The Role Impact
At the NCIA, our mission is to strengthen the Alliance by connecting its forces through secure, interoperable communications and information systems. As one of our three Chiefs of Product Line, you will play a pivotal role in driving innovation, strengthening product excellence, and delivering impactful, customer-focused solutions.
This is a senior leadership role at the intersection of product strategy, digital transformation, and customer value delivery. Working across the full product lifecycle, from early concept and demand shaping through delivery, adoption, and optimization, you will align stakeholders, drive investment decisions, and ensure that products deliver measurable value to NATO customers and the wider enterprise.
We are looking for three Chiefs of Product Line:
Chief Collaboration and Workplace Product Line - focused on the user-facing digital environment: business applications, digital workplaces, enterprise and corporate applications.
Chief Digital Backbone Product Line - focused on the core digital foundations of the NATO enterprise including infrastructure, integrated mission, connectivity and compute, platform/application enablement and cyber.
Chief Missions and Operations Product Line - focused on key operational capability areas that support the Alliance’s warfighting strength such as air command and control, intelligence/ISR, space and operational mission systems.
What You'll Do
• Embody and role model the NCIA culture principles of Customer First, Together and Impact.
• Lead with the customer at the center of every decision, building strong partnerships across the Agency and NATO Enterprise.
• Build and lead a cohesive, multicultural and multidisciplinary team, fostering excellence, innovation and continuous improvement.
• Own the lifecycle of the given product portfolio, ensuring products deliver measurable customer and business outcomes.
• Act as the Executive for assigned products, accountable for product value, delivery outcomes and value realization.
• Define product vision, strategic direction and investment priorities to maximize value across the NATO Enterprise.
• Balance customer value, operational sustainability, risk, cost, technical constraints and strategic priorities across a complex product portfolio.
• Drive alignment across Product, Capability Delivery, Service Operations, the Chief Information Office and Chief Data Office to achieve product outcomes.
• Lead the adoption of product-oriented ways of working and support the transition from traditional operating models to outcome-focused product management.
• Identify and remove barriers to product value realization while driving simplification, standardization and reuse across the product lifecycle.
• Represent the NCIA in governance forums, stakeholder engagements and strategic discussions to advance Agency priorities and customer outcomes.
• Lead organizational transformation initiatives and foster a high-performance culture through accountability, collaboration and customer focus.
For a full list of duties, please review the official job descriptions on the NCIA careers site:
Chief Collaboration and Workplace Product Line
Chief Digital Backbone Product Line
Chief Missions and Operations Product Line
In the application, you can select which of the three opportunities you would like to be considered for.
Who You Are
• A senior leader with 10 years (holding a Master's degree) or 15 years (holding a Bachelor's degree) of relevant experience in a complex technical or business environment.
• An experienced executive leader with a proven track record of leading and managing change in dynamic technical organizations.
• An accomplished manager of managers with at least five years of experience building high-performing teams and embedding product-centric ways of working.
• Proven experience leading teams through significant organizational transformation and managing complex product portfolios.
• Demonstrated success managing products throughout their lifecycle, from concept and discovery through delivery, launch and continuous optimization.
• Skilled at aligning diverse stakeholders and leading cross-functional teams spanning engineering, operations and business functions.
• Able to translate customer needs, user insights and industry trends into compelling product strategies, roadmaps and value-driven outcomes.
• Comfortable engaging with architects and engineers on technical requirements, trade-offs, integrations and system dependencies.
• Knowledgeable across key technology domains, including cloud, cybersecurity, APIs and integrations, artificial intelligence and data privacy.
• Experienced in using data, metrics and KPIs to guide investment decisions, drive adoption and measure product success.
• Familiar with modern product management frameworks such as Agile at Scale (SAFe), together with project and service management methods.
• (For the Collaboration and Workplace role) Experienced in digital workplace platforms, enterprise business applications or corporate technology portfolios; Experience implementing Net Promotor Score user feedback mechanisms.
• (For the Digital Backbone role) Experience with product management and strategy related to communications, networks, infrastructure, cloud, or cybersecurity systems.
• (For the Missions and Operations role) Experience with command and control, ISR/intelligence, or operational mission systems.
• A proven people leader with experience leading large, diverse and multidisciplinary teams while creating a performance-driven culture.
What Do We Offer?
• Genuinely meaningful work as part of the most successful alliance in history
• Initial five year contract with a competitive monthly tax-free salary and household and children's allowances
• Privileges for expatriate staff including expatriation and education allowances (where appropriate) and additional home leave
• Excellent private health insurance scheme
• Generous annual leave of 30 days plus official holidays
• Retirement Pension Plan
To learn more about our mission and goals at the NCIA, please visit our website.
The NCIA prides itself on being an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment of mutual respect and value uniqueness and differences in gender, gender identity, race, ethnic or cultural origin, age, religion, sexual orientation and physical or neurocognitive ability.
Additional details on the conditions of application can be found via the NCIA career site.