Group Product Manager, Growth

Join a Challenger
Being a traditional bank just isn’t our thing. We are big believers in innovating the banking experience because we believe Canadians deserve better options, and we challenge ourselves and our teams to creatively transform what’s possible in banking. Our team is made up of inquisitive and agile minds that find smarter ways of doing things. If you’re not afraid of taking on big challenges and redefining the future, you belong with us. You’ll get to work with people who will encourage you to reach new heights. We like to keep things fun, ask questions and learn together.
We are a big (and growing!) family. Overall we serve more than 370,000 people across Canada through Equitable Bank, Canada's Challenger Bank™, and have been around for more than 50 years. Equitable Bank's wholly-owned subsidiary, Concentra Bank, supports credit unions across Canada that serve more than 5 million members. Together we have over $100 billion in combined assets under management and administration, with a clear mandate to drive change in Canadian banking to enrich people's lives. Our EQ Bank platform ( eqbank.ca ) has been named the top Schedule I Bank in Canada on the Forbes World's Best Banks 2023, 2022, and 2021 lists.
The Work
Reporting to the VP of Product for Digital Banking and working alongside senior management, the Group Product Manager is accountable for developing a product strategy that will help EQ ddeliver a better banking experience for our customers. Key ownership for this role includes identifying and aquiring customers, understanding customer needs and feedback, developing new products that support customers and bank business objectives, efficient project delivery and management of online banking functionality that is available to customers 24/7.
Critical to the role is the ability to manage, mentor and communicate effectively with your direct reports. This role will manage a core product team with 1+ product managers and running a subset of our digital banking experience.
The Core Parts Of Your Role Would Be To

• Lead, manage and drive mission critical, key vendor relationships at both a senior and working level (eg. External platforms, contractors, technology vendors and services). External vendor involvement may include negotiation and management of contractual obligations and relationships with third parties/vendors
• Demonstrate awareness of risks and manage responsibilities consistent with the Equitable Risk Appetite Framework
• Communicate effectively with senior management to help them understand how existing products are performing and how new product or technical investments will impact the business.
• Effectively hire and retain talent
• Independently resolve highly complex, multi-faceted problems, which are often unstructured and without precedent to meet the business needs in the best interest of customers and bank staff
• Ensure work is appropriately divided, issues are quickly identified and team members are supported to get their work done on schedule with the resources provided
• Coach and mentor staff to create an environment for high performing, highly motivated and engaged team of professionals
• Promote an environment where innovative solutions are employed to ensure efficient, timely problem resolution. Includes recommending business alternatives when problems are encountered by project teams
• Developing a product strategy for key functionality offered by EQ Bank that will help meet banking customer needs and help EQ meet is annual business goals
• Work cross-functionality with non-technical teams critical to EQ Banks operations including legal, compliance, finance, customer experience, operational risk, fraud and security
• Assist in the running, maintenance and support of the digital bank to ensure their availability to customers 24/7. This includes monitoring and ensuring uptime and performance, performing regular maintenance and ensuring bugs are fixed in a timely manner
• Set clear expectations for direct reports and provide clear, frequent feedback on performance
• Work effectively, as part of a broader team, to ensure protection of Equitable, and especially our customers- by proactively practicing compliance management. Establish conducive working relationships with managers across different business groups so as to effectively influence outcomes.
• Manage talent and performance of a high-impact product team
• Understanding banking customer needs through direct customer interaction, working with the customer service team, conducting surveys and reviewing user behavior data
• Conduct employee reviews twice per year to assess performance
• Build team agility by assessing and anticipating knowledge/skill gaps and driving knowledge transfer and/or skill development
• Measure impact of new and existing products to understand customer behavior and verify that the products are having an effect on business metrics
• Develop the onboarding process including working with marketing to acquire customers, getting customers to sign up and ensuring customers are successful shortly after joining the bank
• Maintaining industry and competitive awareness
• Effectively respond to and close Internal Audit findings
• End-to-end delivery leadership and oversight on all projects resulting from the above product strategy including developing business cases, high level risk assessments, and accountability for other work as required for project delivery. Oversee and/or manage large cross functional technical teams, non-technical resources and project issues in multiple locations

Let’s Talk About You

• Proven record of delivering projects with 10+ person team on-time and on-schedule
• Comfort working with technical teams
• Proven track record with examples of managing, mentoring and training up direct reports
• Strong ability to translate the abstract/theory into concrete communications
• Experience building full year product strategies for large engineering teams
• Preference to candidates with 2+ years managing a team of at least 1+ product managers
• Adaptive – adjusts and maintains effectiveness throughout periods of change, exhibiting tolerance for ambiguity and able to lead the team through change
• Experience at a fintech or Canadian financial institution is a plus
• 5+ years as a product manager leading online or mobile products
• Relationship management, coaching and communication skills
• Proven track record with specific examples of delivering customer-facing and business impact on services with customer bases beyond 50K users
• Post-secondary degree or masters degree is a plus
• Innovative thinker – looks for new, sometimes unconventional approaches to achieving goals
• Ability to work at many levels within and across the organization
• Strong preference to a product manager that has previously worked on customer acquisition, customer growth and onboarding
• Familiarity with the website and mobile app development process
• Good verbal and written communication skills
• Strong attention to detail

What we offer [For full-time permanent roles]
💰 Competitive discretionary bonus
✨ Market leading RRSP match program
🩺 Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits
📝 Employee Share Purchase Plan
👶🏽 Maternity/Parental top-up while you care for your little one
🏝 Generous vacation policy, personal days and even a moving day
🖥 Virtual events to connect with your fellow colleagues
🎓 Annual professional development allowance and a comprehensive Career Development program
💛 A fulfilling opportunity to join one of the top FinTechs and help create a new kind of banking experience
The incumbent will be working hybrid and in office time will be spent working from Equitable Bank’s additional office space located at 351 King Street East, Toronto, ON.
Equitable Bank is deeply committed to inclusion. Our organization is stronger and our employees thrive when we honour and celebrate everyone’s diverse experiences and perspectives. In tandem with that commitment, we support and encourage our staff to grow not just in their career path, but personally as well.
We commit to providing a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment for all applicants. Please let us know of any accommodations needed so that you can bring your best self to the application process and beyond. All candidates considered for hire must successfully pass a criminal background check and credit check to qualify for hire. While we appreciate your interest in applying, an Equitable recruiter will only contact leading candidates whose skills and qualifications closely match the requirements of the position.
We can’t wait to get to know you!