Vice President, Group Product Manager Position Profile
ABOUT GRAINGER
Grainger is North America's leading distributor of maintenance, repair, and operating products and services. Their wide assortment, deep expertise, innovative technology solutions, and unparalleled customer service keep customers' operations running and their people safe.
With over 26,000 employees, Grainger team members are driven to serve customers and the community in exceptional ways focusing on delivering the highest level of service. The Grainger team works closely with customers to better understand their challenges and provide cost-saving solutions. Grainger's employees serve customers more than 115,000 times every day through multiple channels.
As part of a high-performing team, you’ll be able to develop your talents and make a difference. Grainger is a Fortune 500 company in addition to being a perennial member of Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies list. Fortune also recognizes Grainger as one of the Best Workplaces for Woman and one of America’s Most Innovative companies.
They are looking for passionate people who can move their company forward. Grainger has a welcoming workplace where you can build a career for yourself while fulfilling the company’s purpose to keep the world working. They embrace new ways of thinking and recognize everyone is an individual.
AWARDS + RECOGNITION
Grainger is honored to be recognized by influential publications, assessments, and organizations around the world as a responsible company and as a top place to work. Below are a few of the awards they've received, but you can view the full list here.
GRAINGER TECHNOLOGY GROUP
Grainger Technology Group is Grainger’s combined Product & Engineering organization, building and evolving technology solutions that progress and transform Grainger’s core business operations. The group’s 1k+ team members develop and improve Grainger’s tech platforms and custom software across customer experience, team member tools, and core data that runs the organization (for example, customer order systems, pricing systems, merchandising, and customer information systems).
The group’s mission is to advantage Grainger in core operations and value prop to stay ahead of competition and compete with urgency in the rapidly evolving industrial supply digital landscape. We believe in dedicated, empowered product teams who debate respectfully, engage with enthusiasm, and create technology they are proud to see working for our team members and customers.
Grainger's Principles
Start with the Customer:
- We know our customers better than anyone else.
- We anticipate needs and deliver the right solutions to create value.
- We build authentic, transparent, and honest relationships with our customers.
Embrace Curiosity:
- We observe and listen to understand how things work from the ground up.
- We seek different points of view, welcome debate, and value feedback.
- We proactively test new and better ways to solve problems and to continuously improve.
Act with Intent:
- We consistently challenge each other to stay focused on what matters.
- We make the things that matter better.
- We understand our role in delivering our purpose and strategy.
Compete with Urgency:
- We compete to gain share and win in the market.
- We challenge ourselves to move quickly and take smart risks.
- We value facts and measure our success with simple, visible metrics.
Win As One Team:
- We trust each other and assume positive intent.
- We involve the right people at the right time.
- We hold each other accountable and celebrate each other's accomplishments.
Invest in Our Success:
- We seek, provide, and are open to feedback.
- We embrace success and failure with humility.
- We consistently learn and grow.
Do the Right Thing:
- We put integrity, safety, and sustainability at the heart of everything we do.
- We create a welcoming, inclusive culture that accepts and respects all people.
IN THE NEWS
POSITION OVERVIEW
Reporting to the Chief Product Officer, the Vice President, Group Product Manager will lead the development of software solutions built by Grainger Product teams. This role will integrate custom software into Grainger's business process and operations as well as connecting these solutions to the larger software ecosystem. Success for a leader at Grainger means collaborating well with other groups, knowing when to guide and when to listen, and understanding how their work impacts both upstream and downstream processes and technology. Such leaders focus on building smart software across Grainger, rather than just optimizing locally. This doesn’t just end at building software, the ideal candidate will need to consider the enterprise data your software creates, ensuring it is organized and available to teams and applications across Grainger. This role will lead, coach, and manage a team of 10-15 senior product leaders across the work to articulate vision, communicate strategy, and build working software that positively impacts Grainger.
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Software Vision, Strategy & Build:
- Lead product teams through the work of building custom software to support Grainger goals and needs.
- Craft a vision for your product domain(s) and develop a strategy to realize this vision that is well understood by teams and aligned to Grainger needs.
- Work with your product leaders to decompose the strategy into work and roadmaps that connect to our vision, objectives, and outcomes.
- Develop objective measurements for your team’s work and impact to ensure you’re moving in the right direction and help others across and outside GTG see this – we care about driving the right outcomes and results.
- Where appropriate, ensure their product teams federate and share their advantaged data as well-formed and defined data products across Grainger product and business teams.
- Drive effective product team operations, improving ways of working to improve the velocity, quality, and performance of our software.
Tech Strategy:
- Embed AI and Machine Learning capabilities and teams into our product strategy teams, building intelligent capabilities into better outcome systems and more scalable internal tools for team members in product.
- Make decisions on where our teams should build custom software to advantage Grainger while integrating into third-party software where prudent and appropriate.
- Guide your products through their lifecycle, from early concept through maturity and modernization, ensuring quality and evolving ways of working toward best industry practices.
- Engage and collaborate on how your products are built with engineering and ensure your team does the same.
- Foster a culture of agile building, continuous improvement, exploration of new technology, and high-quality code.
Team & Talent Development:
- Develop your team members into confident and engaging product leaders, inspiring them to deliver great products that further our strategy while building a bench of our future talent.
- Drive effective product team operations, improving ways of working to increase the velocity, quality, and performance of our software.
EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS
- Bachelor’s Degree with Master’s degree preferred.
- 15 years Product or Tech leadership experience, including direct leadership of Product and Tech teams.
- 5+ years experience in a senior leadership role, managing large software development teams in a Product model.
- Proficient in leverage AI/ML in Product strategy and working, production software delivering value.
- Relevant experience in MRO or Supply Chain a bonus.
- Successful track record building impactful software, progressively improving its impact leveraging agile approaches in a Product model.
- Proven success in establishing key performance indicators and metrics and focus to driver better software and Product outcomes.
- Demonstrated, strong experience with AI, ML, and Data Analytics with example work to back it up.
- Experience with front-end and back-end web development across mobile, desktop, and app.
CRITICAL COMPETENCIES FOR SUCCESS
Strategic Agility
Be intellectually sharp, deeply curious, and able to think on your feet while demonstrating shrewd business judgement. You’ll need comfort with creating valuable, differentiated tech strategy from some ambiguity. You will have the analytical skills to remove costs from the business, improve productivity, and deliver customer outcomes that elevate Grainger and grow our market share.
Systems Thinking & Process Orientation
Exhibit a strong system design mindset, with the ability to conceptualize, architect, and implement scalable, efficient, and robust software solutions that align with overall business objectives and technology strategies. Pair this with a clear understanding of how core processes at Grainger work, how they can be continuously improved, and leverage that understanding to evolve and optimize both process and technology over time.
Results-Oriented
The Vice President, Group Product Manager must be performance-driven and able to provide measurable results. You will be resourceful, action-oriented, and possess a proactive sense of urgency and the ability to overcome obstacles to produce results. You will be comfortable close to the work, rolling up your sleeves to get things done. Achieving these goals while working in a collaborative environment will require the political savvy to know when to push for action and when to step back to build consensus.
Collaboration, Curiosity, and End-to-End Leadership
Build strong relationships and trust with peer teams inside and outside of GTG to influence Grainger strategy and priorities and evangelize your product vision and strategy. Start with the customer and study every part of how Grainger works; be intensely curious to ensure you understand how our technology, operations, and customers work.
Communication
You should possess strong communication skills across multiple mediums, from live meetings to prose narrative documents, to well-organized and clear slides decks. You’re a great fit if you can partner and align with teams, while asserting a strong opinion when it’s needed and maintaining the respect and rapport you worked hard to build. You should be comfortable, clear, and dynamic in front of internal and external audiences, from your team members to Grainger’s most senior leadership. As you do this, it is also critical to be direct, candid, and always authentic.
Judgment & EQ
The work is challenging, intellectually engaging, and rewarding. You should demonstrate sound judgement to ensure you make the right, forward-thinking decisions about the future of our technology and product strategy. True success will pair this quality strong emotional intelligence. You should have the ability to understand how different partners need to communicate, engaging teams in ways that help them show up as the best version of themselves.
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