Can someone describe what this position is, growth opps, challenges, etc? Thanks
you help create investment products (i.e new mutual funds) and assist/lead the marketing. just a guess.
Product Manager can mean anything. It could be development of new strategies, or it could be researching funds/investments for a Broker/Dealer’s platforms. If the position is at an investment manager it’s probably the former; if it’s a wirehouse or BD then it’s probably the latter. Just my best guess.
The Product Managers that I have worked with are people who push new structured products to FAs. But like the previous people mentioned, that title could probably mean many things.
From the product managers that I worked with they work with investment teams, investors, management to create, manage, and market products to investors. From what i’ve seen these guys, write white papers, pitch to clients, update calls, keep up to date with portfolio holdings and news, and are on the front lines of what products clients want or need. Pay is good, i’ve seen plenty of CFAs & Ivy MBAs do this line of work at the big buy-side shops. Can’t imagine it paying less then 200k all in for a top firm and product and probably more for a top product. I would go do a linkedin search.
Others have covered what this means generically. Provide a job description or some other details and maybe you’ll get some more details. Pay ranges from 60k entry level at some shops to 800k senior level, top product at BlackRock.
It’s behind a pay wall, but this is the best explanation of product management that I have seen. http://www.pionline.com/article/20111026/REG/111029932/is-there-a-viable-role-for-product-managers
Growth prospect can be very different depending on the channel (retail or institutional). If this is an institutional position, I can see this being a stepping stone for you, building contact with various firms and move onto something better.
Such as?
Necroing a thread but I thought I’d add my experience about being a Product Manager and Product Analyst here. My background is that I’ve been in product development and management for about 6 years working for a mutual fund.
Being in Product is an interesting gig and gives you a wide range of experiences in the business. At first glance people in Product are mainly seen as the people that produce Prospectuses (or Product Disclosure Statements) or the marketing materials because that’s the visible end Product. Yes there is an element of that.
Its a role that’s a jack of all trades as you develop a working knowledge of all aspects of the investments business as you need to deal with different stakeholders in order to manage the product. Here are some of the things you deal with, with each department:
Portfolio Management - Review how the investments have performed or may perform and whether any information needs to be disclosed to advisers or investors. Compliance - Ensure the documents aren’t misleading. Make sure that everything’s kosher and lodge documents with the regulator. Legal - Review of documents such as prospectuses and constitutions. Marketing - Typesetting of your documents and the ‘look and feel’. Maintenance of the content on the website. Communications - Prepare/review of letters, updates to advisers and investors. Strategy - Develop new features or new products, wind up of obsolete investment products, prepare board papers. Operations - Staff training on new products, communication of changes to products. Accounting - Review of the numbers, performance, ensure consistency with past disclosure. Research - Review of upcoming research reports to be released. Distribution - Receive feedback from financial advisers on what they like and don’t like about the product, what new products they would like see. Projects - Product launches, mergers, terminations and corporate actions. As well there are other tasks such as competitor reviews and fee reviews. Its a back office role so you don’t deal with investors or advisers directly. The information flows like this…
Investor > Operations/client services > Product or Financial Adviser > Distribution/business development managers > Product Options for growth? Since its a generalist position, and you have a good exposure to each department, there is definite freedom to move about within an organisation. Options include Research, Distribution, Strategy, Compliance or Portfolio Management. Because of the nature of the position, you naturally network through the business. I know that once people found out I was studying the CFA people from Research and Portfolio Management were taking an interest in my progression. If you stay in Product, the progression and salary goes something like… Product Officer $40-50k Product Analyst $50-$90k Product Manager $90-$130k Senior Product Manager $130-$170k Head of Product ??? Challenges? The main challenges I face are trying to get consensus when different stakeholders disagree on how/what a product should be or have. Stakeholders often have conflicting views, for example providing a withdrawal provision in a property fund to make it more liquid. Research and Distribution view it as a necessity to attract flows and research ratings, but Portfolio would view it as difficult to control if flows are low. The other challenge is trying to figure out how you’re going to do something when you haven’t done it before and there isn’t any real process for it, such as winding up a trust.
Oh and explaining to people what you do! I still can’t do this properly when I’m at a BBQ. I just gloss over it and switch the topic quickly. 
Job security and longevity? Product roles are pretty tightly held and have low turnover. I really believe that because of the variety role it keeps things interesting and fresh.
Job security is very high. Product is one of the few teams that don’t get touched during retrenchments and during the GFC, I survived two rounds of layoffs. The reason is that you won’t have a product to sell without product people and even if you can’t sell it, you still need people to manage what’s there.
Sorry if its TLDR, but there isn’t a great deal of information out there as to what Product does. 