Sr Consultant, Data Product Owner 3rd Party Data

If you’re passionate about innovation and love working in an environment where you can constantly improve and adopt new technologies to drive business results, then Nationwide’s Information Technology team could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

This role does not qualify for employer-sponsored work authorization. Nationwide does not participate in the Stem OPT Extension program.

This role will be filled in a hybrid capacity, with collaboration taking place in either our Columbus OH or Des Moines IA office 2 days per week.

Drive impact for the Property & Casualty (P&C) business by managing and governing external data assets across P&C platforms. Ensure reliable, high-quality third-party data for operational and analytical use cases.

Key Responsibilities

• Stakeholder Management: Identify stakeholders, champion customer experience, align data products with business outcomes, and ensure compliant use of third-party data.
• Data Governance & Strategy: Create frameworks for acquisition, integration, usage, and retirement of external data. Collaborate with legal, compliance, and IT to manage risks.
• Performance & Optimization: Define KPIs (freshness, completeness, usage), monitor effectiveness, and recommend improvements.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with engineers, analysts, and business leaders to integrate data into workflows and promote data literacy.

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Job Description Summary

Nationwide’s industry leading workforce is passionate about creating data solutions that are secure, reliable and efficient in support of our mission to provide extraordinary care. Nationwide embraces an agile work environment and collaborative culture through the understanding of business processes, relationship entities and requirements using data analysis, quality, visualization, governance, engineering, robotic process automation, and machine learning to produce targeted data solutions. If you have the drive and desire to be part of a future forward data enabled culture, we want to hear from you.

As a Data Product Owner, you’ll be the data-related voice of the customer within a Technology development line and serve as the primary liaison between the business and Technology. You’ll be responsible for creating and maintaining the vision and value for the data product. You’ll continually re-prioritize backlog of defects and new development requests for the line(s) that support their data products, working with Technology leadership to influence staffing decisions against work priorities. Your role provides business-minded thought leadership throughout all phases of data development, including intake, work initiation and iteration planning and project estimations; they develop business requirements, manage communications between Technology and business, resolve blockers/questions/support needs, conduct/coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and approve releases. You’ll evaluate potential impacts to data products, coordinate with stakeholders and serve as steward for data governance, access rights/audits and defect resolution.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Serves as steward for data product, providing end-to-end subject matter expertise, including related up- and downstream systems and processes.
• Acts as governance advocate, ensuring data metrics are understood and leveraged as intended by business users. Responsible for ongoing data accuracy, including defect reporting. prioritization and resolution.
• Governs all data access requests and has final right of refusal for accesses.
• Responsible for applying secure software and systems engineering practices throughout the delivery lifecycle to ensure our data and technology solutions are protected from threats and vulnerabilities.
• Defines, prioritizes and grooms the agile delivery team's product backlog to ensure continuous delivery, as well as develops, prioritizes and manages epics and user stories for the development team.
• Responsible for the creation and execution on the solution vision/roadmap. 
• Serves as the customer and business proxy to developers and agile teams for highly complex and technical data products and experiences, often impacting multiple audiences and lines of business.
• Actively participates in daily scrum meetings, grooming meetings, project status meetings, sprint planning and review meetings.  Drives near term milestone planning by overlaying the prioritize backlog against fixed time blocks (monthly/quarterly) to help manage interdependencies and coordination across development teams.
• Participates in planning and execution of user acceptance testing, triage issues and works with development team to resolve technically complex issues requiring alignment across multiple business stakeholders and disciplines.
• Defines, monitors and analyzes metrics that reflect the quality and success of the data solution(s). 
• Oversees all communications related to data product between Technology line, business stakeholders and work requestors, resolving blockers/risks on behalf of business. Coordinates User Acceptance Testing.
• Acts as a top expertise for direction, mentoring and guidance for less experienced Data Product Owners.
• Coordinates backlog prioritization for Technology line, influencing staffing decisions against work priorities and communicating with stakeholders to convey complexity, cost, workload and roadmap.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to AVP or above Data Leader.

Typical Skills And Experiences:

Education:  Undergraduate studies in computer science, management information systems, business, statistics, math, a related field or comparable experience and education strongly preferred.  Graduate studies in business, statistics, math, computer science or a related field are a plus.

License/Certification/Designation:  Certifications are not required, CSPO, SAFe POPM, PSPO or equivalent designation preferred.

Experience:  Eight or more years of relevant experience delivering Technology enabled business solutions.  Substantial experience leading large-scale initiatives across business and technology teams. Experience engaging business leaders, data architecture and external consultants to identify and fill gaps in analytics environment. Experience with product roadmap development, SQL and Python. Insurance/financial services industry knowledge a plus.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills:  Data application and practices knowledge. Sound decision making. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Strong analytical skills with high attention to detail and accuracy. Ability to prioritize, facilitate large meetings, influence senior leaders, resolve conflict, negotiate and coach others.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and HR Business Partner.

Values:  Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions:

Overtime Eligibility: Exempt (Not Eligible)

Working Conditions: Normal office environment.

ADA:  The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job.  Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties. 

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.

Smoke-Free Iowa Statement: Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, its affiliates and subsidiaries comply with the Iowa Smokefree Air Act. Smoking is prohibited in all enclosed areas on or around company premises as well as company issued vehicles. The company offers designated smoking areas in which smoking is permitted at each individual location. The Act prohibits retaliation for reporting complaints or violations. For more information on the Iowa Smokefree Air Act, individuals may contact the Smokefree Air Act Helpline at 888-944-2247.

Note To Employment Agencies:

We value the partnerships we have built with our preferred vendors. Nationwide does not accept unsolicited resumes from employment agencies. All resumes submitted by employment agencies directly to any Nationwide employee or hiring manager in any form without a signed Nationwide Client Services Agreement on file and search engagement for that position will be deemed unsolicited in nature. No fee will be paid in the event the candidate is subsequently hired as a result of the referral or through other means.