Head Of Ecosystems & Partnerships (1 Position)

Reporting to the Chief Business Solutions & Marketing Officer, the role holder will be responsible for the execution of dfcu’s inorganic growth strategy. The role holder is responsible for the vision, strategy, solution design, implementation, and overall ownership of the commercial strategy of dfcu’s priority ecosystems.

The role is a combination thought leadership, strategic partnerships, new business models, product development and go-to-market management. To be successful, the role holder will require strong competency in creating and sustaining an enterprise-wide environment that fosters delivery, accountability, commitment, growth, and continuous innovation.

The role holder is a self-starter with exceptional financial acumen, strong operational diligence, and a passion for driving transformation. The role holder will be a highly effective communicator with a strong ability to influence leadership through analytical reasoning, creativity, and sound judgment. The role holder should be comfortable challenging the status quo in a sensitive, efficient, and constructive manner.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Lead the development and implementation of the overall ecosystem strategy (new revenue streams), ensuring alignment with the dfcu Bank’s purpose and commercial ambitions.
Be accountable as a business leader for achievement of the ecosystem’s strategic and outcomes, including the ownership of investment case development for new and/or existing ecosystems extensions
Drive the development of the prioritized ecosystem’s commercial strategy (and its continuous iteration) that defines the short-term and long-term plans leveraging technology and digitization capabilities
Structure ecosystem outcomes and prioritize their execution, ensuring stakeholders are aligned with resources mobilized for the achievement of the intended value.
As the voice of customer within the prioritized ecosystems, lead discussions with stakeholders to understand customer needs with a view of guiding solutioning and development prioritization.
Oversee project teams, partnering with the PMO office and 3^rd party partners, to optimize work plans across assigned ecosystems and delivery against agreed delivery timelines.
Consistently collect market and customer feedback and develop a repeatable dissemination framework to internal teams that guides and iterates the development process.
Own the effective governance including the management and quality assurance of the ecosystems processes, solution documentation, risk identification and mitigation, partner vetting, onboarding and management, aligned to best practice.
Monitor and manage Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and turnaround times for ecosystems and partners to ensure alignment with customer expectations and retention requirements.
Formulate and mobilize high-growth strategic partnerships that deliver/grow innovative and transformative ecosystem programs, with a particular focus on differentiated best in class solutions.
Identify, evaluate, negotiate with, and onboard third-party partners to drive sustainability, provide relevant business opportunities, and offer holistic solutions to clients.
Build and maintain effective relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including shareholders, regulators, industry bodies, and multi-disciplinary teams across the bank and indeed the dfcu

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS, AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Computer Science, or related field. MBA is a plus.
10+ years’ experience in business planning and strategy, new business models, digital products management and development, sales enablement, managing and expanding a product/solution portfolio, driving demand generation and pipeline acceleration.
Exceptional self-starter with the ability to thrive in ambiguous, fast-paced environments that come with building a new business/solutions from the ground up.
Passion for technology and intellectual curiosity about new technologies and how they work/enable new customer solutions.
Experience in product management, bringing new digital products and services to market.
Past experience in scaling a rapidly growing business, with equal parts ‘general athlete’ and ‘been-there, done-that’ experiences.
Strong and proactive leader with ability to drive tangible results in a cross-functional team.
Natural problem-solver able to proactively seek out solutions and gain alignment.
Strong business and sales acumen with analytic skills and marketing insights to drive growth, offer innovative solutions to problems, and to meet customer-driven business objectives.
Ability to balance analysis with appropriate business risk-taking to support speed-to-market.
Track record in leading cross-organizational teams, leading change, across multiple seniority levels, and driving business growth.
Effective communicator with the ability to articulate problem statements, opportunities, plans and goals to key stakeholders and senior leaders.
Exceptional team player who enjoys working in an innovative, diverse and collaborative culture. The desired role holder thinks outside the box and is not afraid to challenge the status quo.
Demonstrable experience in product commercial management across industries, and across customer touchpoints, both online and offline.
Methodically breaks down problems into smaller components to enable a deeper understanding of root causes of key issues. The role holder will have the ability to evaluate points for improvement and creatively solve complex and ambiguous problems to reach new and unconventional modes of resolution.
Strong commercialization experience, specifically, taking new solutions to market. Ability to easily translate client needs into technical requirements and build narratives to answer to market demand.
Passionate about UX centred design, API products, supply <> demand experience (consumers, producers and intermediaries) with a focus on driving solution conversion, adoption and usage rates.
The successful role holder will have the end consumer in mind and use their in-depth knowledge to ensure the consumer’s point of view is considered.
Ability to navigate across the organization, partners and shareholders, building effective stakeholder relationships, landing complex concepts in a simplified and concise manner that is tailored to the needs and understanding of key stakeholders.