Who are we?
Sanlam Fintech is a newly established digital first business within the Sanlam Group on a mission to democratize financial advice and solutions for everyone across the African continent. We exist to pioneer inclusive financial confidence helping people build strong foundations to bridge the gap in generational wealth. Our culture us that of agility and constant deployment, we believe in learning fast, learning cheap and learning forward. Our aim is to provide a work environment where knowledge workers can accelerate the development of their ideas and bring innovation to market, at the same time provide compelling career and development proposition that will enable them to realize their dreams.
Position Overview
Sanlam Fintech is looking for a Senior Product Manager to join the central Digital Product function, reporting to a Head of Product. This role will own a meaningful part of the end-to-end digital customer journey, from discovery and strategy through delivery, launch, optimisation and ongoing performance management. You will work closely with engineering, design, data, marketing, finance, risk, compliance and information security stakeholders to deliver customer and business value in a regulated financial services environment. This is a senior individual contributor role with strong influence across teams. It is not a people management role, but it does require leadership, sound judgement, stakeholder management and theability to coach and support less experienced product managers where needed. The ideal candidate combines strong product thinking with commercial awareness, customer empathy, delivery discipline and the ability to make high-quality decisions using evidence, context and clear trade-offs.
What will you do?
As a Senior Product Manager, you will:
- Own product strategy, roadmap, prioritisation and execution for your assigned product domain or customer journey.
- Define clear product problems, opportunities, outcomes and success metrics aligned to business and customer goals.
- Partner with stakeholders across business units and central teams, including technology, design, data, marketing, finance, risk, compliance and information security.
- Drive product discovery by using customer research, behavioural data, analytics, market insight and business context to identify opportunities and validate ideas.
- Translate strategy into a well-prioritised product backlog that balances customer value, business value, technical feasibility and regulatory considerations.
- Work closely with a Tech Lead and a cross-functional team to build, test, release and improve digital products and features.
- Lead product decision-making across the product lifecycle, including trade-offs on scope, sequencing, timing and investment.
- Monitor product performance using input, output and outcome metrics, and use those insights to drive continuous improvement.
- Ensure that non-functional requirements such as security, compliance, auditability, operational resilience and customer data considerations are incorporated into product decisions.
- Communicate product direction, priorities, progress, risks and decisions clearly to stakeholders at different levels of the organisation.
- Contribute to strong product practices within Sanlam Fintech, including mentoring and coaching less experienced product managers where appropriate.
Qualification and Experience
A successful candidate will have:
- 7+ years of experience in product management, product ownership or closely related digital product roles.
- Proven experience owning product roadmap, prioritisation and delivery decisions for customer-facing digital products.
- Experience leading work through cross-functional teams that include engineering, design and relevant business stakeholders.
- Experience delivering digital products or features in fintech, financial services, insurance, banking, wealth, investments, payments, lending or another regulated industry.
- Experience using customer insight, qualitative research, quantitative data and product metrics to make product decisions.
- Experience working on mobile apps, mobile-first products or digital customer journeys.
- Experience working with senior stakeholders and balancing customer needs, business goals, delivery constraints and regulatory requirements.
It would be advantageous if you also have:
- Experience with South African financial services customer journeys
- Experience in digital acquisition, onboarding, servicing, self-service or engagement journeys
- Experience in experimentation, funnel optimisation and product analytics
- Experience in product discovery and validation before build
- Experience working with legal, risk, compliance, audit and information security stakeholders
- Experience mentoring product managers, product owners or junior team members.
What will make you successful in this role?
In this role, success will typically include:
- Delivering product or feature outcomes that improve meaningful customer and business metrics,
- Shaping and executing a clear roadmap within your product area,
- Building strong working relationships across business, technology and control functions,
- Helping teams make better product decisions with better evidence,
- Raising the quality of product thinking and execution within the broader product function.
Knowledge and Skills
Product strategyProduct concept design, evaluation and prototypingProduct developmentKnowledge ManagementManagement of employees
Personal Attributes
Business insight - Contributing through othersFinancial acumen - Contributing through othersOrganisational savvy - Contributing through othersDecision quality - Contributing through others
Build a successful career with us
We’re all about building strong, lasting relationships with our employees. We know that you have hopes for your future – your career, your personal development and of achieving great things. We pride ourselves in helping our employees to realise their worth.
Through its five business clusters – Sanlam Fintech, Sanlam Life and Savings, Sanlam Investment Group, Sanlam Allianz, Santam, as well as MiWay and the Group Office – the group provides many opportunities for growth and development.
Core Competencies
Cultivates innovation - Contributing through othersCustomer focus - Contributing through othersDrives results - Contributing through othersCollaborates - Contributing through othersBeing resilient - Contributing through others
Turnaround time
The shortlisting process will only start once the application due date has been reached. The time taken to complete this process will depend on how far you progress and the availability of managers.
Our commitment to transformation
The Sanlam Group is committed to achieving transformation and embraces diversity. This commitment is what drives us to achieve a diverse, inclusive and equitable workplace as we believe that these are key components to ensuring a thriving and sustainable business in South Africa. The Group's Employment Equity plan and targets will be considered as part of the selection process.
