Senior Product Manager - 12 Month FTC

Job description

**About the FT** The Financial Times is one of the world's leading business news organisations, recognised internationally for its authority, integrity and accuracy. Trust sits at the heart of the FT. That means not only producing journalism our readers can rely on, but also being thoughtful, transparent and responsible in how we design our products and use customer data. Our Product & Technology organisation plays a central role in helping the FT deliver on this ambition, building products and experiences that serve our customers while supporting the long-term growth of the business. We are looking for a Senior Product Manager, Privacy to lead this important product area on a fixed-term basis, covering maternity leave until the end December, 2027. **The role** Privacy is an increasingly important part of the customer experience. Customers should be able to understand how their information is used, make meaningful choices and feel confident that the FT acts responsibly with their data. Our ambition is to make privacy a reason for customers to trust the FT. As Senior Product Manager for the Privacy team, you will lead the product strategy and roadmap for this area. You will work across Product, Engineering, Design, Research, Data, Legal, Compliance, Marketing and commercial teams to turn complex customer, regulatory, technical and business needs into simple, trustworthy product experiences. It is a product leadership role focused on how the FT can create clearer, simpler and more transparent experiences, while ensuring that privacy and responsible data use are embedded into the way we build products. You will help us work towards an ambition of being one of the most trusted digital organisations in how we handle customer data and privacy choices. **What you'll work on** You will lead the evolution of the FT's privacy and consent experience, including areas such as: - **Customer trust:** Identifying opportunities to strengthen trust through clear, transparent and respectful privacy experiences. - **Customer choice:** Making it easier for customers to understand and manage how their data is used. - **Privacy experience:** Creating simpler and more consistent experiences across customer journeys. - **Responsible data use:** Helping ensure that product teams use customer data in ways that are responsible, understandable and aligned with customer expectations. - **Privacy by design:** Working with teams across the FT to embed privacy thinking earlier in product and technology development. - **Measurement and insight:** Developing a better understanding of how customers interact with privacy choices and how those experiences affect trust and engagement. - **Experimentation:** Using customer research and responsible experimentation to improve how privacy choices are communicated and experienced. - **Regulatory change:** Working with Legal, Compliance and Data Governance colleagues to ensure that evolving requirements are translated into scalable and customer-friendly product solutions. - **Product foundations:** Helping improve the systems, processes and ownership models that support privacy experiences across the FT, powering more personalised journeys. **What you'll do** **Set the product direction** Define and communicate a clear product vision, strategy and roadmap for the Privacy team Identify the most important customer and business problems to solve and translate them into measurable outcomes. Balance customer trust, regulatory responsibilities, product experience, technical sustainability and business needs when setting priorities. Look beyond individual requirements or projects to build capabilities that can support the FT over the long term. **Champion the customer** Make the customer perspective central to privacy product decisions. Work with Research, Design and Data teams to understand how customers perceive privacy, data use and consent. Identify areas where experiences may be confusing, inconsistent or unnecessarily difficult. Advocate for simple language, meaningful choices and experiences that help customers feel informed and in control. **Lead complex cross-functional work** Lead initiatives involving multiple product and technology teams and a wide range of business stakeholders. Work closely with Engineering and Architecture colleagues to understand technical opportunities, constraints and dependencies. Partner with Legal, Compliance and Data Governance teams to translate specialist requirements into effective customer and product solutions. Build strong relationships across the FT and create alignment where different teams have competing needs or priorities. **Use evidence to make decisions** Define meaningful measures of success and use data and customer research to understand product performance. Develop hypotheses and experiments that help improve customer understanding and trust. Use external trends, industry developments and emerging best practice to inform product direction. Ensure decisions are based on evidence while recognising the importance of judgement in areas involving trust and customer expectations. **Deliver outcomes** Take opportunities from problem definition and discovery through delivery, measurement and iteration. Give cross-functional teams clear objectives and priorities. Identify risks, dependencies and trade-offs early and help teams make good decisions. Communicate strategy, progress, outcomes and decisions clearly to stakeholders at all levels of the organisation. **Provide senior product leadership** Bring clarity and structure to complex and ambiguous problems. Influence teams and senior stakeholders without relying on formal authority. Contribute to the wider Product community and help raise the quality of product thinking and practice. Support and mentor other Product Managers where appropriate. **What you'll bring** We are looking for an experienced Product Manager who is comfortable working in complex, technically challenging and highly cross-functional environments. You are likely to have: - Significant experience managing digital products or platforms. - A strong track record of defining product strategy and turning it into measurable outcomes. - Experience leading complex initiatives across multiple teams and stakeholder groups. - A strong customer focus and an ability to identify the underlying customer problem rather than simply respond to requirements. - Excellent judgement when balancing customer, business, technical and regulatory considerations. - Strong analytical skills and experience using data, customer research and experimentation to inform decisions. - The ability to turn complex or ambiguous problems into clear priorities and actions. - Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience communicating with senior stakeholders. - Experience working closely with engineers, designers, researchers, analysts and other specialist disciplines. - An understanding of how product decisions contribute to both customer value and sustainable business outcomes. - A collaborative leadership style and the ability to influence without direct authority. **Experience that would be useful** You do **not** need to be a privacy lawyer or regulatory expert. We are interested in experienced Product Managers who can learn a complex domain quickly and work effectively with specialist colleagues. Experience in one or more of the following would be helpful: - Privacy, consent or customer preferences. - Customer identity or first-party data. - Personalisation or data-driven customer experiences. - Data governance. - Trust and safety. - Regulatory or highly regulated product environments. - Large-scale digital platforms or shared product capabilities. Most importantly, you will care deeply about creating products that customers can trust. **What success looks like** Success in this role means helping the FT make privacy and responsible data use a stronger part of our customer proposition. You will help us: - Create simpler and more understandable privacy experiences. - Give customers greater clarity and control over their choices. - Build stronger understanding of how privacy experiences affect customer trust. - Establish clearer product principles for the responsible use of customer data. - Embed privacy thinking more consistently into product development. - Improve the foundations that allow teams to deliver trustworthy experiences efficiently. - Build stronger alignment between customer needs, regulatory responsibilities and business priorities. - Develop a clear long-term product direction for Privacy & Trust. Ultimately, we want customers to feel that **the FT respects their choices, is transparent about how their data is used and consistently earns their trust**. **What’s in it for you? Our benefits** Our benefits vary by location, but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available [here.](https://aboutus.ft.com/careers/benefits) We currently operate a hybrid model which requires staff to work onsite 50% of the time, subject to role requirements & regular review. While flexible working requests will be considered, not all patterns are suitable for all roles. We believe this balanced approach supports flexibility and protects our culture, making collaboration and communication easier, building stronger relationships and team cohesion, and supporting peer learning. We reserve discretion on reasonable notice to change this approach either generally or for specific individuals or teams. **Accessibility** We are a disability confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory. Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments/personalisation as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements or have any questions, email [talent@ft.com](https://mail.google.com/mail/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=talent@ft.com) and a member of our team will be happy to help. **Further information** At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may leverage AI tools as part of their job application process. Whilst we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience, and qualifications. Candidates should be aware that the use of AI throughout the application process may be monitored to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process for all.