Product Owner- Collaboration & Digital Workplace

POSITION TITLE: Product Owner- Collaboration & Digital Workplace

STATUS: Exempt

COMPENSATION RANGE: $119,000 - $126,000 Annually with 10% bonus potential.

LOCATION: Based out of our beautiful West Creek Office, located at 12580 West Creek Pkwy, Richmond, VA 23238. Hybrid schedule is offered, in office 3 days a week, work from home 2 days a week, after training and probationary period is completed. Applicants must reside in the state of Virginia to be considered for the position, no relocation assistance offered.

REPORTS TO: Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Job Summary

The Product Owner – Collaboration & Digital Workplace is responsible for defining, owning, and continuously improving Virginia Farm Bureau’s enterprise collaboration and internal communication platforms. This role ensures that collaboration tools are intuitive, reliable, secure, and aligned to how VAFB employees work across corporate and county office locations.

Platforms in scope include Microsoft 365 (Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive), the VAFB intranet, Webex collaboration, enterprise video solutions, and telephony/unified communications. The Product Owner acts as the primary business and experience owner for these capabilities—setting vision, prioritizing outcomes, and ensuring platforms deliver measurable value to the organization.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Vision

• Own the end-to-end collaboration product portfolio for VAFB, including Microsoft 365 collaboration services, intranet, video, and telephony
• Define and communicate a clear product vision and roadmap aligned to workforce productivity, hybrid work, and internal communications needs
• Translate business and field office needs into prioritized product outcomes and feature enhancements

User Experience & Adoption

• Champion a consistent, user-friendly digital workplace experience across all collaboration tools
• Ensure collaboration platforms meet the needs of:
  • Corporate teams
  • County field offices
  • Distributed and mobile users
• Partner with Communications, HR, and Change Management to drive adoption, training, and awareness
• Establish success metrics such as usage, satisfaction, reliability, and adoption, and adjust priorities based on insights

Intranet & Internal Communications Partnership

• Serve as the product owner for the VAFB intranet, ensuring it functions as a trusted, engaging “front door” for employees
• Partner with Corporate Communications to align intranet capabilities to content strategy and messaging needs
• Balance ease of content publishing with appropriate governance, structure, and platform standards

Governance & Policy Ownership

• Define collaboration governance intent, including:
  • Workspace (Teams/Sites) lifecycle
  • External collaboration guardrails
  • Supported use cases and standards
• Partner with Information Security, Compliance, and Legal teams to ensure collaboration tools support regulatory, records management, and data protection requirements
• Ensure governance policies are practical, defensible, and properly executed by platform administration teams

Delivery & Cross-Team Coordination

• Maintain and prioritize the collaboration product backlog
• Work closely with:
  • Microsoft 365 Administrators
  • Unified Communications / Telephony teams
  • Service Delivery and Operations
• Act as the escalation and decision point for collaboration experience tradeoffs (usability vs. control, speed vs. risk)

Vendor & Financial Stewardship

• Act as the primary product counterpart for collaboration vendors (e.g., Microsoft, Cisco, telephony providers)
• Stay informed on vendor roadmaps and evaluate new capabilities for alignment with VAFB needs
• Partner with leadership on licensing optimization and roadmap-driven investment decisions

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in a Product Owner, Product Manager, or digital workplace leadership role
• Demonstrated experience owning or leading enterprise collaboration platforms (Microsoft 365, intranet, UC)
• Strong understanding of how collaboration tools enable productivity in distributed organizations
• Proven ability to influence across business, technology, and operations without direct authority
• Experience working in regulated or risk-aware environments

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting large field or county-based organizations
• Familiarity with insurance, financial services, or similarly regulated industries
• Experience partnering with internal communications or change management teams
• Background in Agile, product-led, or platform-oriented operating models

Key Skills & Competencies

• Product vision and roadmap ownership
• User-centric design and experience thinking
• Stakeholder engagement and executive communication
• Governance and policy translation
• Vendor and financial acumen
• Change management and adoption leadership

BENEFITS OVERVIEW

At VA Farm Bureau, we provide an exceptional benefits package, including ongoing job development and support in all roles, paid training and continuing education reimbursement, medical and dental insurance available on your first day, generous employee 401K contribution, excellent Paid Time off (PTO) plan and more!

Virginia Farm Bureau Companies provide equal employment opportunity in all aspects of employment without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, gender, pregnancy, age, disability, orientation or veteran status.