Director Product Management

Director, Product Management — Airfield Business Line

POSITION SUMMARY

ADB SAFEGATE is the market leader in airfield ground lighting, control systems and airside solutions, operating in more than 150 countries. The Airfield Business Line is in the middle of a deliberate transformation: taking products that the market has historically treated as commoditized hardware and turning them into connected, digitally enabled assets that generate data, insight and measurable operational outcomes for airports.

We are looking for an experienced product leader to own that transition commercially. The Director, Product Management is accountable for the strategy, portfolio economics and market success of the full airfield hardware portfolio — lights, power, signs, PAPI and connecting to the layers built on top of them. This is a classic product management leadership role: you own the problem definition, the business case, the roadmap, the launch and the in-life performance of the portfolio, and you lead the people who do that work.

You will be the commercial counterweight to engineering — the person who ensures we build what the market will pay for, in a globally differentiated market where requirements, certification regimes and buying behaviour differ sharply between the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Portfolio strategy and business direction

• Own the portfolio strategy. Define and maintain a multi-year product and portfolio strategy for the Airfield Business Line, grounded in segmentation, competitive analysis and a clear view of where we choose to lead, follow or exit.
• Shape global business strategy. Contribute directly to business line strategy alongside engineering, operations, sales and finance leadership; bring the outside-in market view that anchors investment decisions.
• Manage a globally differentiated market. Translate one global platform strategy into regionally credible propositions — balancing ICAO, FAA and national requirements, regional certification paths, price points and channel realities without fragmenting the portfolio.
• Own portfolio economics. Be accountable for pricing architecture, margin management, product cost roadmaps, lifecycle and phase-out decisions, and the return on R&D investment across the portfolio.

Digital transformation of the portfolio

• Drive the shift from hardware to outcomes. Lead the commercial redefinition of the portfolio from discrete hardware sales toward connected assets, recurring software and service revenue, and outcome-based propositions for availability, maintenance and energy efficiency.
• Build the value case. Define and evidence the customer value of digitally enabled products — what decision does the data support, what does it save the airport, and what will they pay for it.
• Champion new business models. Develop and test subscription, SaaS and service-attached commercial models alongside the traditional capital equipment business, and build the internal capability to sell them.
• Integrate hardware and software roadmaps. Ensure the physical and digital roadmaps are planned as one portfolio, not two parallel programmes.

Bringing products to market

• Own end-to-end delivery to market. Take products from idea through business case, development, certification, launch and in-life management; be the accountable product voice at every quality gate of the product development process.
• Lead go-to-market. Own value propositions, positioning, launch plans, pricing, sales enablement and commercial documentation in partnership with marketing, sales and service.
• Close the loop with customers. Engage directly with airport operators, engineering consultants, contractors and regulators to validate direction, run pilots and secure reference accounts.
• Measure what you launch. Establish and report portfolio KPIs — revenue and margin by family, launch performance against business case, adoption, attach rate and customer satisfaction — and act on them.

People leadership

• Lead and grow the product organisation. Manage, coach and develop a distributed team of product managers and product owners; set clear role definitions, expectations and career paths.
• Raise product management maturity. Embed consistent product management practice — discovery, business cases, roadmapping, lifecycle governance — and build the discipline as a recognised commercial capability within the business line.
• Lead without authority. Drive alignment across R&D, operations, supply chain, quality, service and regional sales, including in situations where you influence rather than instruct.
• Build succession and bench strength. Attract and retain product talent, and develop successors for key portfolio roles.

Regulatory and compliance stewardship