Product Owner – Corporate Domain

About Contact Energy

At Contact Energy, we believe that home is the most significant place globally, guiding our efforts from pioneering the energy transition to powering New Zealand (Aotearoa) while caring for our people and communities. We operate in power, broadband, and mobile sectors and are boldly investing in renewable energy and innovative, connected ways of working. Our mission is to leave Aotearoa in a better state than we found it.

Our team acts according to our values and behaviors, showing strong care for our work, mutual support, and the positive impact we create. We strive to touch lives to improve life overall.

As part of our next five-year strategy, we focus as much on how we work as on what we deliver, notably through our Enterprise Productivity program—an organization-wide initiative enhancing how people perform via smarter processes, data utilization, and AI potential.

Role Overview

This Product Owner position is central to the Enterprise Productivity effort, specifically within the Corporate Domain. It involves collaboration with teams across People Experience, Finance, Corporate Affairs, Procurement, and related areas to discover opportunities, prioritize investments, and convert visionary ideas into impactful results. The role connects business strategies with technology execution, ensuring efforts target initiatives that yield the highest value to Contact.

Unlike traditional Product Owner roles focused on a single product, this role spans a diverse portfolio of projects related to productivity, data, and business improvements, requiring alignment across multiple corporate stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage prioritization of work over a range of productivity, data, and business enhancement projects.
• Collaborate with senior stakeholders to define critical problems and unify teams around shared objectives.
• Steer investment, governance, and prioritization by linking business value with delivery opportunities.
• Oversee projects from initial discovery through to implementation, maintaining focus on measurable business benefits.
• Unify perspectives across Technology and Corporate departments to facilitate informed and pragmatic decision-making.
• Influence how Contact harnesses data, AI, and emerging technologies to enhance work processes.
• Partner with architects, analysts, designers, delivery teams, and business leaders to translate strategy into practical action.
• Navigate complexity, prioritize competing demands, and drive change management with an unwavering emphasis on delivering value.

Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate excels at simplifying complexity, building trust rapidly, and guiding diverse groups toward common goals. They combine commercial acumen with curiosity and can merge strategic vision with hands-on delivery. They believe effective Product Ownership is not about having all answers, but about asking critical questions, uniting people, and focusing on impactful results.

Desirable qualifications and experience include:

• Proven ability to identify, prioritize, and deliver high-impact projects within complex environments.
• Strong skills in managing stakeholders and influencing across multiple business units.
• Experience leading or collaborating with squads, delivery teams, or cross-functional initiatives.
• Capability to convert strategic aims into clear priorities and tangible outcomes.
• Commercially minded with a strong focus on measurable business value.
• Comfort navigating ambiguity, competing priorities, and organizational transformations.
• Familiarity with Agile or Lean methodologies.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to engage all organizational levels.

Additional advantages include:

• Experience in corporate functions such as Finance, People Experience, Legal, Procurement, or Corporate Affairs.
• Background in enterprise productivity, transformation, continuous improvement, or AI-driven data initiatives.
• Experience working in large, matrix-style organizations.
• Familiarity with collaboration tools like Jira, Confluence, Miro, or SharePoint.

Additional Information

We promote flexible working arrangements that suit the individual, team, and business needs. Our primary hubs are in Wellington and Auckland; this role is best for candidates able to work flexibly from one of these locations.

The application window closes on Thursday, 6th August; however, applications will be reviewed as they arrive.

Contact Energy is committed to continuous growth and development, offering learning opportunities and benefits including free health insurance, enhanced KiwiSaver contributions, access to company shares, an annual home setup and wellbeing allowance, progressive parental leave policies, product discounts, and more.

We value diverse perspectives and strive to create an inclusive workplace reflecting our communities. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds, ages, and stages of life, including those who may not meet every requirement but believe they can contribute meaningfully.

Applicants must have the legal right to live and work in New Zealand.

Equal Opportunity and Hiring Approach

Research shows different application behaviors across demographics; hence, we focus on potential over perfect box-ticking and invite anyone confident in their capabilities to apply.

Note: Contact Energy does not accept unsolicited CVs from recruitment agencies without formal agreements. Unsolicited submissions may be directly considered for current or future opportunities without financial obligation to agencies.