SVP – Product and Markets — Enterprise-Operations Centre

The mandate

Operations teams from several European sites are consolidating in Krakow, bringing customer administration, procurement support, reporting and workflow expertise into one centre. The move has a location plan but lacks a product and market thesis. If every originating process arrives unchanged, Krakow will inherit complexity without the authority or scale benefits that justified consolidation. Regional businesses need propositions they can adopt, not a compulsory catalogue of relocated tasks.

The new SVP – Product and Markets will define services for a centre of approximately 1,275 employees and partners and a portfolio near PLN 620 million. The role owns product discovery, proposition, segmentation, roadmaps, adoption and lifecycle choices. Operations owns service execution; technology owns platforms; regional businesses own their customer and legal duties. The SVP must create contracts across those boundaries and treat non-adoption as evidence rather than disloyalty.

Markets vary in language, regulation and channel. Some services can be standard products; others require modular configuration or should remain local. The appointee must learn from originating sites before they close, preserve tacit customer knowledge and avoid presenting a generic process as a product merely because it has a name and owner.

Product governance must also recognise seasonality. Market demand can be quiet for most of the year and become critical around filings, campaigns or customer renewals. Average volume therefore gives an incomplete picture of required capacity and service value. The SVP will define how products absorb peaks, which demand requires advance reservation and when a dedicated module is economically honest. That discipline should prevent temporary underuse from triggering premature retirement while also stopping sponsors from reserving scarce capability without paying for it or supplying credible forecasts.

Migration acceptance needs a customer voice beyond the executive sponsor. The product team will test usability with frontline recipients, document failure and exception paths and require operations to demonstrate support readiness. Early volume will be capped until real users confirm that the new service works under normal and peak conditions.

Why this seat is open

The board approved this planned new position as part of consolidation governance. No current site product leader has authority across the future portfolio. A four-to-six-month search allows the executive to join before the second migration wave and shape products while knowledge remains accessible. Existing site leaders continue to own their customers until transfer.

What you will own

• Research market jobs, constraints and willingness to adopt common services before defining the product portfolio.
• Select which activities become standard, modular, dedicated or remain outside Krakow.
• Write service propositions covering users, outcomes, inputs, control responsibilities, price and exit.
• Own roadmaps and prioritisation, balancing shared improvement with documented market obligations.
• Secure funded adoption from regional sponsors and track actual use after migration.
• Establish product measures for quality, cycle time, experience, unit cost and improvement.
• Decide when a service should scale, combine, remain contained or retire.
• Build product-management capability and transfer knowledge from originating locations.

The first 12 months

The opening 90 days will map market needs, current services and migration dependencies. The SVP will select three candidate products and identify process moves that should pause because their product or ownership case is weak. Each pilot must have a willing market sponsor and a baseline before transfer.

By month eight, the first products should operate with agreed service and roadmap contracts. Market feedback will change at least one proposition, and product managers will own outcomes rather than coordinate tasks. A lifecycle review will determine whether inherited low-volume variants remain funded.

At year-end, 65% of consolidated activity should belong to approved service products, with at least three markets adopting two or more common offerings. Pilot cycle time should improve by 20%, unit cost by 10% and sponsor confidence by 15 points. No migration should proceed without accountable market acceptance.

What the board will measure

• Consolidation value created through product decisions, not work transferred.
• Market adoption and continued use under transparent service obligations.
• Decline in unfunded variants and orphan activities.
• Product-manager capability and succession across the portfolio.
• Responsible treatment of local controls, language and customer knowledge.

The person

You are a service-product, market or global operations leader who has productised complex business services across countries. You use research and adoption evidence, not only process standards. Experience in shared services, enterprise software, business operations or regulated service platforms is relevant.

You bring 22–28 years of experience and have owned at least PLN 355 million of product or service scope affecting 900 employees or more. The board will examine a product proposition that you changed after market discovery and a consolidation proposal you resisted because transfer did not create value.

The role is onsite in Krakow with travel to served and originating markets.

Compensation and terms

Base pay is PLN 1.0–1.35 million plus annual incentive. Measures combine funded adoption, product outcomes, consolidation value, portfolio discipline and talent. Transferred volume without sustained use will not count as success. Final terms reflect current mix and relevant scale, with up to six months’ notice considered.

Confidentiality

The originating sites, markets, service catalogue and parent identity are confidential. Qualified candidates receive controlled detail after mutual interest and an undertaking. The Krakow setting and rounded population are not intended to reveal the employer.