Director - Founder's Office (Product Management)

Director - Founder's Office (Product Management)

Location: Nine Elms, London (Hybrid, Friday's-WFH)

About Zapp

Zapp is London’s leading premium convenience retail platform. Founded in 2020, our vision is to disrupt the multi-trillion dollar convenience retail market, by developing best-in-class customer-centric technology and fulfilment solutions. Zapp partners with some of the world’s leading brands to deliver an exclusive range of hand-picked products 24/7, delivered in minutes.

About the Role

This is a rare opportunity to sit at the intersection of executive strategy and hands-on product leadership. As Director - Founder's Office (Product Management), you will work directly with Zapp's Founder and Senior Leadership Team - shaping the company's most important product bets while also rolling up your sleeves to own the consumer mobile (iOS) experience end-to-end.

This is not a traditional Product role. You will be the Founder's trusted partner on consumer product strategy - synthesising customer insight, operational data, and market intelligence into a product vision that the organisation can execute against. You will define the consumer mobile roadmap, drive cross-functional alignment, and take personal accountability for outcomes across the full customer funnel.

You'll thrive here if you're equal parts strategist and builder - someone who can hold a leadership-level conversation in the morning and review a sprint backlog in the afternoon, without losing anything in translation.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Founder Partnership

• Serve as a strategic thought partner to the Founder on consumer product direction, surfacing insights, identifying opportunities, and shaping decisions that matter.

• Translate the Founder's vision into a coherent, executable product strategy for the consumer mobile (iOS) experience - from acquisition and onboarding through to retention and re-engagement.

• Represent the product function in senior leadership discussions, crafting compelling, data-backed narratives.

• Act as a connector between the Founder's Office and the wider engineering, and design organisation - ensuring strategic intent lands in execution.

Consumer Product Ownership

• Own the entire consumer mobile experience - from first app open and onboarding through to checkout, real-time delivery tracking, and post-order engagement.

• Define and manage the consumer mobile product roadmap, making clear prioritisation calls and maintaining tight alignment with Engineering and Design.

• Drive development of key iOS capabilities including push notifications, Apple Pay, personalised recommendations, real-time location tracking, and loyalty mechanics.

• Establish and own KPIs across the consumer funnel - activation, engagement, retention, and revenue - holding yourself and the team accountable to measurable outcomes.

• Stay ahead of iOS platform updates, consumer behaviour trends, and best-in-class mobile UX to keep the Zapp app genuinely competitive.

Cross-Functional Influence & Execution

• Lead and align stakeholders across Engineering, Design, Marketing, Commercial, and Operations to deliver a seamless and intuitive customer experience.

• Own a portfolio of high-impact initiatives end-to-end - from scoping and planning through to delivery, measurement, and iteration.

• Identify and resolve structural blockers and systemic inefficiencies that slow down product execution or degrade the customer experience.

• Champion a culture of rigorous experimentation and data-led decision-making across the consumer product team.

Ideal Candidate Profile: Requirements

Essential

• 8+ years of experience spanning product management, strategy, or a combination - with clear evidence of working at or near executive level in a high-growth environment.

• A proven track record of building and scaling consumer mobile apps, with demonstrably high user engagement and retention.

• Deep understanding of the consumer product lifecycle - acquisition, activation, retention, and re-engagement - and a clear instinct for where to focus.

• Strong quantitative skills and a systems-thinking mindset: comfortable breaking down ambiguous problems, mapping dependencies, and finding leverage points.

• Executive presence and communication skills to influence senior stakeholders and facilitate alignment across functions.

• Experience working directly with founders or C-suite leaders - you understand how to be a trusted partner, not just an executor.

• Ability to work closely with mobile engineers and designers, translating user needs and technical constraints into intuitive, high-performance features.

• Experience with mobile analytics platforms (e.g. Mixpanel, Amplitude) and a sharp eye for the metrics that actually move the needle.

Desirable

• Strong grasp of the iOS ecosystem - Apple Human Interface Guidelines, Apple Pay, push notifications, real-time tracking, and location-based services.

• Experience in on-demand delivery, grocery, e-commerce, or marketplace platforms.

• Background in strategy consulting or VC/PE - particularly if you've since moved into operational product roles.

• Experience preparing and presenting materials for board meetings, investor updates, or strategic leadership reviews.

Benefits

A genuinely differentiated career opportunity: direct access to the Founder and Senior Leadership Team of one of London's most ambitious startups, combined with full ownership of a product that sits at the core of the business. Your work will be visible, consequential, and fast-moving. For the right person, this is the fastest way to combine strategic thinking with real product ownership in a high-growth environment.

Of course we also offer:

• Competitive salary & equity package.

• 25 days of annual leave plus bank holidays.

• Private Health Insurance.

• Extended sick pay and maternity/paternity leave pay.