Product Owner - Finance - 12mo Contract/C2H - Hybrid in NYC
Role summary
A global alternative investment manager is seeking a Product Owner for Back Office Operations and Global Business Finance. This hybrid role in NYC requires 5+ years of experience in product ownership or related fields, ideally within financial services. The Product Owner will lead discovery, set direction through roadmap development, and manage agile delivery with discipline. Key responsibilities include defining requirements, managing stakeholders, coordinating across teams, and ensuring quality and controls. The role emphasizes owning outcomes, driving execution, and leveraging AI tools responsibly. This is a 1-year contract with potential for conversion to permanent employment.
\*\*No sponsorship/C2C\*\*
AT A GLANCE:
- Product Owner of Back Office Operations & Global Business Finance
- Hybrid in NYC (Midtown Manhattan - in-office 1 day/week until July, then 3 days/week)
- 1-year contract, conversion to perm likely
- Market rate
- Needed ASAP
- Financial services experience required
THE OFFICIAL JOB DESCRIPTION:
Overview
We’re a global team of alternative investment managers passionate about delivering uncommon value to our investors and shareholders. With over 30 years of proven expertise across Private Equity, Credit, and Real Assets in various regions and industries, we’re known for our integrated businesses, strong investment performance, value-oriented philosophy, and our people.
We’re looking for a Product Owner who can own outcomes, not just artifacts. This role blends product thinking with strong delivery discipline: shaping a roadmap, aligning stakeholders, planning intelligently, and driving execution with transparency. You’ll partner closely with Back Office Operations and Global Business Finance, helping modernize workflows and platforms in a way that is practical, controlled, and genuinely improves how the business runs.
Our team has a track record of delivering ~95% of projects on time and under budget. We do that by treating ambiguity as work: we break complex initiatives into two phases—Discovery (to distill the real problem, align stakeholders, and establish a confident plan) and Delivery (to execute with clear milestones, risks, and dependencies).
What You’ll Do
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*Own discovery.*
Lead structured discovery efforts to clarify problem statements, current-state workflows, constraints, and success metrics—then translate that into a plan stakeholders can believe in.
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*Set direction.*
Build and maintain a product roadmap that balances transformation, near-term outcomes, and operational stability.
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*Run delivery with discipline.*
Define milestones, manage dependencies, track progress, and surface risks early—without drama or surprises.
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*Be the connective tissue.*
Coordinate across business users, engineering, architecture, and leadership; communicate status, tradeoffs, and decisions clearly.
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*Bring users along.*
We use agile practices, but not every user group is mature in agile. You’ll build trust through honest conversations, humility, and transparency—helping partners adopt better ways of working over time.
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*Own the backlog.*
Translate needs into well-formed epics and stories with clear acceptance criteria; prioritize based on business value, risk, and effort.
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*Handle conflict well.*
Navigate competing priorities, resolve disagreements constructively, and keep teams focused on outcomes.
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*Champion quality and controls.*
Ensure solutions are operable and auditable where needed—clear definitions, controlled rollouts, and attention to reliability.
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*Use AI responsibly.*
Leverage AI tools to move faster (analysis, writing, summarizing, prototyping, documentation), while maintaining strong judgment, validation, and appropriate guardrails.
What We’re Looking For
• 5+ years in a Product Owner, Product Manager, Program Manager, or Senior Business Analyst role (ideally, in financial services)
• Demonstrated strength in planning, budgeting, tracking, and delivery execution—you can run a tight ship without turning it into bureaucracy.
• Strong stakeholder management skills: you build rapport, create clarity, and keep diverse groups aligned.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; you can make complex work understandable and actionable.
• Proven ability to break down complex problems and drive decisions with incomplete information.
• Comfort working closely with engineering teams; you don’t need to code, but you should understand how software gets built and shipped.
• High integrity and maturity: you’re transparent, consistent, and trusted—especially when things are hard.
Nice to Have
• Experience supporting Operations, accounting, finance, or other control-oriented business functions.
• Experience working in modern delivery environments (CI/CD, cloud platforms, event-driven systems, workflow orchestration, data platforms).
• A track record of driving transformation—process, platform, or operating model—without losing the business in the process.
Why Join
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*Real ownership:*
You’ll shape meaningful work that impacts day-to-day operations and firm-wide financial outcomes.
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*Growth through scope:*
You’ll operate across strategy, discovery, and delivery—building a strong foundation for senior product leadership.
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*A modern toolbox:*
You’ll work in a tech-forward environment where AI is embraced as a productivity and innovation accelerator—paired with the judgment required for real-world systems.
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*A team that delivers:*
Clear expectations, direct communication, and a culture that values outcomes over theater.