Associate Director, Digital Product Owner

About the role

The Associate Director, Digital Product Owner will lead the strategy, delivery, and continuous evolution of Capsugel's global customer portal as part of Lonza‑Capsugel’s digital transformation. The role is hybrid, based in Morristown, NJ (with flexibility to work from Tampa, FL or other Lonza‑Capsugel offices) and involves up to 20% travel.

Responsibilities

• Own and communicate the product vision and roadmap; define success metrics, KPIs, and adoption targets.
• Balance customer needs, business priorities, technical constraints, and regulatory requirements when making roadmap decisions.
• Act as Product Owner: own and prioritize the product backlog, write/maintain user stories, acceptance criteria, release plans, and feature specifications; lead backlog refinement, sprint planning, sprint reviews, and release readiness.
• Make informed trade‑off decisions regarding scope, schedule, quality, and business value.
• Gather, document, validate, and prioritize customer, commercial, and operational requirements; facilitate workshops, interviews, and discovery sessions.
• Develop customer journey maps, process flows, personas, and business cases to support product decisions.
• Own user acceptance testing (UAT) strategy and business validation; define test scenarios and acceptance criteria; assess release readiness and communicate deployment risks, dependencies, and mitigation plans.
• Partner with architecture and engineering teams to design scalable solutions across enterprise platforms; drive integrations with CRM, ERP, PIM, DAM, Identity Management, and eCommerce technologies; ensure data quality, security, governance, and compliance.

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 in 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.
• Experience owning product strategy, roadmap development, backlog prioritization, agile delivery, testing, release management, and value realization.
• 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 (e.g., Salesforce, SAP, Oracle, Adobe Commerce, Informatica P360, SnapLogic, MuleSoft).
• Experience managing cross‑functional delivery teams, external implementation partners, software vendors, consulting organizations, and global stakeholder groups.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, agile methodologies, systems integration, architecture principles, and digital product delivery best practices.
• Ability to translate 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 UAT, release readiness reviews, deployment planning, risk assessment, dependency management, and go/no‑go decisions.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to influence stakeholders from individual contributors to 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 and vision insurance
• 401(k) matching plan
• Life insurance, short‑term and long‑term disability insurance
• Employee assistance programs
• Paid time off (PTO)