Product Portfolio Manager
A four-month product portfolio leadership mission inside a major insurance group, focused on bringing clarity and momentum to a complex business portfolio. The role blends product strategy, stakeholder alignment, and portfolio governance to turn fragmented initiatives into a coherent, value-driven roadmap.
CONTEXT
Our client, a major player in its sector, is entering a period where its Business department must connect strategy, product ownership, and execution across a wide portfolio of insurance offerings. The organisation has built up a rich set of products and initiatives over time, but the next chapter requires a clearer view of what should grow, what should be consolidated, and what should be retired. A four-month mission has opened inside a Brussels-based business community to bring structure and storytelling to a portfolio that touches multiple teams, channels, and customer promises. The challenge is not simply to catalogue products; it is to create a shared language around value, risk, and timing so that decision-makers can move with confidence in a fast-changing insurance market. The person stepping in will act as a temporary portfolio navigator, connecting commercial ambition with operational reality while keeping the customer and business outcomes at the centre.
ACTIVITIES
- Map and consolidate the current product portfolio across the Business department, clarifying ownership, maturity, dependencies, and strategic fit.
- Facilitate working sessions with product owners, business leads, finance, risk, and operations to align on portfolio priorities and decision criteria.
- Build and maintain a clear portfolio view that highlights investment themes, overlaps, gaps, and opportunities for rationalisation.
- Support the definition of product roadmaps and business cases, ensuring each initiative has a readable value story and measurable success criteria.
- Prepare governance materials for leadership reviews, including portfolio summaries, trade-off scenarios, and recommendations.
- Coach teams on portfolio management rituals and help embed a lightweight, repeatable way to review performance and rebalance priorities.
- Translate complex insurance and business constraints into simple, decision-ready narratives for a range of audiences.
EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS
- A consolidated and trusted portfolio view that gives leadership a single, coherent picture of the Business department's product landscape.
- Clearer prioritisation across initiatives, with visible trade-offs and a documented rationale for what moves forward, what waits, and what stops.
- Stronger alignment between product, business, finance, risk, and operations around shared value drivers and decision criteria.
- A practical portfolio governance rhythm and toolkit that remains useful after the mission ends.
- Confident, well-prepared leadership decisions that reduce duplication, sharpen investment focus, and improve the link between portfolio choices and customer value.
ENVIRONMENT
- Insurance business environment with product, distribution, operations, risk, and finance stakeholders.
- Product portfolio management, roadmap planning, business case development, and governance frameworks.
- Data-informed decision-making using portfolio dashboards, spreadsheets, and presentation tools.
- Collaborative workshops, stakeholder interviews, and structured facilitation.
- A pragmatic, transformation-oriented atmosphere where clarity, diplomacy, and execution discipline matter as much as analysis.