Product Owner

The Product Owner, NDA Solutions is responsible for the ownership and operational success of the digital platforms supporting the National Distribution Alliance (NDA). Serving as the primary subject matter expert and power user for those platforms, this role owns the enhancement roadmap and is accountable for data quality, reporting validation, system administration, user onboarding, enhancement management, technology partner relationships, and platform support. The Product Owner works closely with distributors, operators, Members, Suppliers, internal stakeholders, and technology partners as needed to ensure each platform delivers accurate data, reliable reporting, and an effective user experience.

The platforms supporting NDA carry distributor and operator data through to the reporting the business unit and its Suppliers rely on. Recent platform investment means the near-term emphasis is driving a new environment to maturity: prioritizing the improvements that matter most, getting them properly tested, and stabilizing what is already live.

Scope sits with the business unit named above, and the platforms within it will change over time as systems are replaced, consolidated, or added. UniPro operates additional strategic business units and shared services, and this role supports their platforms as needed at a level agreed with Information Technology and business unit leadership.

This position is designed to work as one of a pair, alongside a counterpart Product Owner carrying the same accountability for Unity Advantage Group (UAG). Both roles are built to the same specification, so each can cover the other during absence or turnover and a capability needed by more than one business unit is built once rather than twice. Where the counterpart position is not yet in place, this role carries an agreed level of support for the other business unit’s platforms in the interim.

Product Ownership, Enhancements & Partner Management

• Serve as the primary business owner for the platforms in scope, ensuring each effectively supports NDA’s reporting, operational, and data quality objectives.
• Maintain a prioritized enhancement roadmap for NDA, informed by discovery with operators, distributors, Members, Suppliers, and internal users rather than only by an inbound request queue, and keep trade-offs visible.
• Drive the portfolio toward fewer and better systems: consolidate overlapping systems toward one coherent experience, and drive newly implemented platforms from launch to dependable through prioritized improvement, proper testing, and stabilization.
• Own the technology partner relationship as the primary point of contact for enhancement requests, issues, testing, implementation status, and platform updates. Lead evaluations, renewals, and statements of work with IT and business unit leadership, holding partners to agreed scope, timelines, and service levels.
• Translate business needs into clear requirements and acceptance criteria, coordinate testing and implementation of new features, reports, dashboards, and workflow enhancements, and accept or reject releases against the criteria agreed up front.
• Lead recurring stakeholder meetings, including agendas, action item tracking, follow-up, and communication of key decisions.
• Recommend process, workflow, and reporting improvements with the business impact stated, and see the accepted ones through to delivery.
• Define what success looks like for each significant release and report afterward on whether it was achieved. Low adoption of a delivered capability is a problem this role owns.

Data Quality & Governance

• Perform daily, weekly, and monthly validations so platform data is complete, timely, accurate, and reporting-ready, and complete the mapping and reconciliation that supports reliable reporting. Follow up on missing, late, incomplete, or inaccurate submissions, identify root causes, and coordinate corrective action with distributors and other data providers.
• Audit incoming files and data sources for timely receipt, compliance with business unit standards, and reporting readiness. Troubleshoot file errors and coordinate corrections, resubmissions, and follow-up. Escalate anything that may impact reporting accuracy, operational visibility, supplier programs, or business decisions.
• Maintain master data integrity across product, distributor, operator, Member, and related reporting attributes, resolving duplicates and categorization issues. Own the data standards, documentation, governance procedures, and quality thresholds these platforms are held to.
• Work with the data team so definitions, metrics, and thresholds stay consistent with UniPro’s wider data and reporting environment.
• Validate new reports, dashboards, calculations, and enhancements prior to release, and spot check live reporting against source data. Analyze discrepancies and variances, document them, and track resolution through to corrective action.
• Support continuous improvement in data quality, validation, and auditing, automating recurring checks where possible so the time freed up goes back into improving the platforms.

Platform Operations & Support

• Own the support model: support inboxes, triage expectations, response times, and the escalation path to the technology partner. Investigate and resolve platform, functionality, workflow, and user access issues with internal stakeholders and technology partners.
• Log, prioritize, and manage open tasks and issues in the work management tools in use, currently Monday.com, so priority and status stay visible, and contribute to ongoing workflow improvements.
• Onboard new distributors by reviewing requirements, validating test files, and approving production readiness. Onboard operators and units, confirm data is flowing and reporting correctly, and monitor new-unit activity for timely activation.
• Offboard distributors and operators, and manage distributor transitions so reporting and data visibility stay continuous. Own the onboarding standards and timeline commitments, and improve them as volume grows.
• Support user access requests and security permissions in line with UniPro standards. Provide training, knowledge transfer, documentation, and release communication to drive utilization and adoption.
• Represent business unit data standards and requirements in distributor, operator, Member, Supplier, and partner discussions.

Shared Standards, Backup & Cross-Business-Unit Support

• Serve as the designated backup for the Product Owner, UAG Solutions, keeping enough working familiarity with those platforms, validations, and partner relationships to cover them during absence, peak periods, or turnover.
• Where a counterpart position is not yet in place, carry an agreed level of support for that business unit’s platforms in the interim, with the scope, priorities, and service expectations set with IT and business unit leadership rather than absorbed informally.
• Support the digital platforms of UniPro’s other strategic business units and shared services as needed, and take on or hand off platforms as the portfolio changes.
• Keep documentation, runbooks, standards, and configuration current to the level a peer could operate from without a handover conversation. Documentation is a deliverable of this role.
• Work to one shared set of data standards, definitions, and thresholds across both business units, raising differences for resolution rather than maintaining unit-specific variants.
• Identify capabilities needed by both business units, design them jointly with the counterpart Product Owner, and apply them in both rather than building separately in each.
• Maintain a combined roadmap view with the counterpart Product Owner so sequencing conflicts, shared dependencies, and competing partner demands stay visible, and cross-cover onboarding, validation, and support work on a schedule agreed in advance rather than improvised.

• Attend vendor meetings and participate in training programs to stay current with emerging data management, reporting, and product ownership practices.
• Support special projects, cross-functional initiatives, and other responsibilities as assigned.

• Reports to the Vice President, Member Technology. No direct reports.
• Operates in a hybrid structure with the business unit served. NDA leadership sets business priorities and works with this role directly. Technical direction, engineering standards, performance management, and development come from Information Technology.
• Peer relationship with the Product Owner, UAG Solutions. Neither role directs the other; shared standards and backup commitments are held through Information Technology.
• Holds decision rights over platform sequencing and release scope for the business unit served. Where priorities conflict across the two business units, escalation is to the VP, Member Technology.

• Internal contact with NDA leadership, the counterpart Product Owner, Member Success, Member Development, Business Systems, IT development, data, and operations teams, Analytics, and Finance.
• External contact with platform technology partners, distributors, operators, Members, Suppliers, and third-party service providers.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Information Systems, Data Management, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Three to six or more years of experience in data operations, data quality, analytics support, product ownership, or systems administration.
• Experience owning or administering an enterprise platform on behalf of the business, including gathering requirements and managing an enhancement backlog.
• Experience working with a software vendor or implementation partner, serving more than one internal customer with competing priorities, and foodservice distribution or related industries, all preferred.
• Candidates with strong fundamentals and the right judgment will be considered without the full range of experience above, with the balance developed on the job.

Technical Competencies

• Experience working with POS data, operational data sets, large-scale data feeds, and reporting systems. Enterprise data platforms, reporting systems, or SFTP-based data exchanges preferred.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to trace reporting results back to underlying source data and judge whether the data is good enough to report on. Working knowledge of SQL or comparable query tools preferred.
• Experience writing requirements, acceptance criteria, and release communication. Experience validating reports, analyzing discrepancies, and troubleshooting data quality issues preferred.
• Ability to become a subject matter expert and super user of complex reporting and data management platforms, with an understanding of data privacy and security for Member and Supplier data. Experience with the platforms in use at UniPro, currently including Microsoft 365 and Snowflake, is preferred but learnable on the job.

Professional Competencies

• Strong attention to detail and the ability to identify data anomalies and root causes, while managing multiple priorities in a deadline-driven environment and keeping commitments transparent.
• Strong communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders, including declining a request and explaining the trade-off behind it.
• Ability to influence and direct work carried out by people and partners who do not report to this role.
• Willingness to work as one of a pair: to document for a peer, cover for a peer, and accept a shared standard over a locally preferred one.
• Process improvement instincts, and the judgment to know when the answer is a better process rather than a new system.

• Work outside of normal business hours may be required to support system issues, problems, or projects.
• Ability to lift and move equipment weighing up to 35 pounds.
• Occasional travel required (less than 10% of time).
• Based in Atlanta, GA on a hybrid schedule. A fully remote arrangement will be considered for the right candidate.