Lead Product Manager, Data & AI Integration, Technology VMO (Project Hire)

At Disney, we’re storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt’s passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a commitment to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we’re constantly looking for new ways to enhance these exciting experiences. 

The Enterprise Technology & Data mission is to deliver technology solutions that align to business strategies while enabling enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation. 

Team Description:

The Technology Process and Performance organization partners across all organizations to drive process efficiencies and effectiveness by measuring the organization's performance and driving excellence. As part of the TP&P team, the Technology Vendor Management Office (VMO) is dedicated to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of vendor-related processes across our organization. As part of this mission, the VMO aims to leverage data-driven insights to optimize vendor management, streamline operations, and support informed decision-making. 

The Lead Product Manager, Data & AI Integration, VMO Transformation owns the strategy, roadmap, and execution of the Technology VMO, Sourcing and Business Management data and AI capabilities that enable vendor management optimization, cost transparency, and operational decision making. 

The Lead Product Manager, Data & AI Integration, VMO Transformation focuses on delivering end-to-end visibility into demand, spend, cost drivers, and performance, enabling leaders to manage vendor portfolios with greater financial discipline and clarity. Operating as a senior individual contributor, this role partners across VMO, finance, sourcing, business operations, and technology to translate complex cost, demand, and performance needs into durable data and AI enabled product capabilities, integrating the enterprise data & AI strategy to drive standardization, transparency, and optimization across vendor related operations while reducing manual effort and reconciliation. 

This is a project hire role with an expected assignment length of 24 months. 

What You’ll Do: 

• Own the product vision, strategy, and roadmap for data integration, analytics, and AI capabilities supporting vendor management optimization and cost transparency. 

• Drive outcome based prioritization across initiatives (e.g., cost transparency, spend visibility, performance insights, workflow automation), balancing stakeholder needs, feasibility, and measurable impact. 

• Translate business and operational needs into epics, user stories, acceptance criteria, and a prioritized backlog, partnering with delivery teams through refinement and release planning. 

• Define and deliver product capabilities that enable vendor performance visibility, portfolio insights, and spend transparency, including clear success criteria and user outcomes. 

• Define data requirements and integration needs, enabling reliable, analytics ready views across systems to support planning, forecasting, and performance tracking. 

• Support delivery of AI‑assisted capabilities (e.g., forecasting, anomaly detection, insight summarization) within established platforms, standards, and guardrails. 

• Lead ongoing backlog management, UAT, and release readiness, accountable for adoption and delivery of measurable business outcomes. 

• Communicate product plans, trade‑offs, risks, and insights clearly to business and technical stakeholders. 

• Facilitate alignment across cross‑functional partners with differing priorities through structured discussions and clear decision framing. 

• Support governance, controls, and compliance requirements related to data, financial transparency, and operational processes. 

• Help drive adoption of new product capabilities and workflows through clear documentation, enablement, and change support. 

• Contribute to risk mitigation and continuous improvement through standards, transparency, KPI tracking, and post‑implementation review. 

Required Qualifications & Skills: 

• Minimum of 7+ years of technical product management or relevant experience. 

• Demonstrated experience owning product vision, strategy, and roadmaps for data integration, analytics, and AI‑enabled solutions within a defined product area. 

• Strong background in standardizing, automating, and optimizing vendor management and financial workflows to improve efficiency and transparency. 

• Ability to design and deliver capabilities for vendor performance management, portfolio optimization, and spend visibility. 

• Experience supporting cost transparency and auditable financial processes, including demand, consumption, and cost tracking. 

• Skilled in establishing standardized data taxonomies and definitions to enable consistent reporting and AI readiness. 

• Proficient in defining data integrations and analytics to support planning, forecasting, and performance measurement. 

• Ability to identify, prioritize, and help deliver business relevant, explainable AI use cases aligned to operational and financial needs. 

• Strong execution skills, including translating requirements into user stories, acceptance criteria, and prioritized backlogs. 

• Experience measuring post‑implementation impact, such as improvements in cost transparency, forecast accuracy, and decision speed. 

• Strong advisory, communication, and stakeholder management skills, with comfort supporting executive‑level reporting and cross‑functional collaboration. 

• Solid understanding of financial controls, auditability, security, and responsible data and AI usage in enterprise settings. 

• Ability to define, monitor, and support continuous improvement using KPIs related to cost transparency, vendor performance, and optimization outcomes. 

• Experience working with data products delivered on Snowflake, including understanding how data is modeled, governed, and consumed for analytics, reporting, and operational insights. 

• Experience partnering with analytics teams to deliver dashboards and KPIs using Power BI and/or Tableau, including defining requirements, metrics, and consumption patterns. 

• Experience managing product roadmaps, backlogs, user stories, and delivery artifacts using standard product management and Agile delivery tools. 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• Experience with leading complex integration of data products. 

• Familiarity using enterprise data catalogs such as Alation. 

• Familiarity with adjacent enterprise data platforms such as Databricks. 

• Experience working within enterprise data governance, security, and confidentiality standards. 

• Experience with complex contract billing structures (Fixed vs. Variables and Resource Units measurement), and deep expertise in process and tools leveraged for vendor reporting and invoicing. 

• Advanced degree (e.g., MBA, MS) preferred but not required. 

Education: 

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience 

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