Senior Product Manager, Certification at Rainforest Alliance

POSITION SUMMARY:

• The Product Development Department in Data & Tech drives transformative growth in sustainable agriculture, climate resilience, and ecosystem conservation. With a focus on innovation and collaboration, the team crafts groundbreaking products aligned with business goals.
• As a Senior Product Manager, Certification, you will play a pivotal role in shaping and driving the strategy, vision, and continuous improvement agenda for the certification and assurance products. Collaborating with key internal and external stakeholders, you will advance the value proposition, ensuring both immediate enhancements and future innovations.
• You will translate strategic goals into a detailed roadmap with clear objectives, serving as the primary point of communication for stakeholders regarding progress and developments. Your role involves assessing and managing customer-centric business requirements, conducting comprehensive value assessments, and coordinating development needs within your domain. You will lead discussions with business stakeholders and process owners, contributing to process development by providing insights into future functional needs.
• In this role, you will actively drive the development of business models and associated processes, working closely with product owners to define and implement potential product solutions. Ensuring best practices and principles are integrated into requirements from the outset is crucial.
• Specifically, you will own the certification and assurance product-concepts, developing and implementing strategies for products that manage certification and assurance processes for all supply chain partners, from farmers to end users.
• As a leader, you will guide a small team, fostering a collaborative and innovative environment to achieve the Rainforest Alliance’s certification goals.

RESPONSIBILITIES: 

• End-to-End Responsibility:
  • Own the entire certification and assurance concept, from defining business requirements to final process models and documentation.
  • Ensure seamless execution of certification processes, maintaining high standards and compliance.
• Strategic Alignment:
  • Collaborate with business stakeholders across Standards & Assurance, Regions, and Customer Success to develop a 3-5 year product strategy and ambitious vision for certification and assurance.
  • Work closely with the business enterprise architect and portfolio manager to define the certification product roadmap.
• Cross-Departmental Collaboration:
  • Facilitate cross-departmental workshops to co-create and capture strategic outputs.
  • Foster shared ownership and agreement from all involved parties.
• Problem Solving and Continuous Improvement:
  • Proactively identify underlying challenges and collaboratively solve them.
  • Actively seek opportunities for continuous improvement in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.
• Stakeholder Management:
  • Maintain strong relationships with partners in other teams.
  • Communicate changes effectively to ensure alignment with key stakeholders.
• Business Requirements and Process Modelling:
  • Document and analyse business requirements related to certification.
  • Translate requirements into BPM flows and functional specifications.
• Alignment with Product Owners:
  • Collaborate with product owners and implementation managers to ensure alignment with certification requirements.
  • Advocate for best practices and principles in the certification landscape.
• Functional Solution Documentation:
  • Create and maintain comprehensive functional solution concept documentation within your area of responsibility.
• System Design and Testing:
  • Participate in system design (UX) activities.
  • Contribute to global testing and validation of test results.
• Training and Roll-Out Support:
  • Work closely with the support organization to develop and update training materials and e-learning resources.
  • Support global roll-outs (both internally and externally) during validation and implementation phases.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• BA degree in Sustainability, Business Administration, or equivalent. Masters Degree Preferred;
• Experience working with voluntary standards within agriculture/forestry;
• Experience with business process management and demonstrated ability (10 year’s) in related fields;
• Excellent problem-solving and analysis skills; able to identify underlying issues and challenges and work collaboratively towards resolution;
• Strong influencing and facilitation skills with a proven ability to convene and reconcile different stakeholder interests and influence toward a common vision/plan;
• Expertise in systems thinking and change management, with experience landing strategic ambitions into concrete requirements that can be taken forward successfully;
• Experience working within an Agile team framework;
• Excellent interpersonal skills with ability to interact culturally, linguistically, and diplomatically laterally and vertically;
• Self-motivated, creative and results-oriented, with a passion for innovation and challenging the status quo;
• Strong rational and emotional intelligence, with a demonstrated ability to remain calm and focused under pressure;
• Excellent writing, editing and verbal communication skills; and
• Ability to travel occasionally, nationally and internationally.