Head of Product Operations & Strategy, Office of the President (Manufacturing Operations)

Company Description QAD is building a world-class SaaS company, providing enterprise software solutions globally. We are a virtual-first company, enabling our team to work primarily from home, while fostering a collaborative culture focused on growth, innovation, and well-being. We value diversity and strive for an inclusive environment where everyone feels empowered to contribute to our success. Job Description The Opportunity: Be The Active Copilot This is a high-impact leadership role for a product leader who wants to operate at GM altitude. You will serve as the strategic co-pilot to the President of our Manufacturing ERP business during a period of major transformation—cloud modernization, go-to-market acceleration, and an AI-native product shift. This is not an observer role. You will sit in decision rooms, drive strategy artifacts, unblock execution, and own outcomes. Who You Are You are a product thinker at heart. You have managed roadmaps, wrestled with prioritization, and shipped features. Now, you want to zoom out. You possess insatiable intellectual curiosity. You are the person who reads white papers on weekends, tests new AI tools for fun, and constantly asks, "Why do we do it this way?" This is not a traditional PMO / Program Manager role. You are expected to have product judgment and be able to make calls. You will be accountable for strategy outputs and business results, not meeting coordination. The Core Mission Your primary mandate is to operationalize the President's vision. You will bring "Product Thinking" to the business itself. You will treat the organization as a system that needs to be optimized, debugged, and scaled. Key Responsibilities 1.From Reactive to Proactive (The System Architect) • Drive the strategy operating system” • Define & maintain the strategy stack: Narrative Customer segmentation Portfolio bets Roadmap Metrics Commercial model • Own the monthly strategy review: tradeoff decisions, kill lists, acceleration decisions • Drive product portfolio governance (what gets built vs stopped) • Predictive Intelligence: Instead of waiting for the P&L to show a problem, you will build "early warning systems" using leading indicators in pipeline, usage data, and sentiment. This allows us to course-correct months in advance. • Cross-BU Alignment: We operate within a larger enterprise. You will manage the diplomacy and connection points with other Business Units to ensure we leverage shared resources and do not reinvent the wheel. 2. Strategic Force Multiplier (The Copilot) • Proxy & Decision Making: You will sit in for the President in critical meetings with the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and cross-functional peers. You are empowered to make decisions, not just take notes. • The "Unblocker": Transformation creates friction. You will identify where the business is stuck. Whether it is a stalled product launch, a sales-enablement gap, or a hiring bottleneck, you will deploy the resources needed to clear the path. • Sounding Board: You provide a safe, intellectual space for the President to stress-test ideas. You challenge assumptions with data and "Product Sense" before strategies are rolled out to the wider team. 3. Efficiency & Innovation (The Modernizer) • AI & Operational Leverage: You are intellectually curious and tech-savvy. You will lead the charge on integrating AI and automation across to increase velocity in all areas of the business. • Information Architecture: You ensure the President is the best-informed person in the room by synthesizing complex data from all components of the business unit into clear and actionable insights. The "Product Sense" We Need • Strategy over Tactics: You do not just execute tasks. You understand why the task matters to the customer and the bottom line. • Customer Centricity: Even though this is an internal role, you obsess over the "Customer Experience" of the employees and stakeholders interacting with the President’s office. • Prioritization: You ruthlessly prioritize the President’s focus using frameworks like RICE to ensure we are working on the highest-value transformation levers. Qualifications The Ideal Candidate Experience: • 7+ years in product management / product operations & strategy • Former Group PM / Director PM / Head of Product • Has owned roadmap + shipped + carried a business number • Has worked with GTM and knows adoption + monetization First 90 Days (How you will win) • 30 days: learn the terrain, map constraints, define the portfolio, stand up the decision dashboard • 60 days: launch 2 force-multiplier programs (Product Operation / Product maturity model implementation + AI adoption/attach system) • 90 days: show measurable improvement in throughput + decision speed + execution predictability Not a Fit If… • You’re primarily a program manager / meeting runner • You have not owned product outcomes or roadmap tradeoffs • You avoid conflict-driven prioritization (“saying no” is part of the job) AI-First Product Mindset: You understand what it means to build in an AI-native world—not just bolt AI onto legacy workflows. You know how to: • Identify where machine intelligence can remove toil, accelerate workflows, or change user behavior. • Work with LLMs, agents, embeddings, retrieval systems, and automation patterns at a conceptual level. • Design products that blend predictive, prescriptive, and agentic intelligence into the core experience, not as an afterthought. • Validate AI use cases through experiments, data, and fast feedback loops. • Apply judgment around AI feasibility, guardrails, hallucination mitigation, and responsible deployment. • Translate ambiguous AI opportunities into clear problem definitions and measurable value. • create agent success metrics (deflection, cycle time reduction, OTIF uplift, etc.) You don’t need to be an ML engineer, but you must understand AI deeply enough to make intelligent product decisions, challenge engineering teams, and see second-order effects ahead of others. Domain Aptitude: You have an affinity for complex B2B ecosystems like ERP, Supply Chain, or Manufacturing. You enjoy the intellectual challenge of “hard” industries where constraints, edge cases, and real-world operations matter. High Agency: You see a problem and own the solution. You act with urgency. You do not wait for permission to fix a broken process or to propose a better way. Transformation Warrior: You are comfortable with ambiguity and energized by environments where the playbook is being written in real time. You bring structure to chaos and clarity to complexity. Overcommunicator: You leave nothing to guess. You communicate consistently, proactively, and translate across functions—engineering, sales, services, marketing, finance—with precision. Strategic Mobility (Travel): You understand that transformation cannot be run from behind a desk. You are willing to travel (30%) to spend time with customers, shadow field teams, support leadership offsites, and anchor strategy in live ground truth. Additional Information • Your health and well being are important to us at QAD. We provide programs that help you strike a healthy work-life balance. • Opportunity to join a growing business, launching into its next phase of expansion and transformation. • Collaborative culture of smart and hard-working people who support one another to get the job done. • An atmosphere of growth and opportunity, where idea-sharing is always prioritized over level or hierarchy. COMPENSATION PACKAGE: • Base pay range: $140,000.00 - $160,000.00 USD Annual (12 Months) • This position is also eligible for the annual company bonus. • Placement within our pay range will vary based on knowledge, skills, experience, and market location variations as well as internal peer equity • U.S. benefits package includes medical, dental and vision coverage, a 401(k) plan with company match, short-term and long-term disability coverage, life insurance, paid-time off, parental leave, and well-being programs About QAD: QAD | Redzone is redefining manufacturing and supply chains through its intelligent, adaptive platform that connects people, processes, and data into a single System of Action. With three core pillars — Redzone (frontline empowerment), Adaptive Applications (the intelligent backbone), and Champion AI (Agentic AI for manufacturing) — QAD | Redzone helps manufacturers operate with Champion Pace, achieving measurable productivity, resilience, and growth in just 90 days. QAD is committed to ensuring that every employee feels they work in an environment that values their contributions, respects their unique perspectives and provides opportunities for growth regardless of background. QAD’s DEI program is driving higher levels of diversity, equity and inclusion so that employees can bring their whole self to work. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, sex, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a veteran, and basis of disability or any other federal, state or local protected class. #LI-Remote Apply tot his job