Head of Product

**Job Advert Summary**:
Spur Corporation is a growing multi-brand restaurant franchisor, headquartered in Cape Town. The group currently has Ten brands, namely, Spur Steak Ranches, Panarottis Pizza Pasta, John Dory’s Fish Grill Sushi, RocoMamas, The Hussar Grill, Casa Bella, Nikos Coalgrill Greek, Doppio Zero, Modern Tailors and Piza e Vino. In order to retain an exceptional talent pool, the group endeavours to create a great place to work, building a collaborative and innovative performance-based culture which enables each employee to thrive on his or her unique Spur Corporation journey. Spur Corporation’s employees are passionate and purpose-driven people growing great brands. Through their dedicated service and talent, they offer support to the group’s endeavours and operational activities, offering an exceptional return on investment to all its shareholders. A career at Spur Corporation is an opportunity for an employee to nurture, learn, grow, and realise their full potential.

A position has become available in the IT Department at the Century City Office, Cape Town for a Head of Product. The Head of Product will be accountable for the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for the Groups set of IT products, partnering with Spur leadership to ensure IT products support the business strategy and growth objectives. This position is a key role in the group IT division and leads a team of professional product managers, reporting directly to the Chief Information Officer.

We are looking for technology leaders, data scientists and digital savants to help us build digital platforms for the restaurants of the future for our iconic brands. The smartest restaurant digital commerce engine in the world, led by data and advanced analytics. This spans from making digital ordering easy and secure, deepening our data and advanced analytics, or leveraging AI to improve our guest experience - we are digitally transforming and invite you to join our team on an incredible and exciting journey.

**Minimum Requirements**:
**Qualifications and Experience**:

- BCOM/BS Degree in IT
- Masters degree preferred
- 10+ years of appropriate leadership experience (CTO, IT Management, Product Management)
- A strong background in product management is essential. The products managed will be heavy concentration on restaurant guest experiences, digital and data-led business systems.
- Preferred experience in restaurant, retail and/or eCommerce in South Africa.
- Strong understanding of different software development methodologies (i.e. SCRUM, Agile, Waterfall, Iterative, etc.)
- Strong understanding of Product Management (e.g. product discovery, AB testing, usability, prototyping, analytics)
- Experience leading process improvement efforts.

**Duties and Responsibilities**:
**Essential duties and Responsibilities**:

- Define product vision and strategy to support the overall direction of Spur Corporation’s IT strategy;
- Develop and launch new products and enhance existing products;
- Own the user experience for all products;
- Lead and mentor the Product team;
- Lead the combined business, technology (IT development) and support teams to ensure a common product-lead vision and delivery is achieved with the best combination of technical implementation methods as well as a reasonable execution schedule;
- Establish and manage partnerships as necessary to drive the delivery of product development;
- Leading and coordinating product development activities, such as financing and procurement, agile development methods, and customer development;
- Resolving resource constraints and/or conflicts that affect multiple components within the product teams;
- Communicating and reporting to stakeholders in a manner that reflects all activities within the product life cycle;
- Responding proactively to risks spanning the product development life cycle;
**Skills and Competencies**:

- Creative problem-solving skills
- Strong negotiation skills
- Excellent customer service skills
- Well organized and detail-oriented
- Strong time management and planning skills
- Ability to adapt to change quickly
- Ability to work under pressure and meet established timelines
- Ability to work independently - must be self-motivated