policy administration software**:

- **Experience of leading a community of practice / chapter and helping to embed new capabilities and ways of working**

**Diversity and flexible working at Hiscox**

At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we're committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. We also know that working life doesn't always have to in the office, and aslong as it's safe to do so, we will be operating a hybrid way of working to encourage a healthy work life balance, with 2 to 3 days in the office per week.
- #LI-LP1_