Product Owner

Role Overview

Product Owner at Wasl, Dubai. Reports to Tribe Lead within the Business Excellence & Transformation Department. No direct reports.

Company Overview

Wasl was founded on May 25, 2008, from the union of the Dubai Development Board and Real Estate Department, with the mission to transform Dubai into a more captivating destination for residents, businesses, and visitors. Today, Wasl stands as a cornerstone of Dubai's real estate landscape and one of the city's largest and most diversified real estate management companies, overseeing an expansive portfolio of landmark assets entrusted by DREC and other esteemed partners. The organization comprises real estate, asset management, property management, hospitality, leisure, entertainment, and corporate functions, operating in a matrix environment across multiple business portfolios and transformation priorities.

Role Purpose

The Product Owner acts as the transformation and product partner for assigned business areas—Leasing, Freehold Sales, Asset Management Services and Solutions, Land, Hospitality, and other Group functions—developing a strong understanding of business priorities, processes, customer needs, and operational challenges, translating them into prioritized requirements, product roadmaps, and technology-enabled solutions. The role manages the product lifecycle from requirements and solution design through delivery, testing, business readiness, adoption, and benefits realization, influencing cross-functional teams and stakeholders to deliver measurable business outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

Stakeholder Engagement and Partnership

• Act as the primary transformation and product partner for assigned business portfolios, understanding their strategic objectives, processes, customer journeys, challenges, and future requirements.
• Build strong relationships with business leaders, process owners, IT teams, consultants, and enabling functions to maintain alignment throughout the product and transformation lifecycle.
• Lead requirements workshops, stakeholder interviews, process reviews, and customer journey mapping sessions to identify and validate business needs.
• Act as the key liaison between business stakeholders, IT, implementation partners, vendors, and other functions during solution design and delivery.
• Collaborate with Change Management teams to assess impacts, support adoption, and address readiness or resistance concerns.

Requirements and Process Analysis

• Analyse As-Is processes and collaborate with Business Excellence to design standardized and improved To-Be processes.
• Gather, document, validate, and prioritize business requirements based on strategic alignment, customer value, operational impact, risk, feasibility, and dependencies.
• Translate business requirements into functional specifications, product features, user stories, acceptance criteria, process flows, wireframes, and high-level technical requirements.

Product Management and Governance

• Own and maintain the product backlog, roadmap, enhancement pipeline, and release priorities for assigned products and transformation initiatives.
• Review proposed solutions, system configurations, workflows, integrations, and prototypes to confirm alignment with approved business requirements and intended outcomes.
• Participate in Agile ceremonies, backlog refinement, sprint planning, product demonstrations, release planning, and governance reviews.
• Prepare business cases, recommendations, governance reports, dashboards, and presentations for the Tribe Lead, steering committees, and senior leadership.

Solution Delivery and Testing

• Support delivery teams by clarifying requirements, resolving functional issues, coordinating decisions, and escalating risks, dependencies, scope concerns, and resource constraints.
• Co-lead User Acceptance Testing, including test planning, scenario development, business-user coordination, defect validation, acceptance decisions, and sign-off.
• Accept completed features or recommend corrective action within delegated authority.

Business Readiness and Change

• Coordinate business readiness activities, including process documentation, training requirements, data readiness, stakeholder communication, and cutover preparation.

Performance and Continuous Improvement

• Define and monitor relevant KPIs, product adoption, customer experience, operational performance, and benefits realization following implementation.
• Identify continuous improvement opportunities and maintain a prioritized pipeline of future enhancements, automation initiatives, and product improvements.

Compliance and Risk Management

• Ensure requirements and solutions comply with relevant cybersecurity, data privacy, regulatory, internal control, and data governance requirements.
• Escalate unresolved risks, dependencies, scope conflicts, and major stakeholder decisions.

Qualifications & Experience

Essential

• Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Real Estate, or a related discipline.
• 5–7 years of relevant experience in product ownership, digital transformation, business analysis, process improvement, project delivery, or enterprise solution implementation.
• Experience in requirements gathering, business process analysis, user-story development, backlog management, solution validation, and User Acceptance Testing.
• Experience coordinating business stakeholders, IT teams, consultants, vendors, and cross-functional project teams.
• Working knowledge of Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies, product governance, release planning, risk management, and requirements traceability.
• Functional understanding of enterprise platforms such as SAP S/4HANA, Salesforce, ERP, CRM, CAFM, workflow automation, or comparable systems.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, facilitation, presentation, documentation, negotiation, and stakeholder-influencing skills.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, operate effectively in ambiguity, and influence stakeholders without direct authority.

Desirable

• Master's degree in Business Administration, Digital Transformation, Information Technology, Engineering, Real Estate, or a related discipline.
• Professional certification in Product Ownership, Agile, Scrum, Business Analysis, Project Management, Lean Six Sigma, Design Thinking, or Change Management.
• Experience supporting real estate transformation, SAP S/4HANA, Salesforce, or large-scale enterprise platform implementation.
• Experience with Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Visio, Lucidchart, Bizagi, Figma, Balsamiq, Adobe XD, Power BI, Tableau, Microsoft Power Platform, or similar tools.
• Knowledge of APIs, middleware, data governance, master data, reporting, and basic SQL concepts.

Skills & Competencies

Advanced Level

• Product Ownership: Manage product vision, backlog, roadmap, user stories, acceptance criteria, and release priorities.
• Business Analysis and Process Redesign: Analyse business needs, map As-Is and To-Be processes, and identify improvement opportunities.
• Requirements Management: Elicit, document, validate, prioritize, and maintain traceability of business and functional requirements.
• Digital Transformation: Support technology-enabled initiatives that improve customer experience, efficiency, controls, and performance.
• Agile and Hybrid Delivery: Apply Agile, Waterfall, and hybrid methodologies across planning, delivery, testing, and governance.
• Enterprise Platforms: Apply functional knowledge of ERP, CRM, CAFM, SAP S/4HANA, Salesforce, and workflow platforms.
• User Acceptance Testing: Plan and coordinate UAT, validate defects, manage acceptance criteria, and facilitate business sign-off.
• Benefits Realization: Define KPIs, monitor adoption and performance, and assess whether solutions deliver intended outcomes.
• Stakeholder Management: Influence stakeholders and coordinate business teams, IT, consultants, vendors, and implementation partners.
• Analytical Problem-Solving: Apply root-cause analysis, critical thinking, data interpretation, and structured decision-making.

Intermediate Level

• User Experience and Prototyping: Develop customer journeys, process flows, wireframes, and low-fidelity solution prototypes.
• Systems Integration and Data Concepts: Understand APIs, integrations, middleware, master data, reporting, and data flows at a functional level.

Additional Information

Internal Working Relationships

Tribe Lead, Business Excellence & Transformation Leadership, Information Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, Data and Analytics, Finance, Procurement, Legal, Human Resources, Change Management, Risk and Compliance, Internal Audit, Leasing, Freehold Sales, Asset Management Services and Solutions, Land, Property Management, Hospitality, Leisure, Subsidiaries, Department Heads, Process Owners, Project Teams, and Business Users.

External Working Relationships

Technology Vendors, System Integrators, Implementation Partners, Consulting Firms, Software Providers, Service Providers, Government Entities, Regulatory Authorities, and Industry Associations.

Decision-Making Authority

Within approved governance and delegated authority, the Product Owner may prioritize and refine product backlog items; recommend product, feature, release, and enhancement priorities; validate functional designs and proposed solutions against approved requirements; define business acceptance criteria and coordinate business testing and readiness; and accept completed features or recommend corrective action. Significant investment decisions, major scope changes, enterprise architecture exceptions, contractual commitments, and regulatory matters are escalated to the Tribe Lead or relevant governance forum.

Financial Responsibilities

The role does not normally hold independent budget approval authority but supports the financial management of assigned products and transformation initiatives. Contributes to business cases, cost-benefit assessments, investment