Lead Data Product Owner

Job Title: Lead Data Product Owner
Job Location: New York City (US) - Work from office, 5 days a week

Experience: 11+ years

Overview

We are looking for a highly motivated Data Product Owner (DPO) with a strong blend of business acumen, data/product management expertise, and a passion for the fan/DTC/sports industry. This role will act as a critical bridge between business stakeholders and technical teams, ensuring that data products and analytics capabilities are strategically defined, well prioritized, and successfully delivered to drive business value.

• The DPO is responsible for defining and owning the data product vision and roadmap to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the features or components for the team (where applicable).
• The DPO collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders, especially partners and internal teams, to understand business needs, define requirements, and ensure data products are designed to maximize impact and usability.
• The DPO is responsible for preparing executive-level reporting and documentation, acting as a product evangelist, and clearly communicating product vision, progress, and value to stakeholders across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

• Define & own data product vision and roadmap, prepare executive-level reporting, stakeholder alignment across clubs, partners and internal teams.
• Act as the primary liaison translate business objectives into clear product requirements, ensuring stakeholder needs are understood, scoped, and prioritized effectively.
• Leverage strong business sense and domain expertise in fan engagement, direct-to-consumer (DTC), and sports business to contextualize data products and prioritize features that drive value.
• Translate business requirements into clear product specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria, partnering closely with Business Analysts (BA), Data Analysts (DA), Data Engineers (DEs) & QAs to guide development and ensure successful delivery.
• Own the end-to-end data product lifecycle: from discovery and requirement gathering to backlog prioritization, development, testing, release, and iteration
• Collaborate cross-functionally with engineering, analytics, and business teams to ensure data solutions are aligned with strategic goals and technical feasibility.
• Ensure data quality, integrity, and governance standards are maintained throughout product development.
• Facilitate agile ceremonies, and manage clear communication with all stakeholders, and lead product status updates, and prioritization discussions.
• Continuously monitor product performance and iterate based on user feedback and evolving business needs.
• Evangelize data-driven decision-making within the business and promote data literacy.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Business, Data Science, Computer Science, or related field.
• 8+ years of proven experience as a Product Owner or similar role with a focus on data products.
• Strong business acumen with deep knowledge of fan engagement, DTC, or sports industry dynamics.
• Excellent ability to extract and translate complex business analytics requirements into technical user stories, development tasks & exec-friendly narratives.
• Experience working closely with BAs, DAs, and Engineers to coordinate data profiling, ETL, and reporting tasks.
• Solid understanding of data engineering and analytics concepts.
• Agile/Scrum experience.
• Proficiency with project management tools such as JIRA, Confluence, Asana, Zendesk etc.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Familiarity with data governance, data quality frameworks, and relevant compliance standards.
• Expert with MS-Office apps such as Excel & PPT
• Technical familiarity with SQL, ETL tools, and cloud data platforms is a plus.

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of cloud ecosystems (AWS, GCP, Azure).
• Hands-on experience with data visualization tools (e.g., Tableau, Power BI).
• Ability to balance strategic product management with technical understanding.
• Passion for sports, fan engagement, or DTC business models.