Product Manager

**Description**

**Being part of Air Canada is to become part of an iconic Canadian symbol, recently ranked the best Airline in North America. Let your career take flight by joining our diverse and vibrant team at the leading edge of passenger aviation.**

The evolution of the travel distribution ecosystem has been driven by technologies that allow airlines to better sell and market their products. Air Canada is taking the lead to shape a modernized cost-effective distribution ecosystem using technologies such as Routehappy and New Distribution Capability (NDC) to offer a global program expanding the reach and richness of its content across direct and indirect channels. The goal is to move from the legacy, passive, and rigid distribution technologies to a more flexible, dynamic, and passenger-centric distribution environment.

The Product Distribution and Payments team is looking for an experienced, detail-oriented, and motivated individual to lead the NDC Product Team and the execution of the NDC roadmap aiming to achieve the product vision and to improve customers' booking experience, product capabilities, and increase revenues.

**Responsibilities**:

- Work with senior leadership to define and create the NDC product strategy and roadmap aligning with the organization's strategic goals.
- Responsible for creating and delivering the NDC product roadmap feature backlog. Set the NDC product increment objectives and champion the product vision throughout collaboration with IT teams and across the organization.
- Gather and analyze market and customer requirements working in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders to drive product roadmap and priorities features.
- Report to senior management NDC roadmap progress aligning with the program KPI metrics. Identify risks, and recommend mitigation plans to secure project deliverables.
- Unceasingly conduct research and in-depth analysis of market trends, competitive landscape, customer needs, third party providers, and emerging technologies to identify new opportunities and plan a course of action.
- Participate in the decision-making process regarding key distribution initiatives, to develop a distribution competitive advantage and to increase channel performance and adoption.
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams across the organization such as NDC implementation team, solution architects, revenue management, senior management, and other stakeholders to ensure capabilities, scalability and technical requirement are aligned with the long-term product vision goals.
- Responsible for developing and implementing change management strategies to execute process improvements and adopt new technologies.
- Responsible for defining and leading initiatives to gain valuable insights on sellers and NDC channel performance. Develop channel analytics and a better understanding of customer behaviors, conversion rates, look to book ratio on this fast-evolving channel.
- Coach the NDC team to deliver a product which is compliant with IATA industry standards, while aiming to become a leader in distribution innovations, and to ensure that solutions are aligned with the Air Canada distribution goals.
- Responsible for creating and delivering effective NDC communication materials like product briefs, channel performance dashboards, and KPIs to inform and engage relevant teams about upcoming changes and new capabilities, and their expected impacts and benefits to customers and the company.
- Represent Air Canada at IATA working groups to bring new ideas and use cases to address industry problems, to influence the NDC journey, and to convey AC interests.
- Stay up to date with industry best practices, new technologies, and emerging trends in distribution, and proactively share the knowledge and market insights with the team and across the organization.
- Responsible for leading and coaching a team of two product owners who are the guardians of the NDC product integrity and are responsible for managing the roadmap deliverables.
- Responsible for transforming the team mindset and processes to deliver true customer centric solutions.

**Qualifications**
- University degree in Business, Computer Science, IT, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience as a product manager or product owner or business analyst with a focus on Application Program Interfaces (APIs).
- Good knowledge of XML is required and ability to manage complex projects and business flows.
- Working knowledge of NDC technology and standards desired.
- Experience working with Agile methodologies is a plus.
- Experience working with software development tools like JIRA and Confluence.
- Experience managing product discovery sessions.
- Innovative and creative mindset with ability to develop new business opportunities.
- Ability to provide clear direction and effective communication to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong leadership/coaching skills and experience leading a team of product owne