Headhunter for Chief Product Officer Positions

CPO – Chief Product Officer

The CPO is the head of the product department and has overall responsibility for a company's product portfolio. In larger organisations, the product department, the UX team (user experience) as well as the product analysis team are led by a CPO.

Besides a CDO (Chief Digital Officer), a CPO is also a management position that is increasingly in demand. After all, this role is crucial for scaling and growth. In fact, this goes so far that a CPO is merging with the role of CMOs (Chief Marketing Officer), COOs (Chief Operations Officer) and also CTOs (Chief Technology Officer). CPOs and CDOs in particular are thus among the most exciting professions of the future.

Let us find the right CPO for you

CareerTeam supports organisations as a recruitment consultancy in top executive search and filling top management vacancies. Thanks to a continuously improved algorithmic multichannel search, we achieve the fastest possible staffing, a high match in cultural fit and also identify the "hidden candidates". Especially for C-levels, it is of particular importance to find the right person for these positions. Because at CareerTeam, we pay particular attention to sustainable personnel management.

Our extensive and active network has over 600,000 specialists and executives. Our recruiters find suitable candidates for the position of CPO in the shortest possible time, without compromising on quality.

Management, marketing, design, development & innovation for products. And more.

Customer needs and expectations are evolving with the times - as advancing digitalisation and smart factories make it possible to meet the individual wishes of the customer in a way that has never been possible before. In addition, customers are increasingly becoming the focus of attention in the course of "customer centricity". 

This has led to companies requiring specialists and managers who develop products and services that meet the increased demands. CPOs are product experts - customer-focused, technically savvy and have a knack for making decisions about their products. Despite their customer orientation, they are responsible for the (strong) growth of the company and thus define an excellent product strategy.

In larger organisations, a CPO manages all the associated teams to ensure that products are created according to the product strategy. And also that these products can be delivered smoothly.

As mentioned earlier, the responsibilities as well as the roles of CPOs are becoming increasingly blurred. In any case, a CPO is the only one who makes decisions about products. The CTO is someone who deals with the product development aspect. Just as a CMO is concerned with ensuring that the product is marketed.

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Responsibilities of the CPO

The CPO is responsible for the entire product life cycle - from customer identification and consumer research to development and delivery. Thereby, the strategic aspect is the most important. The scope of duties includes the following activities:

• Product strategy
• Product vision
• Product design
• Market research
• Product development
• Product growth and marketing
• Product analytics and key figures
• Structuring the product organisation
• Supervision of product staff and teams

What makes a good CPO?

Due to the extensive activities of a CPO, this can be a long list of attributes and skills. We break it down to four key skills: Leadership, Strategy, Customer Understanding and Business Acumen.

Leadership skills 

The CPO is at the helm of the entire product organisation and needs excellent leadership skills to manage it successfully. It is essential for the smooth running of all activities between the product teams, customers and other stakeholders.

Strategic product vision 

Strategy is the key to success. As in most management positions, the central task of the CPO is also the creation of the strategy and its implementation. This is about the "why" of the product and what needs to be created next. 

This requires aligning the vision of the company with that of the product. The fundamental prerequisite here is that the product vision has been clearly communicated.

Strong customer orientation 

In addition to strategy, it is also essential for the CPO to understand the problems, wishes and needs of the customers. In collaboration with the specialists from the product and analysis teams, customer surveys and market analyses are carried out. This ensures that excellent product experiences can be created or that the right positioning in the market can be determined. Tinder CPO Brian Norgard puts it this way:

"When I sit down to think about a product, the user is at the centre. The centre of the user experience is the promise to the customer"

This is textbook Customer Centricity (CX). If you devote yourself to it, you can win even in the most competitive industries.

Strong business acumen

Last but not least, business acumen is required. As described at the beginning, a CPO is the key figure for the growth and scaling of the organisation. In addition to a strong customer orientation, the CPO is no less interested in the economic success of the company. And successful products ensure high revenues and satisfied customers, whose number is also growing. 

Just think of Steve Jobs' decision (even though he was not a CPO) to present the iPod in 2001. This decision transformed the history of the company forever and also revolutionised the way music was consumed from then on.

HR 4.0

As headhunters for the digital economy, CareerTeam provides recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) in this area. This includes, among other things, candidate journey management, software-supported interview and selection processes, active sourcing, the elaboration of candidate insights as well as an adjustment regarding the cultural fit. 

A suitable cultural fit is an extremely critical feature, especially in the field of executive search. You are welcome to contact us if you would like to learn more about our full range of services.