Product Owner – Role Description
The Product Owner plays a pivotal role during the initial phase of the project, ensuring that the product vision is firmly grounded in the real needs, workflows, and expectations .
- Act as a senior, client‑facing Product Owner, serving as the primary point of contact for business stakeholders and operational users.
- Define and own the product vision, ensuring alignment with manufacturing, customer service, and quality process requirements.
- Engage directly with on‑site operational teams through workshops, interviews, and observation to understand workflows, constraints, and value drivers.
- Translate business and operational needs into a structured product backlog, story maps, and a clear product roadmap.
- Steer solution development in close coordination with UX, engineering, and delivery teams across multiple locations.
- Ensure ongoing alignment between client expectations and delivery execution, supporting prioritization, trade‑off decisions, and scope clarity.
- Support implementation activities by providing product guidance, validation, and decision‑making throughout the delivery lifecycle.
What you will bring:
- Senior‑level experience as a Product Owner in manufacturing or industrial environments.
- Strong client‑facing posture with demonstrated experience working directly with operational and executive stakeholders.
- Hands‑on experience with MES and/or ERP systems in a manufacturing context.
- Prior experience in the luxury industry or high‑end manufacturing environments.
- Proven ability to work effectively with distributed, international delivery teams.
Role and Responsibilities
1. User Engagement & Needs Understanding
• Conduct in person interviews, observations, and workshops with artisans, supervisors, and operational staff at the New York atelier.
• Deeply understand daily workflows, constraints, pain points, and value drivers to define a product aligned with the reality of atelier operations.
• Serve as the primary voice of the atelier during the early vision setting phase.
2. Co Construction of the Product
• Work collaboratively with atelier users to translate qualitative insights into clear product expectations.
• Facilitate co design sessions to validate early concepts, prioritize value, and ensure the product naturally integrates into the atelier’s daily operations.
• Partner with UX/UI teams to shape initial journeys, wireframes, and experience principles.
3. Backlog & Product Structure
• Build the initial product backlog, ensuring that every item is grounded in real user needs and business priorities.
• Define and maintain early story mapping to structure the product around end to end atelier workflows.
• Establish the foundational product roadmap, covering the MVP scope and subsequent evolutions.
4. Alignment & Vision Setting
• Ensure alignment between Van Cleef & Arpels stakeholders, the New York atelier, and the delivery team.
• Clarify long term ambitions: designing a scalable product that can be deployed to additional ateliers with minimal adaptation.
• Document key product assumptions, boundaries, and success criteria.
5. Transition to the Operational Proxy Product Owner
• At the end of the 10 week on site immersion, hand over a fully structured and validated product vision to the Proxy Product Owner based in France.
• The Proxy Product Owner, present from the first day of the project, will support the discovery phase and then take charge of day to day delivery activities, including backlog refinement, sprint preparation, decision making, and support to the development team.
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