Financial Innovation Lead

**Posting Date**: Jan 31, 2025, 12:45:03 PM

**Primary Location**: Ontario-Ottawa

**Job Type**: Contract

**Schedule**: Full-time

Export Development Canada (EDC) is a financial Crown corporation dedicated to helping Canadian businesses make an impact at home and abroad. EDC offers financial products and knowledge to help Canadian businesses confidently enter new markets, reduce financial risk, and grow their business.

When you join our team, you’ll be helping Canadian businesses learn the endless possibilities that open to them through export and help bring their vision, passion, and innovation to the world. Your knowledge and expertise will support more than 25,000 Canadian businesses and their customers in as many as 200 markets worldwide. You’ll work amongst the best and brightest in an inclusive, collaborative environment that fosters professional development and success. And you’ll know that you’re making an impact every day - for businesses, for Canada and for the people you work with.

Are you ready to make an impact? Join EDC, recognized as a Top 100 and Top Family-Friendly Employer, as we take on the risk so Canadian businesses can take on the world. #LI-Hybrid

**Team & Job Overview**

The Financial Product & Innovation (FPI) team is focused on the holistic execution of product strategies that aligns to the overall EDC vision and mission; driving innovation to ensure EDC delivers products that are valuable to customers, partners, and EDC; championing the product function and product design principles centered on the customer; and providing strategic direction from a product perspective.

FPI’s core Solution Suite Management function strategically manages the entire solution suite of EDC’s products and encompasses three (3) key services: Product Innovation, Product Design, and Product Lifecycle Management.

The team’s main mission is to enable the growth of Canada’s international trade by ensuring both existing and new products align with customer needs and with business strategy. This demands a balance of strategic thinking, understanding the bigger picture, customer empathy, and cross-functional collaboration.

**Currently the team has two contract opening; 1 - 12month contract and 1 - 18 month contract.**

**Key Responsibilities**

Product Management:

- Defines and communicates product vision and strategy in collaboration with product teams
- Monitors and assesses solution suite performance trends to steer product choices that align to business strategy and strategic shifts
- Manages identification and resolution of risks, issues, dependencies, and constraints, escalating where appropriate
- Works closely with the product teams to determine and adapt product parameters based on product design principles

Customer Focus:

- Represents the voice of the customer in product discussions and ensures decisions are data-driven and informed by user feedback
- Proactively monitors products and drives product discovery to recommend iterative choices based on customer needs and user behaviour
- Conducts market research to gain deep understanding of the customer/end user’s needs and identify trends and make informed recommendations

Strategic Planning:

- Facilitates prioritization and simplifies choice-making for product investments based on the potential impact, market opportunities they introduce, and strategic importance to overarching business objectives
- Assesses benefits/risks including evaluation of trade-offs to determine/maintain ideal balance between existing products, new product development, and product retirement

Stakeholder Management:

- Frames and leads discussions with key business stakeholders to assess opportunities, make data-driven recommendations, and build consensus on product-driven initiatives
- Collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders including banks, private sector companies, not-for-profits, government departments, as well as EDC business leaders, marketing, business development, IT and other multi-disciplinary teams to achieve business objectives

Innovation:

- Manages the identification, prioritization, and validation of opportunities for development of new or enhancement of financial solutions
- Drives innovation within the solution suite through creative market-needs hypotheses

**Screening Criteria**
- Undergraduate degree in Commerce, Business Administration, Marketing, Finance or another related field
- Minimum of 5 years of experience including but not limited to product management and/or product development, innovation, solution delivery, and financial industry
- Knowledge of financial products (lending, insurance, guarantees, equity) and international trade
- Ability to analyze complex data, understand market trends, and execute strategic direction
- Customer-centric mindset to focus on financial products that deliver value to customers/end users and solve their problems

**Assets**
- Bilingual in both official languages (French and English)
- MBA (or other