Group VP, Product Delivery

Who We Are

WillowTree, a TELUS International Company, partners with the world’s leading brands to help them tackle their thorniest challenges - be it launching new digital products, delivering personalized marketing at scale, or harnessing the power of data and AI to transform their business. These mission-critical initiatives aren’t solved by a single discipline. Great digital is a team game - it requires seamlessly combining strategy, engineering, design, data science, marketing, and more. Other firms have bolted on these capabilities - as digital natives, we’ve built them into our teams from Day 1. The result? Top and bottom lines that grow, alongside our client’s capabilities. Check out how we have impacted our clients' digital portfolios over the years.

In January 2023, WillowTree was acquired by TELUS International (Symbol: TIXT). The combined company brings an unparalleled ability to deliver seamless, trusted, digitally-enabled experiences across any channel a customer might choose - be it mobile apps, websites, voice skills, chatbots, email, service agents, or associates.

Location & Flexibility

When team members told us they needed more flexibility and autonomy around where and how they worked, we acted, creating two options to accommodate two different styles of work. One non-negotiable principle along the way? We had to retain our deep culture of collaboration, both among ourselves and with our clients. Introducing Work From Near (Hybrid) at WillowTree. Learn more here.

This position is classified as Work From Near - you will work from a WillowTree office or client location at least three days per week. If you are interested in working from Canada, please apply to the BC posting.

This role may have up to 40% travel each month.

The Opportunity

The Group VP, Delivery is responsible for the performance of all team members who report up directly and indirectly to this leader. They are responsible for the evolution of their discipline, directly through performance management and coaching and indirectly by lending their subject matter expertise and thought leadership in partnership with L&D on training. This leader is responsible for interns & new grads, mentorship in their discipline, allocation (project and bench) and utilization optimization, as well as hiring/firing/promotion decisions in performance management. Within their Branch they are also responsible for client facing relationships with executives on named accounts as identified by themselves, directed by the Account Director/BD lead or requested by the Partners on their teams. With those relationships they’re also responsible for delivery escalation that is beyond the Partners but before the Branch leader. This leader directly manages Partners in their discipline as well as Principal-level individuals as applicable. This position reports to the Branch Leader/Business Unit owner. This is not a billable position. This position is primarily evaluated on the billability and success of their teams with clients as well as their ability to partner with clients to mitigate risk and support the growth of the account through subject matter expertise and consulting.

Responsibilities

• Builds a shared view of vision and goals (and evolution thereof based on how the business and our client’s needs are evolving) to create alignment and understanding of individual contributions within the discipline.
• Drives allocation decisions in a way that employs skills-matching and makes swaps to benefit the most important spots for the firm.
• Effectively recruits, evaluates and makes hiring decisions on candidates, utilizing various methods such as Shop Talks, Test Projects, and Level Decision/Salary Recommendations.
• Monitors escalation situations and takes corrective action where needed with executive client stakeholders and internal teams
• Brings energy to important moments, including new relationships, key presentations, and recovery situations, maintaining a positive attitude and effective communication patterns.
• Delivers performance-related feedback within a discipline, to peers, and upward with grace and clarity.
• Develops a strong understanding of leveraging WillowTree branches (i.e., Marketing Services, Data & AI, etc.) and seeks out new opportunities to expand our offerings.
• Drives thought leadership and contributes to WT's market presence
• Establishes a unified and differentiated culture, accelerating top performers' careers and compensation while overseeing all employment actions for their discipline, such as hiring, terminations, and promotions.
• Drives key business metrics including team satisfaction, team retention, client satisfaction, client retention, billable utilization, revenue retention, while contributing to the definition of Product Delivery's efficacy metrics to assess health and improve the success of our portfolio.

Qualifications

• Experience leading and providing oversight for cross-functional delivery teams in a consulting firm or agency setting, delivering digital products or enabling digital transformation services.
• Demonstrated ability to build relationships with multiple executive partners within a client organization, aligning client needs with firm expertise.
• Experience creating and executing account plans, and managing KPIs or outcome targets across a set of teams.
• Experience both personally building relationships with clients in complex client organizations and coaching teams on client and account management activities.
• Strong executive communication skills in written, verbal, and meeting formats.
• Experience leading teams through excellence in:
• Planning program and/or product roadmaps that include long term strategy and ballpark estimates for client budgeting purposes
• Delivering software through various agile frameworks: Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.
• Running software projects using modern engineering and DevOps practices such as CI/CD, Ensemble Programming
• Balancing multiple priorities by focusing on the golden path
• Experience with team management, proven ability to grow the skill sets and capabilities of a team through effective performance management.
• Experience hiring and building multidisciplinary teams in a growing organization with evolving needs.
• Direct experience with either project management, scrum master, engineering leadership, or product ownership roles delivering digital products.

Why WillowTree?

We offer a place to be yourself.

Our differences, both visible and invisible, benefit our teams, our communities, and the products we craft. That’s why WillowTree strives to build a team with diverse backgrounds, skills, and perspectives. You’ll work hard here; however, we’ll balance that with a culture that supports your growth and cares about your well-being. We’re committed to creating an environment of inclusion — a place where every Tree can thrive.

We want you to reach your fullest potential and part of your professional development at WillowTree will include dedicated time to innovate on passion projects and an annual stipend to fund your professional pursuits.

WillowTree celebrates our differences and provides equal employment opportunities to all team members and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. Diverse teams build better products. We acknowledge that the tech industry especially lacks opportunity for those who are of non-traditional backgrounds and in underrepresented groups. In order to create the best products for everyone, we know that it's important for our team to reflect the diversity of our users, and we are committed to being the change we want to see.