Associate Director, Digital Product Owner
Lonza
Summary
Lonza Capsugel is undergoing an exciting digital transformation, and our Digital Platforms & Transformation team is seeking an entrepreneurial, systems-minded Associate Director, Digital Product Owner to lead the strategy, delivery, and continuous evolution of Capsugel's global customer portal. This role serves as the business owner of the digital customer experience, translating commercial objectives and customer needs into a prioritized product roadmap and scalable technical solutions.
Job description
Strategic Product Leadership
- Own and communicate the product vision and roadmap
- Define success metrics, KPIs, and adoption targets to ensure measurable business outcomes
- Balance customer needs, business priorities, technical constraints, and regulatory requirements when making roadmap decisions
Product Ownership & Agile Delivery
- Actively serve as Product Owner; own and prioritize the product backlog, ensuring alignment to business objectives and customer value
- Write and maintain detailed user stories, acceptance criteria, release plans, and feature specifications
- Lead backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and release readiness activities
- Make informed trade-off decisions regarding scope, schedule, quality, and business value
Customer Experience & Requirements Management
- Gather, document, validate, and prioritize customer, commercial, and operational requirements
- Facilitate workshops, interviews, and discovery sessions with stakeholders across regions and functions
- Develop customer journey maps, process flows, personas, and business cases to support product decisions
Testing & Release Management
- Own user acceptance testing (UAT) strategy and business validation activities
- Define test scenarios and acceptance criteria to ensure successful releases
- Assess release readiness and communicate deployment risks, dependencies, and mitigation plans
Enterprise Systems & Integration Partner
- Partner with architecture and engineering teams to design scalable solutions across enterprise platforms
- Drive integrations between customer-facing digital platforms and backend systems including CRM, ERP, PIM, DAM, Identity Management, and eCommerce technologies
- Ensure data quality, security, governance, and compliance requirements are addressed throughout the product lifecycle
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in business, Computer Science, Engineering, Life Sciences, or a related field
- 8+ years of experience in digital product management, customer portals, eCommerce, or digital customer experience, preferably within a complex B2B environment
- Demonstrated experience serving as the primary Product Owner for a customer-facing digital product, with accountability for backlog prioritization, release decisions, stakeholder alignment, and value realization
- Demonstrated experience owning product strategy, roadmap development, backlog prioritization, agile delivery, testing, release management, and value realization
- Experience leading customer portal, digital experience, self-service, or eCommerce products that support customer workflows such as account management, product search, document access, order management, case management, or digital self-service
- Proven success leading customer-facing digital products in a complex enterprise ecosystem, including integration of CRM, ERP, PIM, CMS/DXP, identity management, analytics, and middleware platforms
- Experience managing cross-functional delivery teams, external implementation partners, software vendors, consulting organizations, and global stakeholder groups
- Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC), agile methodologies, systems integration, architecture principles, and digital product delivery best practices
- Demonstrated experience translating ambiguous business challenges into actionable product requirements, roadmap priorities, and measurable business outcomes
- Experience translating customer, commercial, and operational requirements into scalable digital solutions and measurable business value
- Demonstrated ability to lead user acceptance testing (UAT), release readiness reviews, deployment planning, risk assessment, dependency management, and go/no-go decision processes
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to influence stakeholders from individual contributors through executive leadership
- Strong analytical problem-solving, systems thinking, and decision-making capabilities
- Pharmaceutical, life sciences, manufacturing, or other regulated-industry experience is highly desirable
- Agile Product Owner, Scrum Product Owner, SAFe POPM, or equivalent certification preferred
Benefits
- Performance-related bonus
- Medical, Dental & Vision
- 401(k) Matching
- Life Insurance
- Short-term Disability
- Long-term Disability
- Employee Assistance Programs
- Paid Time Off
Company overview
Lonza is a pioneering global Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) and a world leader in pharmaceutical manufacturing services. Founded in 1897 in Switzerland, the company has evolved into the first and original CDMO, now operating as one of the largest Western CDMO networks with approximately 19,000 employees across more than 30 sites spanning five continents. Lonza specializes in transforming therapeutic discoveries into life-saving and life-enhancing treatments for patients worldwide. The company's comprehensive services span from early development to drug substance and drug product manufacturing, covering established and emerging technologies including mammalian biologics, small molecules, highly potent APIs, bioconjugates, mRNA, microbial products, and cell and gene therapies. With a focus on cutting-edge science, smart technology, and lean manufacturing, Lonza serves a diverse customer base ranging from emerging biotechs to global pharmaceutical companies, delivering integrated solutions throughout the entire treatment lifecycle.