Executive Head: Product Development & Innovation

Job Description

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Role Purpose/Business Unit:

• To define, lead, and govern the end to end product development and innovation agenda across all Beyond Connectivity portfolios within Vodacom Business.
• The role is accountable for building a future fit, market leading product and innovation portfolio that drives sustainable revenue growth, differentiation, and ecosystem relevance.
• This includes ownership of:
  
  • The full product and innovation lifecycle - from ideation, incubation, development, commercialisation, in life optimisation, to retirement
  • The innovation strategy, operating model, and pipeline, ensuring a balanced mix of incremental, adjacent, and disruptive innovation
  • Portfolio level commercial performance, scalability, and execution excellence
• The role enables Vodacom Business to anticipate market shifts, unlock new value pools, and continuously evolve beyond core connectivity, while building strong product and innovation leadership capability across the organisation.

Your responsibilities will include:

Product Strategy & Portfolio Ownership

• Define, own, and continuously evolve the Beyond Connectivity product and innovation strategy, aligned to Vodacom Business growth objectives and long term market positioning.
• Own the end to end product and innovation portfolio, ensuring a balanced mix of:
  
  • Core and incremental enhancements
  • Adjacent growth opportunities
  • Transformational and future facing innovations
• Develop and maintain an integrated, multi year product and innovation roadmap across all domains and customer segments.
• Identify, size, and prioritise new value pools, revenue streams, and market opportunities through deep customer insight, market intelligence, and trend analysis.
• Drive clear investment prioritisation and trade off decisions based on strategic relevance, commercial value, scalability, and risk.
• Ensure strong alignment between product strategy, technology capabilities, ecosystem partners, and market demand.

Product Development & Lifecycle Management

• Establish and govern a standardised, enterprise wide product and innovation lifecycle framework, covering ideation through to retirement.
• Oversee the full lifecycle for all products and innovation initiatives, including:
  
  • Customer problem discovery and opportunity definition
  • Ideation, concept validation, and business case development
  • Product development, piloting, and MVP execution
  • Commercialisation and go to market readiness
  • In life performance optimisation and continuous improvement
  • Product and solution rationalisation and retiremen
• Embed customer led, insight driven innovation into all stages of product development.
• Champion agile delivery, design thinking, and lean experimentation, while ensuring enterprise grade scalability, security, and operational readiness.
• Drive speed to market and execution excellence, without compromising quality, compliance, or commercial discipline.

Revenue Growth & Commercial Performance

• Own portfolio level revenue, margin, EBITDA, and profitability performance across all Beyond Connectivity products.
• Drive delivery of agreed commercial KPIs, including pipeline contribution, conversion, adoption, and in life performance.
• Translate innovation initiatives into clear commercial hypotheses, monetisation models, and scalable revenue streams.
• Ensure disciplined transition of innovation initiatives from incubation to fully commercialised, self sustaining products.
• Lead pricing strategy, value based pricing, and commercial model design across the portfolio.
• Enable cross sell, upsell, bundling, and solution led selling across products and customer segments.

Go-to-Market & Sales Enablement

• Define and govern go to market strategies across all products, solutions, and innovation launches.
• Ensure full Product Introduction readiness across sales, delivery, operations, finance, and support.
• Partner closely with Sales and Segment teams to drive pipeline growth, market penetration, and deal conversion.
• Develop and institutionalise repeatable GTM playbooks, value propositions, and sales enablement assets.
• Ensure strong alignment between product strategy and segment strategies (Enterprise, Public Sector, SME, etc.).
• Monitor GTM effectiveness and continuously optimise based on market feedback and performance data.

Governance, Processes & Operating Model

• Define and implement robust product and innovation governance frameworks, including decision forums, stage gates, and approval authorities.
• Establish governance for innovation investment, funding allocation, and risk management, with clear criteria for scaling, pivoting, or exiting initiatives.
• Standardise and govern processes across:
• Product development and lifecycle management
• Innovation incubation and scaling
• Pricing and commercial approvals
• Partner onboarding and management
• Go to market readiness
• Ensure alignment with Vodacom policies, controls, architecture standards, and compliance requirements.
• Create clear accountability, ownership, and performance transparency across Product Managers and cross functional teams.

Stakeholder & Partner Management

• Build strong, trusted relationships with key internal stakeholders across Vodacom.
  
• Lead and manage strategic technology and solution partners, ensuring alignment to product and innovation strategy.
  
• Build and orchestrate innovation ecosystems, including hyperscalers, start ups, ISVs, and industry specialists.
  
• Drive co creation, joint solutions, and partner led innovation, where appropriate.
  
• Influence and align senior executives through strong strategic narratives, data driven insights, and clear recommendations.

Financial & Budget Management

• Own and manage the product and innovation portfolio budget, including investment prioritisation and cost control.
• Develop, review, and approve business cases, ensuring robust ROI, risk assessment, and value realisation tracking.
• Monitor in life financial performance and take corrective action where required.
• Ensure efficient resource allocation across products, innovation initiatives, and teams.
• Identify, manage, and mitigate financial, commercial, and delivery risks across the portfolio.

Leadership & People Management

• Lead, develop, and inspire a high performance Product Management and Innovation organisation.
• Build consistent capability across Product Managers in:
  • Strategic thinking and portfolio management
  • Customer centric innovation
  • Commercial acumen and execution excellence
• Embed a culture of accountability, ownership, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
• Foster psychological safety while maintaining high performance and outcome focus.
• Coach and mentor future fit product and innovation leaders, ensuring succession and long term capability.
• Act as a visible executive role model for adaptive leadership, learning agility, and transformation.

The ideal candidate for this role will have:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering, IT, Computer Science, or related field
• MBA / Postgraduate qualification (Highly desirable)
• 10+ years relevant experience in Product Management / Technology leadership
• Proven experience managing large-scale product portfolios
• Strong background in product lifecycle management and GTM execution
• Experience in enterprise technology, ICT, or digital solutions
• 5+ years leadership experience managing senior Product Managers or multi-functional teams (Desirable)
• Track record of delivering revenue growth and successful product launches

Technical Competencies

• Deep understanding of product lifecycle management frameworks
• Strong commercial acumen (P&L ownership, pricing, ROI)
• Strategic thinking and portfolio management capability
• Strong understanding of enterprise technology ecosystems
• Ability to translate market needs into scalable product strategies
• Experience operating in complex, matrix organisations

Behavioural Competencies

• Customer Focus: Drives customer-centric product innovation
• Accountability: Owns outcomes and performance across the portfolio
• Collaboration: Operates effectively across functions and teams
• Resilience: Navigates complexity and drives transformation
• Strategic Influence: Engages and aligns senior stakeholders
• People Leadership: Builds and develops high-performing teams

Closing date for Applications: 26 May 2026

The base location for this role is Midrand, Vodacom Campus.

The company's approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.
Vodacom is committed to an organisational culture that recognises, appreciates, and values diversity & inclusion.