Director, Product Management — Airfield Business Line

POSITION SUMMARY

ADB SAFEGATE is the market leader in airfield ground lighting, control systems and airside solutions, operating in more than 150 countries. The Airfield Business Line is in the middle of a deliberate transformation: taking products that the market has historically treated as commoditized hardware and turning them into connected, digitally enabled assets that generate data, insight and measurable operational outcomes for airports.

We are looking for an experienced product leader to own that transition commercially. The Director, Product Management is accountable for the strategy, portfolio economics and market success of the full airfield hardware portfolio — lights, power, signs, PAPI and connecting to the layers built on top of them. This is a classic product management leadership role: you own the problem definition, the business case, the roadmap, the launch and the in-life performance of the portfolio, and you lead the people who do that work.

You will be the commercial counterweight to engineering — the person who ensures we build what the market will pay for, in a globally differentiated market where requirements, certification regimes and buying behaviour differ sharply between the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Portfolio strategy and business direction

• Own the portfolio strategy. Define and maintain a multi-year product and portfolio strategy for the Airfield Business Line, grounded in segmentation, competitive analysis and a clear view of where we choose to lead, follow or exit.

• Shape global business strategy. Contribute directly to business line strategy alongside engineering, operations, sales and finance leadership; bring the outside-in market view that anchors investment decisions.

• Manage a globally differentiated market. Translate one global platform strategy into regionally credible propositions — balancing ICAO, FAA and national requirements, regional certification paths, price points and channel realities without fragmenting the portfolio.

• Own portfolio economics. Be accountable for pricing architecture, margin management, product cost roadmaps, lifecycle and phase-out decisions, and the return on R&D investment across the portfolio.

Digital transformation of the portfolio

• Drive the shift from hardware to outcomes. Lead the commercial redefinition of the portfolio from discrete hardware sales toward connected assets, recurring software and service revenue, and outcome-based propositions for availability, maintenance and energy efficiency.

• Build the value case. Define and evidence the customer value of digitally enabled products — what decision does the data support, what does it save the airport, and what will they pay for it.

• Champion new business models. Develop and test subscription, SaaS and service-attached commercial models alongside the traditional capital equipment business, and build the internal capability to sell them.

• Integrate hardware and software roadmaps. Ensure the physical and digital roadmaps are planned as one portfolio, not two parallel programmes.

Bringing products to market

• Own end-to-end delivery to market. Take products from idea through business case, development, certification, launch and in-life management; be the accountable product voice at every quality gate of the product development process.

• Lead go-to-market. Own value propositions, positioning, launch plans, pricing, sales enablement and commercial documentation in partnership with marketing, sales and service.

• Close the loop with customers. Engage directly with airport operators, engineering consultants, contractors and regulators to validate direction, run pilots and secure reference accounts.

• Measure what you launch. Establish and report portfolio KPIs — revenue and margin by family, launch performance against business case, adoption, attach rate and customer satisfaction — and act on them.

People leadership

• Lead and grow the product organisation. Manage, coach and develop a distributed team of product managers and product owners; set clear role definitions, expectations and career paths.

• Raise product management maturity. Embed consistent product management practice — discovery, business cases, roadmapping, lifecycle governance — and build the discipline as a recognised commercial capability within the business line.

• Lead without authority. Drive alignment across R&D, operations, supply chain, quality, service and regional sales, including in situations where you influence rather than instruct.

• Build succession and bench strength. Attract and retain product talent, and develop successors for key portfolio roles.

Regulatory and compliance stewardship

• Design for a regulated market. Ensure products meet safety, certification, cybersecurity and compliance requirements across all served markets, and that regulatory constraints are treated as design and planning inputs rather than late-stage discoveries.

• Anticipate regulatory change. Track evolving standards and certification regimes and position the portfolio ahead of them.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Business or a related field; Master’s or MBA preferred.

• 10+ years in product management, including at least 5 years leading and developing product managers.

• Demonstrated track record of bringing products to market end to end — from problem definition and business case through launch and in-life commercial performance — with results you can quantify.

• Experience contributing to global business or portfolio strategy in a market with genuine regional differentiation.

• Experience in a heavily regulated industry (aviation, rail, energy, medical, defence, industrial safety or similar), including working within certification and compliance regimes.

• Experience with integrated hardware and software products, and credible technical literacy in connected devices, IoT, cloud platforms and data analytics.

• Commercial fluency: pricing, business cases, margin management and investment prioritisation.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder skills, with the presence to engage executives, customers and regulators.

• Fluent English; additional languages an advantage.

DESIRABLE

• Experience taking a traditionally hardware-led portfolio through digital or servitisation transformation.

• Familiarity with airfield ground lighting, airport operations, air traffic infrastructure or adjacent critical infrastructure.

• Working knowledge of ICAO and FAA frameworks and the associated certification pathways.

• Experience introducing recurring-revenue or SaaS models into a capital equipment business.

• Familiarity with stage-gate product development alongside agile software delivery.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE IN THE FIRST 12 MONTHS

• A clear, agreed multi-year portfolio strategy and roadmap for the Airfield Business Line, with explicit choices on where we invest and where we do not.

• A defined and evidenced commercial model for digitally enabled products, including pricing and at least one live customer proof point.

• At least one significant product or solution brought to market against its business case.

• Portfolio KPIs in place and reported, with visible investment-to-return transparency by product family.

• A product management team operating to a consistent, mature standard, with clear ownership and improved cross-functional partnership.

WHY THIS ROLE

You would be taking a leadership seat in a business that genuinely is changing shape. The technology is real, the customers are demanding, the regulatory bar is high, and the commercial model is being rewritten. If you want a portfolio where product decisions visibly move the business, this is it.