Head of Product

SFTx is looking for a Head of Product, reporting directly to the CTO/CPO of SFTx, to lead product strategy, product execution and product team leadership for the new Sanlam app, which forms part of Sanlam Group’s Digital Engagement Ecosystem. 

This is a critical leadership role responsible for shaping and delivering a unified Sanlam digital experience and cross-product engagement channel for customers. The app will play a central role in how customers discover, access, engage with and receive value from Sanlam’s broader ecosystem of products and services. The role will own the product vision, strategy, roadmap and execution direction for the app, ensuring that it delivers clear customer value, meaningful business impact and a high-quality experience within a regulated financial services environment. 

The Head of Product will lead a multidisciplinary product function for the app, with Product Managers and Product Marketers reporting directly into the role. The role will partner with Product UX Design, UX Content, UX Research, Engineering and Data Science as part of the app’s cross-functional product and delivery model, while team members remain accountable to their own competency leadership. 

This is both a product leadership role and a people leadership role. You will be expected to set direction, build team capability, establish strong product operating practices and create alignment across a complex stakeholder landscape spanning multiple business units and functions across the Sanlam Group. The role also requires a strong level of technical fluency in the mobile app and digital ecosystem space. While this is not an engineering role, the successful candidate must be able to engage credibly on platform, architecture, integration and delivery trade-offs at a high level, and to understand how those trade-offs affect customer experience, speed, scalability, reliability, security and long-term product quality. 

Commercial ownership in this role is shared with business owners across the Group. Success will depend on strong partnership, influence and joint decision-making across customer, product, technology and business stakeholders. 

As Head of Product for the Sanlam app, you will: 

• Define and own the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the new Sanlam app.
• Shape the app into a unified Sanlam experience and cross-product digital engagement channel, aligned to customer needs and Group priorities.
• Translate customer needs, business priorities, and market opportunities into a clear and actionable product direction.
• Lead the end-to-end product lifecycle, including discovery, prioritisation, delivery, launch, optimisation, and scaling.
• Build and lead a high-performing, multidisciplinary product team, including Product Managers, UX Designers, Product Marketers, UX Writers, and UX Researchers.
• Provide line management, coaching, performance management, and development support for direct reports.
• Establish strong product operating rhythms, decision-making practices, and cross-functional ways of working for the app team.
• Partner closely with engineering, design, data, and delivery teams to ensure effective execution and a high-quality customer experience.
• Work with Data Science as a core cross-functional capability to support product insight, experimentation, personalisation, and decision-making.
• Drive product discovery using customer research, behavioural data, analytics, market insights, and business context to identify high-value opportunities and validate ideas.
• Set clear product goals and success metrics, ensuring roadmap priorities are aligned to measurable customer and business outcomes.
• Own and monitor product performance across key metrics such as adoption, activation, engagement, retention, customer satisfaction, and cross-sell contribution.
• Lead prioritisation across product initiatives, balancing customer value, commercial impact, technical feasibility, operational readiness, and regulatory considerations.
• Work closely with business stakeholders across the Sanlam Group to align product priorities, manage dependencies, and ensure the app delivers shared value across the ecosystem.
• Ensure that security, privacy, compliance, risk, auditability, and operational resilience are embedded in product decisions and delivery plans.
• Contribute to launch planning, go-to-market readiness, adoption, and ongoing optimisation of the app.
• Represent the product strategy, roadmap, progress, risks, and trade-offs clearly to senior leadership and key stakeholders.
• Help build a strong product culture grounded in customer focus, evidence-based decision making, experimentation, collaboration, and accountability.

• 10+ years’ experience in senior product management, digital product leadership, or closely related roles.
• Significant experience leading product strategy and execution for customer-facing digital products.
• Proven experience owning product vision, roadmap, and prioritisation in complex environments.
• Proven experience leading and line-managing product teams, including coaching and developing product talent.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary digital product teams across product management, UX, and related disciplines.
• Experience leading mobile app, mobile-first, and large-scale digital platform products.
• Strong technical fluency in mobile apps and digital ecosystems, with the ability to engage on platform, integration, architecture, and delivery trade-offs at a high level.
• Proven ability to make product decisions that balance customer experience, technical constraints, commercial value, scalability, security, and delivery realities.
• Experience working closely with engineering, design, data, and business stakeholders in cross-functional environments.
• Experience in fintech, financial services, insurance, banking, wealth, investments, payments, lending, or another regulated industry.
• Experience using customer insights, qualitative research, quantitative analysis, and product metrics to inform product decisions.
• Experience engaging and influencing senior stakeholders across large, complex organisations.
• Experience operating in environments with legal, compliance, risk, audit, and information security requirements.

It would be advantageous if you also have:

• Experience leading a flagship consumer app or primary digital channel.
• Experience in South African financial services customer journeys.
• Experience across acquisition, onboarding, servicing, self-service, engagement, and cross-sell journeys.
• Experience leading teams with multiple product disciplines reporting into a common product leadership structure.
• Experience working in matrix environments, where specialist capabilities such as UX Design and Data Science report into separate competency leaders.
• Experience in product operating model design and organisational leadership.
• Experience in experimentation, personalisation, funnel optimisation, customer lifecycle management, and product analytics.
• Experience launching new digital products at scale.
• Experience working across ecosystem or multi–business unit product environments.
• Experience building mobile apps, with a high-level understanding of technical considerations.

In this role, success will typically include:

• Launching and scaling a high-quality Sanlam app that solves meaningful customer problems
• Establishing a clear and credible product strategy and roadmap for the app
• Building and leading a strong multi disciplinary product team, improving customer adoption, activation, engagement, retention and satisfaction
• Creating strong alignment across business, technology and control functions
• Enabling effective collaboration between direct-report disciplines and matrixed capabilities such as Data Science, Design and Engineering
• Delivering measurable business value through the app
• Raising the quality of product thinking, execution and customer experience across the app portfolio.