Product Launch Program Manager - 12 month FTC- London - Hybrid

Product Launch Program Manager - 12 month FTC - Hybrid Working - 4 days in office (London)

Role summary

Independently leads medium- to high-complexity product launch programs and material product changes through the full life cycle, with limited guidance from senior management. The role combines program leadership with strong product-delivery discipline to bring specialized products (ETFs, Solutions, and separately managed accounts) to market across Europe and Asia. It maximizes value through clear governance, integrated planning, cross-functional execution, change management, launch readiness, and benefits realization.

As a Program Manager, you will lead complex, enterprise-wide product launches and product change programs. You will partner with Product, Investment, Distribution, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Operations, Technology, Finance, Marketing, and external service providers to translate product strategy into an executable path to launch and sustainable business-as-usual ownership.

You will create structure where the path is ambiguous, connect decisions across regions and functions, and ensure that product, operating-model, regulatory, technology, client, and commercial requirements are aligned. You will be accountable for an integrated delivery plan from early product definition and approval through build, testing, operational readiness, launch, stabilization, and close-out.

Required Skills and Experience

1. You have at least seven years of program or project management experience, with a record of delivering complex business and/or technology change against time, budget, resource, scope, quality, and outcome expectations.
2. You have experience in asset management or investment management, to include direct experience delivering investment products or vehicles, ideally to include fund launches.
3. You understand the end-to-end product lifecycle and have experience relevant to one or more of the following: UCITS funds, UCITS ETFs, investment solutions, separately managed accounts, mutual funds, private funds, or material product changes. Please note that we are unable to consider applicants without at least one of these
4. You can lead multiple concurrent initiatives with complex dependencies and regional nuances, creating clarity from ambiguity without waiting for perfect information.
5. You are a skilled communicator and facilitator who can frame decisions, navigate challenge, and influence executive-level stakeholders without formal authority.
6. You have strong commercial and operational judgement and can connect product objectives to regulatory, client, investment, technology, data, operating-model, and control implications.
7. You have experience working across business, operations, technology, legal, compliance, risk, and external providers, and can translate functional detail into an integrated delivery view.
8. You can apply predictive, Agile, product-mode, and hybrid delivery approaches pragmatically rather than mechanically.
9. You demonstrate learning agility, resilience, sound judgement, continuous improvement, and a commitment to diverse perspectives and constructive challenge.
10. Professional qualifications such as PMP, PRINCE2, MSP, SAFe, Scrum, or relevant investment-industry credentials are beneficial but not essential.

Primary Responsibilities

Change Initiative / Project Delivery

1. Manages multiple, interdependent projects or workstreams; high/complex degree of inter-dependency across projects.
2. Demonstrates versatility to independently manage projects/programs of different types and levels of complexity.
3. Can independently develop initiative governance structures; with limited support from Senior Management develops agendas and facilitates meaningful discussion for projects he/she is leading.

Project / Team Leadership

1. Is able to see ahead and balance short-term solutions versus long-term strategic solutions.
2. Provides insight into resolution of complex situations which require a judgment call to get to the best decision.
3. With limited guidance, is a role model for the team at keeping calm, cool, and collected in highly stressful situations and tight deadlines. Provides support to teams during times of stress and knows when to shield the team from unnecessary noise.
4. Can pivot in the moment to prepare and communicate topics that require alignment; in particular where disagreement exists.
5. With limited guidance, can identify and manage project teams through ambiguity by defining the appropriate path or framework.

Change Management

1. Build a change management strategy and plan as part of the delivery of an effort. Work with Senior Management if additional change management expertise is required for the effort.
2. Demonstrates ability to build proficiency with applying and executing innovative change management techniques. With support from Change Management practitioners, can develop an approach on which techniques to best apply for specific initiatives.
3. Effectively able to develop and execute upon communication/content development strategy to effectively engage and inform stakeholder groups. Able to identify the appropriate and most connective communication channels to engage the right audiences.

Influence and Stakeholder Management

1. Develops and executes approaches to identify, define and work with stakeholders.
2. Actively manages and, when required, renegotiates expectations for programs/projects with stakeholders
3. Viewed as the “go-to” person on the program or project due to relationships built with stakeholders.
4. Engage with senior stakeholders and work through disparate opinions to build a collaborative delivery approach.
5. Demonstrate ability to coalesce a wide range of differing opinions (e.g., related to a solution, project issue or risk, etc.) and get to an answer from which the initiative can proceed.

Resource and Value Management

1. Seeks creative out-of-the-box solutions to solve problems that can deliver maximum value to business, not being constrained to current ways of doing things.
2. Assesses initiative/program needs and knows what internal resources to engage; leverages relationships across firm to ensure to confirm prioritization and resource availability.
3. Can independently facilitate the development and measurement of the “value/benefit proposition” of the work with tie backs to company and business unit strategies.