Chapter Lead - Application Managers

Kia ora! 

At Air New Zealand, we’re reimagining how digital capability supports our people, our customers, and the airline as a whole. Our digital landscape spans bespoke applications, commercial platforms, and SaaS products that underpin everything from airline operations and engineering through to customer-facing experiences. 

As part of this journey, we’re establishing a new chapter of Product Owners within our DevOps Chapter Area and are looking for a Chapter Lead – Application Managers to provide strong people leadership, craft stewardship, and strategic influence across this community. 

This is a unique opportunity to shape how Product Ownership is practised across mission-critical, digital-heavy, business-led squads, while developing the next generation of product leaders at Air New Zealand. 

The Role You’ll Play 

As Chapter Lead – Application Managers, you’ll lead a chapter of Product Owners who currently operate across a wide range of business domains across the company.  These are not digital-only squads, they are business squads with a heavy digital aspect. Your role is to help these Product Owners connect business outcomes, operational performance, and digital delivery into a coherent, high-maturity Product Ownership capability. 

In this role, you will: 

• Provide people leadership across the chapter, supporting performance, development, and wellbeing. 
• Grow and uplift the Product Ownership craft, working closely with the Product Owner Practice to embed consistent standards and ways of working. 
• Build a strong pipeline of future Product Owners and craft leaders through coaching and mentoring. 
• Partner with Tribe Leads, Product Management, Architecture, and senior stakeholders to align product outcomes with business strategy. 
• Support your Product Owners to lead squads that manage a mix of improvement and operational work, including cost, risk, and vendor considerations. 
• Champion strong product leadership in operationally critical environments, ensuring systems are reliable, effective, and continuously improving. 
• Drive measurable improvements in business outcomes, operational performance, and value realisation from digital systems. 

Done well, this role will materially reduce the impact and load of operational incidents, improve delivery effectiveness, and lift the overall maturity of Product Ownership across Air New Zealand’s application landscape. 

What You’ll Bring 

You’ll be a people-focused leader who is comfortable operating at the intersection of product, technology, and operations. You don’t need to be an engineer, but you do need to be credible in complex digital environments. 

We’re looking for someone with: 

• Proven leadership experience in Product Ownership, Product Management, Application Management, or a related digital leadership role. 
• Strong people leadership skills, with a track record of coaching, mentoring, and growing high-performing teams. 
• Experience working with mission-critical digital systems, balancing improvement work with operational responsibility. 
• Confidence working across bespoke, Commercial Off-the-Shelf, and SaaS application, including vendor relationship management. 
• A strong product mindset, with the ability to connect customer value, business outcomes, and operational performance. 
• Excellent communication and influencing skills, able to work effectively with senior business and technology leaders. 
• A growth mindset, with a commitment to learning, inclusion, and continuous improvement. 

If you meet most of the criteria and are excited by the opportunity, we’d love to hear from you. 

What’s in it for you 

We want our people to live their best lives and access great benefits that support them both at work and beyond, including: 

• Discounted flights for you and your whānau. 
• Flexible Leave that lets you purchase up to four extra weeks off each year. 
• Access to medical cover options and wellbeing resources, including our Employee Assistance Programme. 
• A strong learning culture that supports your next step, not just your current role. 
• Generous parental leave and superannuation contributions. 

Ready for Take-off? 

If you’re ready to apply your leadership, product thinking, and strategic influence to shape the future of Product Ownership across Air New Zealand’s application landscape, we’d love to hear from you. 

Join us and help define what great Product Ownership leadership looks like at Air New Zealand.