Senior Product Owner - Lean Innovation

Senior Product Owner – Lean Innovation (Research Services) The role You will lead a small, fast-moving innovation team that tests new product ideas quickly and cheaply, proves there is real market demand, and builds the business cases that decide what gets funded and scaled. This is a hands-on, senior position with genuine ownership. You will decide which ideas to pursue, how to test them, and when to stop or invest further, working closely with research, data, technology and commercial colleagues.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and coach a lean innovation team, setting priorities and keeping the pace of experimentation high

• Run discovery and quick prototyping cycles, taking ideas to testable MVPs in weeks rather than months

• Validate new concepts with real clients and prospects, using interviews, pilots and usage data to test demand and willingness to pay

• Build robust business cases, covering market size, pricing, costs, return on investment and risks, and present them to senior stakeholders

• Own the product backlog and roadmap for validated ideas, and manage the handover into full development and launch

• Define clear success measures for each experiment and make evidence-based go, pivot or stop decisions

• Work with research, data science, technology and sales teams to bring new products to market • Share learnings across the business and build a culture of structured experimentation

About you

• Senior product experience, with a track record as a Product Owner or Product Manager in an innovation, new venture or 0-to-1 setting

• Proven experience running lean innovation work: quick prototyping, MVPs, and testing hypotheses with real customers

• Hands-on experience of market validation, including customer discovery, problem validation and product-market fit

• Experience building business cases and business models, and presenting them to senior leaders to secure investment

• Experience leading or coaching a multidisciplinary team, with or without direct line management

• Strong grounding in agile product ownership, including backlog management, prioritisation and stakeholder communication

• Comfortable making decisions with incomplete information and stopping ideas that the evidence does not support

• Clear communicator who can explain complex ideas simply to technical and non-technical audiences

Nice to have

• Background in market research, insights, data or analytics businesses • Experience in a corporate innovation lab, venture studio or accelerator • Familiarity with tools and methods such as the Lean Canvas, Business Model Canvas, design

sprints or Jobs to Be Done • Relevant training or certification, such as a Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) or SAFe

Product Owner/Product Manager qualification • Experience launching data-driven or subscription-based products