Director, Capability Product Owner

Job Description:

Penn Mutual is seeking a strategic, customer-focused Director of Product Owners to lead a high-performing team in delivering innovative, business-aligned solutions across our digital and service platforms. This pivotal leadership role operates at the intersection of strategy and execution, ensuring seamless alignment between business objectives, customer needs, and technical delivery—while upholding our strong commitment to providing top-tier service to our financial professionals and policyholders.

As a senior leader, you will drive product ownership excellence across multiple agile teams, with a focus on customer-facing digital platforms, correspondence systems, and data-driven solutions that enhance operational performance. You’ll also lead cross-functional initiatives that foster innovation, elevate the customer experience, and deliver measurable business value.

Essential Functions:

• Provide strategic leadership by defining and driving the product vision, roadmap, and execution strategy in alignment with enterprise goals, operational priorities, and customer expectations.
• Demonstrate the ability to adapt to shifting business priorities and lead teams through change with clarity, confidence, and resilience—translating evolving strategic direction into clear product goals and execution plans.
• Deconstruct complex business challenges into clear, executable workstreams that enable scalable, high-impact delivery.
• Lead, mentor, and inspire a team of Product Owners, fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, and customer focus.
• Build strong, cross-functional partnerships with business, technology, and operations leaders to ensure alignment on key priorities and deliver cohesive, end-to-end solutions.
• Serve as the voice of the customer—embed customer needs and feedback into every stage of product development to ensure solutions are grounded in real-world needs and insights.
• Champion executional excellence by guiding teams through prioritization, planning, and delivery—establishing consistent, scalable practices that drive meaningful business outcomes.
• Ensure timely delivery of capabilities that meet user needs, business objectives, and regulatory or compliance requirements.
• Provide focus and clarity amid complexity by distilling competing priorities into clear and actionable directives, ensuring teams remain aligned on the most critical initiatives.
• Make timely, data-informed decisions and empower teams to do the same—balancing long-term strategic vision with near-term executional needs.
• Build alignment across diverse stakeholders by leveraging strong communication, influence, and negotiation skills to drive shared ownership and commitment to goals.
• Effectively communicate product vision, progress, and value across a wide range of audiences, from senior leadership to frontline stakeholders.
• Promote agile best practices and ensure consistency in product ownership across teams.
• Lead cross-functional, enterprise-level initiatives spanning multiple teams and domains, driving operational transformation and customer-centric innovation.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and deliver complex initiatives at scale.
• Strong strategic thinking, problem solving, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Deep understanding of service operations, customer support, and digital transformation in the life insurance or financial services industry.
• Demonstrated ability to inspire, influence, and drive decision-making across diverse teams.
• Executive presence with the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and business audiences.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity, driving change, and fostering innovation.
• Expertise in Agile methodologies and tools (e.g., Scrum, Jira, etc.)
• Ability to maintain team focus and momentum in dynamic, fast-paced environments.

Work Experience

• 10+ years leading teams and driving cross-functional initiatives – required
• 10+ years in life insurance, annuities, or financial services with a focus on agile delivery and digital transformation - required

Base Salary Range - $160,000 - $180,000

For over 175 years, Penn Mutual has empowered individuals, families and businesses on the journey to achieve their financial goals. Through our partnership with Financial Professionals across the U.S., we help instill the confidence and reliability that comes from a stronger financial future. Penn Mutual and its affiliates offer a comprehensive suite of competitive products and services to meet the unique needs of Financial Professionals and their clients, including life insurance, annuities, wealth management and institutional asset management. To learn more, including current financial strength ratings, visit www.pennmutual.com.

Penn Mutual is committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO). We provide employment and advancement opportunities to all qualified applicants and associates, according to applicable laws. This is reflected in our practices for hiring, placement, promotion, transfer, demotion, layoff, termination, recruitment, compensation, selection or training, and all other terms and conditions of employment. All employment-related decisions and practices are free from unlawful discrimination. This includes: race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry, citizenship age, gender (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, domestic partnership or civil union status, marital status, genetic information, disability, religious observance or practice, liability, veteran status or any other classification protected under applicable law.