Job detail for Director, Solutions Design and Development, Product, UK

About WPP Media
WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver growth. 
WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.
For more information, visit wppmedia.com.About the Role
 
The Product Manager is the most senior PM role in the Development team and shapes and drives the strategic direction of products, platforms, and capabilities across WPP Media Solutions. The role works across business, technology, data, and operations to ensure priorities are understood, delivery is aligned to business objectives, and strategic initiatives can be executed effectively at scale. The Product Manager is accountable for product direction, stakeholder alignment, roadmap management, and supporting a connected, scalable, product-led delivery model.
The Product Manager is the direct manager and functional lead for Product Owners, supporting their development, alignment, delivery effectiveness, and adoption of consistent product and agile practices. The role provides regular updates on roadmap progress, risks, dependencies, and strategic opportunities.
 
What You'll Do
Strategy and roadmap leadership

Define and maintain product roadmaps aligned to business priorities, client outcomes, operational requirements, and strategic growth opportunities
Translate leadership objectives into structured product initiatives and delivery plans
Balance short-term commercial priorities with long-term platform maturity, scalability, maintainability, and sustainability
Ensure alignment with wider WPP and Choreograph data, technology, and platform strategies

Commercial and client value alignment

Partner with Solutions Design as well as Commercial, Activation, Planning, and Client Leadership teams to support scalable client growth and measurable business value
Shape solutions that balance client ambition, operational practicality, commercial sustainability, and delivery feasibility
Improve operational efficiency, transparency, automation, and client outcomes through product and platform evolution

 
Cross-functional leadership

Lead through influence across multiple teams and disciplines without direct ownership of delivery functions
Align business, operational, and technical teams around shared objectives and delivery momentum
Facilitate decisions across complex stakeholder groups with competing priorities, timelines, and pressures
Act as the strategic escalation point for delivery, prioritisation, dependencies, and stakeholder management

 
Product Owner leadership and team development

Provide leadership, guidance, and line management to Product Owners
Ensure Product Owners align to strategic priorities, roadmap objectives, governance standards, and delivery expectations
Champion agile and product-led working practices, including consistent documentation, definition-of-ready/definition-of-done, and backlog discipline across the team
Support Product Owner development, capability growth, and career progression through objective-setting and regular 1:1s

 
Delivery and engineering liaison

Act as the primary interface between the Product Management function and the Engineering Lead/Solutions Architect, ensuring requirements are engineering-ready before entering delivery
Own the development cycle cadence in partnership with the Scrum Master (sprint/release planning, backlog grooming, capacity planning)
Own overall user acceptance testing (UAT) governance across the team - standards, sign-off criteria, and escalation of failed UAT cycles

 
What You'll Bring
Skills & Experience

Proven track record leading a product management function for at least 8 years within a technical/engineering environment, ideally in adtech, martech, or data-driven media
Experience managing a team of Product Owners or Product Managers, including performance management and development planning
Strong command of agile delivery frameworks (Scrum/Kanban) and the mechanics of sprint/release planning
Ability to operate at both the strategic (roadmap, commercial alignment, stakeholder leadership) and tactical (requirements, UAT, backlog) level
Excellent stakeholder management — able to lead through influence across teams with no direct delivery ownership
Experience working with data infrastructure, reporting, automation/AI, or platform integration products is a strong advantage
Proven experience working in a highly matrixed global to local organisation and comfortable managing external dependencies for deliverables.

 
Success Measures

Roadmap delivery against committed timelines across all product verticals
Consistency and maturity of Product Owner practice (backlog quality, UAT pass rates, requirements traceability)
Product Owner team retention, capability growth, and succession depth
Stakeholder satisfaction (Design, Engineering, business) with requirements quality and delivery predictability
Oversee and own the ways of working for the solutions product owners to deliver the bigger picture.

 
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