Yardi Product Owner - Data and Analytics, Real Assets

Job description

Yardi Product Owner - Data and Analytics, Real Assets

The Role

This role primarily supports Aviva Investors Real Assets (AIRA).  As the Product Owner you will be the advocate for significant change and impact, making a substantial difference to the success of a team and therefore the Real Assets business.  You will develop product strategies in collaboration with key business, propositions and IT stakeholders and champion change and drive Yardi Voyager to meet the changing needs of Aviva Investors and the industry. 

The Team

AIRA is the illiquid assets division of AI, covering Direct Real Estate, Private Debt and Infrastructure. This enables investors to gain multi asset and single asset class exposure across Real Estate Debt and Equity, Infrastructure Debt and Equity, Structured Finance, Private Corporate Debt, RELI and Multi-Asset. The portfolio is currently c£43 billion invested across these asset classes.

The team is based in London, Norwich, Paris, Frankfurt and Toronto and travel will be required as and when appropriate

Responsibilities

Strategy

• Responsible for developing and conveying the vision and functional elements necessary to deliver the strategy and goals for Yardi Voyager
• Assess and review new Yardi products and other products to ensure Yardi Voyager is the best it can be.

BAU

• Continual oversight of ongoing system support and development
• Involved and sometimes rollout systems that impact on a business process for example DocuSign
• Keep abreast of product management best practices; Agile and Scrum methodologies
• Take responsibility for an annual Yardi Voyager system Disaster Recovery review.
• Ensure the delivery of consistent high-quality data, so that Yardi Voyager can be used as the single source of truth.

Development

• Key contact and business lead for the development and ongoing maintenance of Yardi Voyager and modules relating to the system and platforms (Yardi Intranet).
• Responsible for the ongoing development of the Yardi roadmap, planning and assessing the impact of change and managing releases into the production environment
• in collaboration with key business, propositions and IT stakeholders.
• Responsible for all change affecting Yardi within an Agile/Scrum delivery environment
• Responsibility for owning and prioritising the Yardi backlog, developing epics and user stories based. Ensuring that stories are made ‘play ready’ at the appropriate time and that the appropriate SME resource is made available to support developments within each sprint
• Define and document business requirements using epics/stories to meet the business goals
• Manage and control the project costs and negotiate the best price for the scope of works to be delivered.
• Prepare training guides and adapt processes as the business evolves and manage training for all users of Yardi Voyager
• Responsibility for an annual Yardi Voyager system upgrade and ensure all changes have been tested thoroughly before deployment to LIVE.
• Work with the Real Estate team on rolling out current and future strategies such as PM Plus
• Business lead in understanding Yardi Voyager requirements for interacting with new systems. E.g. Anaplan, Argus Enterprises, eDocs, DocuSign, Data Lake, Qlik.

Stakeholder Management

• Communicate the Yardi product vision and strategy to internal and external stakeholders
• Work closely and collaboratively with Real Asset Transformation team, Business stakeholders, Subject Matter Experts, and the IT team to deliver Yardi Development
• Own the Yardi Supplier relationship and negotiate change and effective modification to meet business needs.

Steering committees

• Represent the Yardi Team on appropriate steering committees with other UK Landlords to drive the Yardi relationship forward in line with industry needs. 
• Management steering committees for larger project implementations.
• Work with the Group/CISO to ensure that group strategies are implemented for example IT security – MFA

People Management

• Manage the AI Yardi Support team and their workloads
• Indirectly manage the 1st level Helpdesk support and identify any resourcing issues
• Manage the Yardi Voyager developer
• Managing project working groups and project work streams for each project.
• Mentoring indirect reports with technical and business knowledge to help ensure that inputs & outputs meet quality standards and to share technical knowledge across teams & departments

Requirements

• Relevant professional qualification or experience.
• Thorough knowledge of the Yardi Voyager system and its modules
• Experience of gathering of gather requirements from users, scope them out and translate them for a developer to deliver an output
• Thorough knowledge of Property Management
• Thorough knowledge of accounting principles
• Strong audit and compliance knowledge to be able to implementing robust procedures and strengthen controls.
• Track record in leading and managing teams.
• Excellent understanding of how systems interface with each other to facilitate the transfer of data efficiently.
• Able to demonstrate continued professional development / a track record in proactive skills and professional development
• Excellent organisational skills with the ability to prioritise, plan and adapt to best use resources
• Able to demonstrate excellent proactive stakeholder management skills for all levels of the business
• Demonstrable track record of change delivery and leading projects
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with the ability to build strong relationships and work well both individually and as part of a team
• Ability to translate semi-technical information into usable and actionable information for non-technical stakeholders.
• Track record in successfully delivering products and projects.
• Ability to foster an innovative and proactive working culture via strong leadership.
• Ability to challenge the status quo

About us

We are a global asset manager with broad and deep expertise across all major asset classes. As part of the Aviva Group – the UK’s largest insurance company – we are uniquely positioned to combine our insurance heritage with our investment capabilities to deliver the outcomes that matter most to today’s investor.

Today’s investors are asking more questions than ever. They expect more from their asset managers. They want joined-up thinking fit for an interconnected world; integrated solutions with their needs firmly at the heart. We’re challenging ourselves to respond to these new expectations – as well as the changes taking place in our industry and the world around us.  About us

Inclusion and diversity

More than 1,500 people work across the globe, bringing it all together for today’s investor. True integrated advantage starts with our culture.

When everyone feels part of a unified team, in an environment of fairness, inclusion and positivity, we all achieve more. Integrated advantage is created when everyone feels stronger together - with no barriers to their ability to contribute, collaborate and succeed.  Our Culture

You will be assessed against the Aviva values: care more, kill complexity, never rest and create legacy.