Common Wealth offers an award-winning digital retirement platform that helps Canadians achieve their goals. We are driven by our mission to help all Canadians achieve financial security in retirement. Common Wealth makes it easy to plan, save, and build a reliable retirement income – so our members can feel confident about their financial future. Common Wealth is the trusted retirement plan provider to a rapidly growing number of businesses, non-profits, associations, and unions across the country, and works in collaboration with benefits advisors, HR platforms, and other valued partners. Our team is growing to continue to support the lives of many Canadians through our mission. We are looking for a Senior Director of Product who will lead our product function and serve as the product owner and advocate on behalf of Common Wealth. We are disturbing the retirement industry and this role will have a vital impact on the current and future direction of the product. If you are curious feel free to click here to read more about us at Common Wealth.
What you will do:
– Help lead product strategy; In partnership with one of the co-CEOs, and in collaboration with Common Wealth’s cross-functional “Customer Innovation” working group, you will manage the product strategy, timelines, budgets, and roadmaps. You will lead the continuous improvement of our product development process. Due to your work being at the center of the organization you will not only be required to nurture relationships within the product team but also with the various other internal teams as well as external stakeholders. As the head of the department our customers will constantly articulate the continuous improvements they would like to see, we expect you to be able to speak with them and sort through what is a priority and what is not to inform decisions for the product function
– Manage the day-to-day product operations; while you manage and lead the people within the product function, you will also have the opportunity to roll up your sleeves and be very operational within the department on an everyday basis. You will have the opportunity to write requirements and functional specifications; participating in feature design, reviews, and release management; and conducting market research to inform the development of future features. We have a very strong engineering team that you will be regularly working with, specifically the Chief Technology Officer, in order to help move the product forward.
– Act as a strong people manager; currently there is a small product team in place, you will be responsible for all management and leadership tasks to grow, train and retain talent. You enjoy providing your people with direction not only in terms of their individual growth plans but also strategic guidance and industry product experience. You are an expert in your own right when it comes to product-specific work and while you may be required to step into that role once and a while, you enjoy training others to step into their roles and grow. Your experience managing and leading teams upward of 5 people makes directing and motivating the product team very enjoyable for you. You will constantly be on the lookout for top talent in the market and when it is appropriate based on the hiring plan you come up with in collaboration with our Director of People you will grow your team.
– Stakeholder engagement; as the most senior person within the department you will lead and delegate the partner relationships within the product department. You will be working with partners to identify their needs, develop solutions and problem solve when needed. You have a very strong business acumen, specifically within the product realm and enjoy spending time proactively speaking directly with partners to uncover how we at Common Wealth can better their experience and achieve a product vision.
Who you are:
– Customer-driven; your work will be very closely tied to our customers to inform decision making for Common Wealth and the product. You are great at balancing the current and future needs of the product while producing results for our customers. You listen well and know how to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. You know how to build products that serve a diverse range of stakeholders – in our case, plan members, employers, channel partners, and Common Wealth team members.
– Thrive on collaboration; you excel when you can collaborate in a meaningful way with people within and external to the organization. You know how to work extremely well with software engineers as a collaborative and value-adding partner.
– Curious; you love to learn and you know how to learn quickly. If you lack domain expertise, you know how to approach a new domain in a way that respects its complexity while also bringing a fresh outside perspective. If you have domain expertise, your experience hasn’t come at the cost of your curiosity and ability to look at things as if for the first time.
– Versatile and adaptable; you are able to adapt your product management experience and methodologies to new organizational and market contexts. You thrive in environments where things change quickly. You know when to prioritize speed over perfection and vice versa depending on what product feature is being implemented.
– Strong people leader; something you enjoy doing regularly is thinking about the people who report to you. You think about enjoying getting to know what motivates them, development plans and what their careers might look like over the next little bit of time. Having regular 1-1’s and building relationships with the people who report to you while holding them accountable and having difficult conversation when necessary to help the department and company achieve their goals are work you enjoy doing.
Why Work with us:
Common Wealth is a fast growing company with a mission to change the lives of Canadians. Joining our team will allow you the opportunity to have first-hand experience shaping and influencing key decisions about the organization. You will have a great amount of autonomy in your job and how you organize your day-to-day. You will be joining a team of collaborative, mission-driven people who want to improve the Canadian retirement landscape. In addition to a competitive salary of $130-140k you will receive health and dental benefits, life insurance, an additional Health Spending Account, a 5% employer match into one of our award-winning group retirement plans, and four weeks of vacation. Our team is currently working remotely and we plan to continue that practice into the future. We have an office in downtown Toronto for those that prefer to work from the office. Our growing team combines deep expertise in the key disciplines necessary to help our customers achieve retirement success. We have also formed partnerships with world-class investment and annuities providers, including BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and Brookfield Annuity, a leading provider of group annuities.
About our platform
The Common Wealth platform provides workplace-based and individual retirement plans that are easier to use and 2-3x more efficient1 than what the incumbents offer to our target customers. The best way to understand our technology platform is to see it; we could happily provide a live demo. You can also see highlights of the member experience in this overview video.
Our platform is essentially a combination of two things:
1. A digital retirement planning, saving, investing, and income-generation solution for individuals. Some people think of it as a kind of next generation of robo-advisor focused on the specific problem of retirement – one that automates not only investing, but also retirement planning, saving, and income generation, including the integration of investment and insurance instruments.
2. A modern end-to-end workplace retirement plan administration / recordkeeping system.
Our technology platform includes:
– A plan member platform focused on retirement saving, planning, and income generation. It enables plan members to build an evidence-based, automated retirement plan in 10-15 minutes, provides access to high quality institutional investment strategies (e.g., target date funds from BlackRock), and integrates a unique-in-Canada Guaranteed Lifetime Income offering (in partnership with Brookfield Annuity Company), among other unique features (see screenshot below and this member experience overview video). We are currently working on a mobile version of the experience (see screenshots below).
– An employer platform that connects to various payroll systems and allows employers to easily administer their group retirement plan. Our employer functionality allows a high degree of flexibility when it comes to plan design and fees, and is built using API-ready architecture, making it possible to integrate with payroll providers and other ecosystem partners.
– Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) functionality that allows partners and plan sponsors to white-label and configure the entire Common Wealth digital experience to meet the unique needs of their organization and customer base. Our multi-tenant architecture makes it efficient for us to onboard and maintain PaaS partners.
– Powerful data analytics that inform our own product development and support our plan sponsors, brokers, advisors, and other partners. The unique architecture of our product allows us to capture key metrics that are most relevant to employer and member value in a way that our competitors cannot.
To Apply:
We are a respectful workplace committed to building a skilled and diverse workforce. We believe in fostering an inclusive work environment where all individuals have an opportunity to succeed. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone. We look forward to hearing from you!