Senior Pod Lead, Client Value & Lifecycle Studio

U.S. Bank; Minneapolis (MN); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Parental leave

401(k)

Paid vacation

Paid holidays

Adoption assistance

Sick leave

Job summary

U.S. Bank is seeking a Senior Pod Lead to drive growth by leading a cross-functional pod at the Client Value & Lifecycle Studio.

You will identify opportunities through market trends, client insights, and analytics, shaping pilots and business cases that influence where to invest, scale, or stop. This role demands strategic thinking, financial savvy, and the ability to influence stakeholders across a matrixed organization without direct authority.

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives within strategy, growth, transformation, consulting, innovation, or related disciplines.
• Strong analytical and financial acumen, including business-case development, opportunity sizing, investment assessment, performance measurement, and tradeoff analysis.
• Proven ability to operate effectively in ambiguous environments and bring structure to evolving business challenges.

Responsibilities

• Lead a dedicated cross-functional pod focused on a defined client segment, life event, lifecycle stage, or emerging growth opportunity.
• Develop robust business cases and hypotheses, test plans, learning agendas, and success measures.
• Present findings and recommendations to senior leaders with clear rationale and actionable paths forward.
• Own performance monitoring for initiatives across client engagement, adoption, and business outcomes.

Skills

Cross-functional leadership

Strategic thinking

Financial acumen

Data-driven decision making

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive at every stage of your career. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at-all from Day One.

Job Description The Senior Pod Lead is a strategic growth leader within the Client Value & Lifecycle Studio, a newly established growth and innovation capability focused on identifying, testing, and validating future sources of client and enterprise value for U.S. Bank. As a founding member of this growing team, you will help shape how the Studio operates while influencing enterprise decisions that drive the bank's long-term growth agenda. This role sits at the intersection of growth strategy, consumer and business banking, client insights, analytics, and business transformation. The Senior Pod Lead is responsible for identifying high-potential growth opportunities through market trends, competitive intelligence, client needs, and lifecycle insights. They develop business cases, lead hypothesis-driven pilots, evaluate outcomes, and recommend where U.S. Bank should invest, scale, iterate, or stop in pursuit of future growth. The ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity, is energized by solving complex business challenges, and has a demonstrated ability to influence outcomes across large matrixed organizations without direct authority. This is not a traditional digital product management role. Success requires strategic thinking, financial acumen, business-case development, market awareness, and cross-functional leadership.

Key Responsibilities

Growth Strategy & Opportunity Discovery

• Lead a dedicated cross-functional pod focused on a defined client segment, life event, lifecycle stage, or emerging growth opportunity.
• Identify future sources of client and enterprise value through analysis of market trends, competitive dynamics, consumer behavior, client needs, and industry developments.
• Evaluate market attractiveness, opportunity size, strategic fit, and business impact of potential growth initiatives.
• Collaborate with partners across Product, Marketing, Channels, Analytics, Finance, Strategy, Customer Experience, and Lines of Business to develop innovative growth hypotheses and value propositions.

Business Case Development & Strategic Evaluation

• Build robust business cases that assess opportunity potential, financial impact, investment requirements, risks, and strategic tradeoffs.
• Translate strategic opportunities into clear hypotheses, test plans, learning agendas, success measures, and decision frameworks.
• Assess competing opportunities and provide recommendations that optimize enterprise value creation.
• Present findings and recommendations to senior leaders and stakeholders, providing clear rationale and actionable paths forward.

Test-and-Learn Leadership

• Lead the execution of pilots and proof-of-concept initiatives designed to validate growth opportunities.
• Partner with Product, Marketing, Branch, Channel, Analytics, and Technology teams to execute and monitor initiatives using data-driven approaches.
• Establish success metrics and performance benchmarks to evaluate effectiveness.
• Analyze results and recommend whether initiatives should scale, iterate, pivot, or stop.

Performance & Outcome Management

• Own performance monitoring for initiatives across client engagement, adoption, satisfaction, retention, and business outcomes.
• Ensure financial assumptions, expected benefits, and economic impacts are clearly defined, measured, and refined throughout the lifecycle of an initiative.
• Communicate outcomes, risks, investment tradeoffs, learnings, and strategic implications to Studio leadership and executive stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Enterprise Influence

• Influence and align stakeholders across multiple businesses and functions without formal authority.
• Coordinate efforts across Lines of Business and enterprise partners to ensure feasibility, readiness, and organizational support.
• Clarify priorities, decision points, dependencies, and accountability across highly matrixed teams.
• Prepare validated opportunities for transition into scalable operating models in partnership with Growth Studio and business owners.

Outcomes

• Identification and validation of future growth opportunities aligned to Client Value & Lifecycle Studio priorities.
• Development of compelling business cases and evidence-based investment recommendations.
• Clear scale, iterate, or stop decisions supported by analytical, financial, and client evidence.
• Measurable improvements in client and enterprise outcomes through successful growth initiatives.
• Accelerated learning cycles that enable faster decision-making and resource allocation.
• Strong cross-functional alignment and successful transition of validated opportunities into scalable business processes and operating models.

Qualifications

• Experience leading complex cross-functional initiatives within strategy, growth, transformation, consulting, innovation, corporate strategy, consumer banking strategy, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated ability to identify growth opportunities through market research, competitive intelligence, client insights, trend analysis, and strategic evaluation.
• Strong analytical and financial acumen, including business case development, opportunity sizing, investment assessment, performance measurement, and tradeoff analysis.
• Proven ability to operate effectively in ambiguous environments and bring structure to evolving business challenges.
• Experience building and launching new programs, capabilities, operating models, or strategic initiatives from concept through execution.
• Strong executive communication, storytelling, and decision-support capabilities.
• Proven ability to influence stakeholders and drive alignment across complex matrixed organizations without formal authority.
• Experience working across product, marketing, analytics, finance, operations, strategy, or related functions.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred.

Benefits

• Healthcare (medical, dental, vision)
• Basic term and optional term life insurance
• Short-term and long-term disability
• Pregnancy disability and parental leave
• 401(k) and employer-funded retirement plan
• Paid vacation (from two to five weeks depending on salary grade and tenure)
• Up to 11 paid holiday opportunities
• Adoption assistance
• Sick and Safe Leave accruals of one hour for every 30 worked, up to 80 hours per calendar year unless otherwise provided by law.
• Review our full benefits available by employment status here.

The role offers a hybrid/flexible schedule, which means there's an in-office expectation of 3 or more days per week and the flexibility to work outside the office location for the other days.

U.S. Bank is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability or veteran status, and other factors protected under applicable law.

E-Verify U.S. Bank participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify program in all facilities located in the United States and certain U.S. territories.

Learn more about the E-Verify program.

Pay Range: $149,515.00 - $175,900.00.

U.S. Bank will consider qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records for employment.

U.S. Bank conducts background checks consistent with applicable local laws, including the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act as well as the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

U.S. Bank is subject to, and conducts background checks consistent with the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA).

In addition, certain positions may also be subject to the requirements of FINRA, NMLS registration, Reg Z, Reg G, OFAC, the NFA, the FCPA, the Bank Secrecy Act, the SAFE Act, and/or federal guidelines applicable to an agreement, such as those related to ethics, safety, or operational procedures.

Applicants must be able to comply with U.S. Bank policies and procedures including the Code of Ethics and Business Conduct and related workplace conduct and safety policies.

Posting may be closed earlier due to high volume of applicants.

At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions and enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what you excel at-all from Day One.