ABOUT US

Sanlam Corporate forms part of the Sanlam Group which offers retail and corporate life insurance, health and investment products in South Africa. Our vision is to be the preferred partner for the Corporate and Public Sector by providing an awesome client experience and comprehensive solutions that enable the financial resilience and prosperity of those entities and their employees. We tap into over 100 years of expertise to provide cost-effective Employee Benefits and Healthcare Solutions that enable financial confidence for our members. We enable our clients to make better retirement and risk decisions today through determined and passionate thought leadership and best-in-class people, innovative products and proven processes all designed to help people live a better life tomorrow. We believe in creating and cultivating a positive, energised working environment that gives every individual the opportunity to achieve success by embracing diversity and growing our talent.

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE

The Shared Services Product Owner (SAFe PO) is responsible for defining and prioritising the Team Backlog, ensuring alignment with business objectives, and maximizing value delivery within an Agile Release Train (ART). The PO works closely with Business Owners, Business Stakeholders, and Agile Teams including Information Technology (IT) stakeholders, to ensure successful execution of Program Increments (PIs) and sprint deliverables. As a key liaison between business and IT, the PO plays a crucial role in translating business and technology requirements into actionable deliverables. This requires close engagement with leadership teams to contribute to Sanlam Corporate and Sanlam Group Risk’s overarching goal of sustainable and profitable growth. The role operates within an Agile delivery environment, where varying levels of maturity exist across the organization. Given the complexity of the Sanlam Group’s technology landscape—including legacy systems, existing solutions, and emerging technologies such as AI and Process Automation—the PO must navigate a diverse stakeholder ecosystem, ensuring seamless integration and alignment of initiatives.
Key responsibilities
Not limited to but includes:

OWNERSHIP & ACCOUNTABILITY

• Owns and maintains the Team Backlog by defining, refining, and prioritising Stories to align with business priorities.
• Acts as the primary liaison between the Business Owners, and Agile Teams.
• Owns and defines business level acceptance criteria for backlog items to ensure high quality deliverables.
• Ensures the Team Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to all stakeholders.
• Collaborates with the multiple stakeholders to ensure technical enablement of features.
• Ensure the Agile Team delivers in alignment with the business strategy, maintaining strategic cohesion between the team and business objectives.
• Develops the PI objectives based on key milestones and deliverables, articulating the benefits, the business value and assigns business value indicator to each PI objective.
• Responsible for ensuring alignment between business-led goals and Agile Team delivery focus.
• Enables consistent feedback loops to the teams.
• Demonstrates independent decision-making that aligns with business priorities, ensuring optimal outcomes for the organization.
• Effectively influences stakeholders, fostering collaboration and driving consensus to support the team’s objectives and strategic goals.