SVP, Product Strategy & Experience

The Senior Vice President (SVP), Product Strategy and Experience, ensures the long-term success of the Association's product portfolio by deeply understanding opportunities and challenges, setting strategic direction, and developing standard practices and guidelines. This role will define and lead the long-term product strategy and experience vision across the Association's learning, certification, and digital platforms and partner with the executive leadership team to align product strategy with organizational priorities, advocacy efforts, and member value.

In addition, the SVP will oversee market analysis, competitive intelligence, and customer insights to guide portfolio decisions and innovation roadmaps and develop business cases and go-to-market strategies for new or enhanced products that drive growth and industry relevance. This role will lead analysis and studies to evaluate the current state and areas of opportunity, assess the consumer/market environment, and identify future trends to prioritize and make recommendations. The SVP will work with product line owners to define product roadmaps and integrate them into a comprehensive, aligned, and consistent roadmap portfolio. The SVP will also own the product technology platform, collaborating with the Technology team to deliver the platform capability.

The Integrated Product Management (IPM) function within the Business Services Department at the National Restaurant Association blends product strategy, development, marketing, sales enablement, and customer success alignment into a cohesive system. IPM has several focus areas:

• Customer and Market Alignment: Ensure product strategy is anchored in customer needs, market demand, and competitive positioning.
• Cross-Functional Integration: Break down silos between strategy, development, marketing, and sales so product decisions are unified and execution is seamless.
• End-to-End Product Ownership: Manage the product lifecycle from ideation to design to build to launch to scale and finally retirement.
• Value Realization: Maximize customer value (adoption, outcomes, satisfaction) while driving business value (revenue, margins, growth).
• Agility and Responsiveness: Enable the organization to adapt quickly to shifts in customer expectations, technology, and regulatory environments.
• Voice of the Customer and Market: Serve as the central translator of customer insights into actionable strategy and execution priorities.

Key Responsibilities

Portfolio Strategy

• Serve as a bridge between/across product lines and the Association's leadership. Work with product line managers to incorporate product strategies and roadmaps into a comprehensive product portfolio strategy and integrated roadmap.
• Align with Marketing and IT to define and communicate ways of working for product design and development.
• Own the product technology platform, ensuring full functionality and capability in collaboration with the Technology team.
• Develop, manage, and communicate vision, strategies, and outcomes for the National Restaurant Association's product portfolio that are aligned to enterprise strategies and market insights.
• Design, define, communicate, and manage portfolio investment strategies; align with Finance on budgeting and funding.
• Manage the prioritization of product portfolio initiatives.
• Define, communicate, implement, and govern ways of working for product management.
• Identify, prioritize, and test new product opportunities.
• Identify partner opportunities and manage industry and vendor relationships (e.g., product panels, LMS vendors) for the product portfolio.

Product Research and Analytics

• Lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for product innovation, user experience design, and lifecycle management.
• Champion a customer-centric, data-informed approach to product development and continuous improvement.
• Manage and communicate the collection, analysis, and insights associated with product, platform, and industry knowledge. This will include analysis and evaluation of current strategies, as well as the identification of potential new markets, segments, products, and ways of doing business.
• Collaborate with the Learning and Certification, Membership, and Technology teams to integrate solutions and experiences across platforms.
• Identify opportunities for cross-selling and product bundling.
• Provide modeling for product revenue, ROI, and pricing scenarios.
• Align with the Data team on product data strategy, information needs, and data standards.

Go-To-Market (GTM) Strategies

• Incorporate analytics and insights into GTM planning.
• Coordinate GTM execution across functional areas.
• Align across functional teams to develop GTM strategies.
  
  
  
  • Marketing - segment, channel, and communication strategies
  • Product - product and feature releases; cross-selling, bundling; pricing strategies
  • Finance - budgets and funding; pricing strategies
  • Operations - customer support
  • IT - release and onboarding plans; adoption/migration plans; version control and sunsetting
  
  
  
  

Experience and Product Design

• Define and manage product and platform experience strategies for the portfolio and communicate standards.
• Design and manage content, assessment, certification, and instructional design strategies and outcomes.
• Identify opportunities for new content areas and content reuse.
• Align with Operations on physical delivery and fulfillment strategies.
• Align with Brand on design and usability standards and product and platform experience strategies for the portfolio.
• Design product and platform experiences, including customer journeys and user flows.
• Align product platform experience to product usage.
• Define user experience requirements for product development initiatives.
• Develop wireframes and design/style guides, as required.

Organizational Cross-Functional Leadership

• Serve as a key member of the senior leadership team, contributing to enterprise strategy, culture, and operational excellence.
• Partner with the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Marketing Officer to deliver seamless digital journeys, intuitive design systems, and personalized user experiences.
• Ensure robust governance, prioritization, and portfolio management processes that balance innovation, quality, and ROI.
• Build and mentor a high-performing, collaborative team with clear accountabilities, career paths, and success measures.

Stakeholder Engagement and External Leadership

• Engage with restaurant operators, state associations, training partners, and industry experts to anticipate emerging needs.
• Represent the Association in public forums, partner discussions, and thought leadership venues related to product innovation.
• Cultivate relationships with external vendors, platforms, and strategic partners to extend reach and capability.

Required Qualifications

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in business, strategy, design, or related field preferred.
• 15+ years of progressive leadership experience in product management, experience design, or strategy-preferably in learning, certification, membership, or digital services organizations-with at least 5 years in a senior executive role.

• Proven success managing product portfolios and digital ecosystems with significant revenue and mission impact.
• Strong background in experience strategy, UX/UI principles, and customer journey design.
• Experience in association management, workforce training, or credentialing preferred.

Skills and Competencies

• Strategic thinker with strong business acumen and design sensibility.
• Expertise in product lifecycle management, market insight, and modern product development/agile practices.
• Exceptional leadership and communication skills; able to influence across functions and levels.
• Executive-level communication and storytelling skills to engage boards, partners, and key customers.
• Effective oral and written communication skills across all levels of the Association and with customers. Ability to write presentations that communicate and support recommendations and key findings.
• Deep understanding of digital platforms, learning technologies, and user analytics.
• Collaborative, innovative, and member-focused mindset.
• Demonstrated ability to translate insights into actionable growth strategies.
• Strong general business acumen with the ability to take conceptual strategies and ideas and break them down to the underlying business and financial framework and determine the key drivers of various business strategies and ideas.
• Strong financial modeling skills.
• Ability to determine research that is necessary to objectively evaluate a new market or opportunity.
• Skilled in data-driven decision-making using analytics for segmentation, pricing, and customer insights.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively lead teams and influence others.
• Strong people leadership skills: hiring, developing, and retaining diverse, high-performing teams.
• Ability to handle multiple projects and tasks simultaneously.
• Familiarity with digital learning platforms, LMS systems, and learner analytics.
• Fundamental Restaurant industry knowledge is a plus.
• Ability to travel as needed, estimate 10%-55%.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities

The National Restaurant Association, National Restaurant Association Solutions, LLC, and The National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (together, "Company") is committed to equal employment opportunity, and it is Company's policy to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

It is our policy to recruit, hire, train, and promote persons in all job titles, and ensure that all other personnel actions are administered, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status and disability, or other legally protected status, and we will ensure that all employment decisions are based only on valid job requirements.

This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws.

For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.