Chief Product Officer — Digital Bank

The mandate

An institutionally backed digital bank has expanded its portfolio faster than product accountability. Features, accounts, lending and payments are funded through separate roadmaps, with overlapping customer needs and no consistent lifecycle economics. The investment committee now requires clear ownership of design, value, treatment and retirement before it will release expansion capital.

The Chief Product Officer will influence approximately AED 76,850 million in loans and deposits and lead around 875 employees and material partners. Scope includes product strategy, portfolio economics, customer discovery, pricing, roadmap, lifecycle governance, adoption, partnerships and remediation. The Group Chief Executive or designated executive committee sponsor holds the reporting line.

The portfolio will be mapped to customer jobs and relationships. Revenue, balances, funding, loss, incentives, service, technology, control and capital should reconcile from acquisition through exit. The CPO will expose products whose reported success depends on hidden servicing or another team’s budget.

Accountability must span the lifecycle. Product leaders need authority over proposition, economics, customer outcome, delivery priority, operation and retirement, with clear interfaces to engineering and risk. Committees should decide cross-portfolio trade-offs rather than compensate for absent owners.

Supervisory findings will be embedded in product routines. Target markets, eligibility, value assessment, disclosures, monitoring, complaints and review need named owners and repeatable evidence. Remediation cannot remain a separate project whose controls disappear after formal closure.

Roadmap allocation will follow evidence. Customer need, adoption, economics, risk, capacity and dependency should determine investment. The CPO will stop feature queues defended by internal sponsors and protect foundational work when it enables several products or materially reduces risk.

Pricing will reflect complete relationship and behaviour. Promotions, fees, deposit rates and credit pricing require purpose, approval, duration and outcome monitoring. Growth that reverses after an incentive or increases vulnerable-customer harm will not count as healthy adoption.

Product retirement is an active responsibility. Client segmentation, alternatives, communication, data, contracts and operational readiness must be planned. Benefits count only when systems, controls and service work leave with the proposition. Complexity cannot be reduced by hiding products from sale while continuing full support.

Partnerships need customer ownership, data, conduct, resilience, economics and exit clarity. The bank may use external capability without outsourcing accountability. Partner performance should enter the same portfolio review as internal products.

The organisation will combine commercial, design, technology and control judgement. Product managers need customer exposure and financial fluency; senior leaders require authority across value streams. Succession should test candidates through real investment and retirement choices.

Why this seat is open

This urgent new role replaces distributed ownership during supervisory remediation. Interim governance protects current products, but the board intends to complete appointment within six to eight weeks so one executive owns the next investment gate.

What you will own

• Recut the digital portfolio around customer need and complete economics.
• Influence product decisions across AED 76,850 million of loans and deposits.
• Establish lifecycle ownership from discovery through retirement.
• Deliver product-governance remediation through normal routines.
• Allocate roadmap capacity using adoption, value, risk and dependency.
• Lead approximately 875 employees and partners with credible succession.
• Govern pricing, promotions and partnerships through customer outcomes.
• Give the board explicit invest, combine, restrict and retire choices.

The first 12 months

The opening 90 days should reconcile the catalogue, economics and remediation obligations. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to portfolio coherence, including customers, supervisors, engineering, risk, finance, operations and partners. Stabilise priority product risks, assess leaders and agree gates.

Months four to nine should assign lifecycle owners, make portfolio choices and embed review evidence. Stop weak roadmap items, retire redundant propositions and reset partner or pricing controls. Initial value may appear through stronger adoption, lower service effort, released cost or avoided conduct exposure.

By year end, the board should see sustained gains in portfolio coherence, product economics and customer adoption. Delivery must remain within 10% of approval and forecasts should reconcile customers, balances, cash and people for three quarters. Priority fixes require independent sustainability evidence; severe escalation cannot age beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Lifecycle contribution after funding, loss, service, technology and control cost.
• Adoption, persistency, complaints and customer outcome by product cohort.
• Supervisory findings closed through repeatable product governance.
• Capacity and cost released from retired or combined propositions.
• Retain more than nine in ten pivotal product leaders and ready cover for seven in ten direct roles.
• Partner economics, resilience, data and executable exit readiness.

The person

You are a Chief Product Officer, SVP Product or Product Business General Manager with 22–28 years in banking or adjacent regulated services. You have owned portfolio economics, roadmap choices and adoption across a multi-product customer base.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least AED 44,550 million, and you have led 625 or more people. You can demonstrate outcomes sustained over two reporting periods.

You understand digital products, deposits, lending, payments and supervisory governance. You can challenge feature enthusiasm, inherited complexity and commercial pressure while preserving customer and regulator trust.

Compensation and terms

Fixed compensation is AED 1.9–2.7 million plus annual incentive and LTI. The permanent Dubai role is onsite, supports international relocation and allows notice of up to six months.

Confidentiality

The bank, portfolio and remediation findings remain confidential. Identifying information follows mutual relevance under a confidentiality undertaking; the context is composite.