Senior Product Development Manager

This job is located at 1 S. Wacker Dr., Chicago, IL, 60606

Why PLS? Because You Deserve Better! ® PLS - which stands for People
- Location
- Service - is a leading retail provider of financial services. The “P” comes first, because our customers are at the center of everything we do, and we recognize that it’s our exceptional team members who go above and beyond every day. The PLS Group, headquartered in Chicago, is comprised of over 200 financial service centers in 12 states. Through our check cashing stores, we provide consumers with convenient financial products and services to help them manage their day‑to‑day financial needs.

Although many of our customers have banking relationships, we believe that our customers use our financial services because they’re convenient, transparent, and frequently more affordable than available traditional alternatives. PLS was founded in 1997 by Bob and Dan Wolfberg, who serve as Co-Presidents.

The Senior Product Development Manager is responsible for identifying, evaluating, developing, and launching new product opportunities that drive strategic growth for the organization. As a member of the Product organization, this role leads the early stages of innovation by uncovering customer needs, assessing market opportunities, building business cases, and validating new product concepts before they move into full-scale development and commercialization.

This role serves as a catalyst for growth, partnering across our Product, Marketing, Operations, Technology, Finance, and Legal teams to evaluate opportunities through the lenses of desirability, feasibility, and viability. The Senior Product Development Manager will own a portfolio of innovation initiatives and guide concepts from initial idea through launch readiness.

• Identify and evaluate new product, service, and customer experience opportunities that align with our strategic business objectives.
• Monitor industry trends, market dynamics, competitive activity, emerging technologies, and customer needs to uncover growth opportunities.
• Develop and maintain a pipeline of innovation concepts and new product opportunities.
• Facilitate ideation sessions and cross‑functional workshops to generate and refine new concepts.
• Lead customer discovery efforts to understand unmet needs, pain points, and opportunities for differentiation.
• Conduct market research, competitive analysis, customer interviews, and concept testing.
• Develop customer personas, value propositions, and problem statements to support product development.
• Validate assumptions and gather evidence to support investment decisions.
• Build comprehensive business cases for new product opportunities, including market sizing, revenue projections, cost estimates, pricing strategies, and profitability analyses.
• Assess risks, dependencies, investment requirements, and potential returns.
• Develop recommendations and present findings to Product leadership and executive stakeholders.
• Establish success metrics and measurement frameworks for proposed initiatives.
• Lead the evaluation of new opportunities using a structured innovation framework.
• Design and execute pilots, prototypes, proof‑of‑concepts, and validation activities.
• Partner with our Operations, Technology, Legal, Compliance, and Finance teams, as well as other stakeholders to assess implementation requirements and risks
• Collaborate with Product Managers and delivery teams to transition validated concepts into development and launch.
• Support go‑to‑market planning, including positioning, pricing, sales enablement, training, and launch readiness activities.
• Track product performance post‑launch and identify opportunities for optimization and growth.
• Ensure learnings are captured and incorporated into future innovation efforts.
• Lead and influence cross‑functional teams without direct reporting authority.
• Drive alignment among stakeholders and facilitate decision‑making throughout the product innovation lifecycle.
• Promote a customer‑centric and data‑driven approach to innovation across the organization.
• Support the development and continuous improvement of innovation processes, frameworks, and best…