Head of Product and Innovation

About Football Australia

Football Australia is dedicated to leading, promoting, uniting, developing, and regulating football across the nation. Our vision is to unite and elevate Australian football into a globally respected, world-class system inspiring excellence at every level.

Our mission involves collaborating daily with stakeholders to enhance capability, capacity, and capital for transforming all football aspirations into realities. We uphold values of welcome, readiness, connection, excellence, and protection, fostering an inclusive and forward-looking culture.

Role Overview

The Head of Product and Innovation leads the product management, design, and innovation efforts within Football Australia to ensure digital products, services, and customer experiences align with strategic goals and customer requirements, achieving measurable business outcomes.

This leadership role establishes product strategies, prioritizes roadmaps, makes investment recommendations, and directs customer-driven product development organization-wide. Collaborating closely with the Chief Technology Officer and other leaders, the role translates strategy into actionable roadmaps and fosters innovation and continual improvement focused on delivering significant customer and commercial results.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and continually refine Football Australia's product vision, strategy, and enterprise roadmap.
• Prioritize product portfolios, balancing customer benefits, strategic importance, commercial returns, risks, and organizational capacity.
• Create business cases, investment proposals, value propositions, success metrics, and benefits realization structures.
• Lead Product Management and Product Design teams, embedding advanced disciplines and work methodologies.
• Develop and mentor a high-performing product team promoting accountability, collaboration, and innovation.
• Manage prioritized product roadmaps and backlogs aligned with business objectives, customer needs, and delivery capabilities.
• Convert business and customer requirements into clear product specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Promote customer-centered design involving user research, service design, accessibility considerations, usability testing, and continuous feedback.
• Ensure digital products and customer experiences are seamless, engaging, and aligned with organizational goals.
• Oversee product discovery, validation, testing, and customer research activities.
• Track product effectiveness, customer outcomes, and value realization to guide ongoing optimization.
• Foster innovation, agile product management, experimentation, and an ethos of continuous improvement.
• Identify ways to advance fan engagement, participation experiences, digital services, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate closely with Technology and business stakeholders to drive delivery success, adoption, and value creation.
• Implement sound governance, investment prioritization, and reporting practices for products.
• Provide consistent updates on roadmap status, investment performance, customer results, risks, dependencies, and benefits achieved.

Desired Outcomes

• Clear product strategies and ranked roadmaps aligned to company goals, customer needs, and quantifiable business results.
• A strong, accountable Product team with established best practices in management and design.
• Product funding decisions backed by solid business cases and value assessments showing ROI and benefits realization.
• High-impact digital products and customer experiences delivering tangible customer, commercial, and organizational benefits.
• Decisions informed by customer feedback, rigorous research, service design, and usability testing.
• Effective cooperation between Product, Technology, and business units supporting delivery and adoption.
• Transparent governance and reporting on product progress, performance, risks, and value realization.
• A deeply embedded culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous enhancement within Football Australia.

Qualifications & Experience

• Proven leadership of a high-performing Product function and team.
• Substantial experience in product management, digital delivery, or innovation leadership roles.
• In-depth knowledge of product lifecycle management, including discovery, prioritization, roadmaps, backlogs, and optimization.
• Expertise in developing business cases, investment proposals, ROI metrics, and benefits realization plans.
• Strong ability to translate business and customer demands into distinct product requirements and outcomes.
• Skilled in customer experience design, user research, journey mapping, and product validation.
• Experience operating within agile, cross-functional environments.
• Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and influencing abilities.
• Innovative and practical problem-solving approach emphasizing measurable results for customers and business.
• Knowledge of football, sports participation, or fan engagement environments is highly favorable.

Educational Requirements

• University degree in business, IT, digital design, engineering, or related fields.
• Advanced degrees such as an MBA are highly regarded.

Benefits

• Flexible working arrangements
• Birthday leave
• Study leave
• Wellbeing and lifestyle leave
• Paid parental leave beyond statutory entitlements
• Volunteer leave
• Access to an employee assistance program
• Partner discounts
• Workplace banking options
• Social activities like 5-a-side futsal events

Additional Information

Applications for this position close at 5pm on Friday, 31 August 2026 AEST.