Director of Product Lab

Schibsted; Stockholms kommun; Presencial; SEK 1.200.000 - 1.800.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

Schibsted is building the next generation of its product capabilities through Schibsted Product Lab. As Director of Product Lab, you will build and lead the portfolio of uncertain opportunities into scalable products that matter to users and the business.

You will report to the Chief Product Officer and join the Product Leadership Team, shaping strategy, assembling cross-disciplinary squads, and steering investments to maximize learning and value across Schibsted's media brands.

Formación

• Strong track record of building new products, from exploration to launch and adoption.
• Ability to connect product choices to growth, distribution and sustainable value.
• Clear product judgment balancing technology, user needs and business impact.

Responsabilidades

• Build and continuously shape a strong pipeline of next-generation product opportunities across Schibsted.
• Lead a portfolio of seeds and bets from early hypotheses through user validation and launch to scale or pivot.
• Create a high bar for evidence and product quality, ensuring we solve meaningful user problems.
• Build commercial thinking into opportunities from the beginning, including business model, growth and distribution hypotheses.
• Build and lead a small multidisciplinary core team across product, technology, design and editorial development, and assemble additional teams as opportunities earn investment.
• Work closely with Schibsted's media brands and leadership while protecting the autonomy to challenge existing products and models.
• Make disciplined portfolio choices: invest where evidence grows, pivot when needed, stop initiatives with insufficient potential.
• Build credible pathways for successful bets to scale inside Schibsted and strengthen the wider organisation.

Conocimientos

Product leadership

New product development

Commercial judgment

AI & technology judgment

Team leadership

Strategic portfolio management

Descripción del empleo

We’re building the next generation of Schibsted’s media products

Schibsted’s product ambition is to reinvent our media destinations for the AI era to make our journalism a relevant daily habit for more people. Most of that work happens in our existing product organisation, where we continuously improve and reinvent products used by millions of people every day. But some opportunities require something different: more freedom from today’s products and business models, longer horizons, greater uncertainty and permission to challenge the core. We are establishing Schibsted Product Lab.

We are now looking for the person to lead it.

The role and mission

As Director of Product Lab, you will build and lead Schibsted’s capability for turning uncertain next-generation opportunities into products that can matter at scale.

You will own the Lab’s portfolio: identifying and shaping opportunities, deciding what deserves exploration, helping small seeds become substantial bets when the evidence supports them, and stopping work when it does not.

This is not a research lab and it is not an innovation function producing concepts for others to implement. Our products are built to reach real users. Successful bets need a credible route to scale; unsuccessful ones need to generate learning and free up people and capital for the next opportunity.

You will report to Schibsted News Media’s Chief Product Officer (CPO) and be a member of the Product Leadership Team.

You Will

• Build and continuously shape a strong pipeline of next-generation product opportunities across Schibsted.
• Lead a portfolio of seeds and bets from early hypotheses through user validation, launch, investment decisions and, when successful, transition into the core.
• Create a high bar for evidence and product quality, ensuring we solve meaningful user problems rather than pursue technology for its own sake.
• Build commercial thinking into opportunities from the beginning, including business model, growth and distribution hypotheses.
• Build and lead a small multidisciplinary core team across product, technology, design and editorial development, and assemble additional teams as opportunities earn investment.
• Work closely with Schibsted's media brands, product leadership team, editorial leaders and wider product and technology organisations while protecting the autonomy required to challenge existing products, formats and business models.
• Make disciplined portfolio choices: invest more where evidence grows, change direction when necessary, and stop initiatives that do not demonstrate sufficient potential.
• Build credible pathways for successful bets to scale inside Schibsted and ensure learnings, technology and capabilities from the Lab strengthen the wider organisation.

Who we are looking for

You are an accomplished product leader who thrives when the path forward is not yet clear. You have substantial experience creating new consumer products - not only optimising established ones - and are comfortable taking ideas from early uncertainty to real users and meaningful impact.

You move naturally between understanding users, shaping product direction, evaluating technology and thinking commercially. You have passion for journalism, know how to make choices about where to focus, including where scarce talent and capital can create the greatest value. Just as importantly, you know when the evidence calls for a change of direction - or for stopping an initiative altogether.

We Believe You Need To Bring

• A strong track record of building new products. You have taken products from early exploration to launch and adoption, ideally from zero to meaningful scale.
• Strong portfolio, commercial and investment judgment. You can choose between competing opportunities, stage investment as evidence develops, and connect product choices to growth, distribution and sustainable value.
• Strong product, technology and AI judgment. You understand emerging technology and AI well enough to identify genuinely valuable new product opportunities, their limitations, and their potential to reshape user experiences and business models.
• Experience building and leading excellent multidisciplinary teams. You create clarity without unnecessary hierarchy, lead senior specialists effectively and stay close enough to the work to exercise strong product judgment yourself.
• Ambition grounded in evidence. You think boldly and long term, while adapting quickly when users, data or technology point in a different direction.
• Proven ability to lead through influence in complex organisations. You can challenge established thinking, navigate competing interests and build commitment across organisational boundaries without relying on formal authority.

You bring significant experience from digital consumer products, media and/or publishing, giving you a strong understanding of how people discover, consume and engage with content and products. You understand how habits are formed and how consumer expectations are changing. Experience with high-frequency products and services competing for users’ daily attention is particularly valuable.

As this role requires close collaboration with our Nordic brands and their content, fluency in Norwegian or Swedish is required.

Why this role

The way people discover and engage with journalism is changing rapidly. AI is creating new product behaviours, while younger audiences are building habits beyond traditional news destinations.

Schibsted is well positioned to shape what comes next, combining trusted Nordic brands, unique journalism, millions of users and strong product and technology capabilities.

Product Lab exists to turn these strengths into the next generation of products.

For the right person, this is an opportunity not simply to manage an existing product organisation, but to help determine what some of Schibsted’s future products become.