WHAT DOES AN INVESTMENT PRODUCT MANAGER DO?
Published: Nov 24, 2025 - The Investment Product Manager oversees strategic product partner relationships, leads product review committees, maintains approved product lists, and ensures all due diligence and product information remain current. This role involves supporting advisors and program staff with comparative product analysis, training, sales materials, fintech platform adoption, and resolving trading, compliance, and operational issues. The Manager also coordinates new product rollouts, delivers consistent product support across all channels, and manages multiple cross-functional projects simultaneously.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Investment Product Manager
1. Investment Product Manager Responsibilities
- Performance Analysis: Understand and assess the performance of investment strategies in the context of prevailing market conditions, industry developments, and customer or platform trends.
- Data Analysis: Use data analysis to support broader strategic product initiatives by generating insights and actionable recommendations.
- Client Insights: Evaluate client interest in various strategies and compare it with competitor offerings and broader market trends.
- Competitive Analysis: Conduct competitive analysis to identify gaps and opportunities for new product development and effective sales tactics.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work with cross-functional teams to contribute to diverse strategic projects.
- Client Preference Monitoring: Monitor how client preferences evolve in relation to economic shifts and industry changes.
- Insight Application: Leverage analytical findings to enhance product positioning and client engagement strategies.
- Go-to-Market Alignment: Collaborate with product and marketing teams to align insights with go-to-market planning.
- Market Differentiation: Explore opportunities for differentiation by studying market leaders and customer feedback.
- Strategy Alignment: Ensure that strategy development remains aligned with customer expectations and market demands.
- Continuous Improvement: Support continuous improvement through participation in interdisciplinary initiatives and feedback loops.
2. Investment Product Manager Job Summary
- Product Strategy: Contribute to the formulation of product development strategies aimed at increasing assets under management (AUM) and revenue across diverse investment products.
- Product Development: Lead initiatives to develop and enhance products that align with overall business goals, especially structured products.
- Innovation Exploration: Identify and pursue innovative opportunities in emerging areas, with a particular focus on robo-advisory solutions.
- Market Awareness: Stay informed about evolving global market trends to guide strategic product decisions.
- Customer Behavior Analysis: Examine customer behavior patterns to better tailor product offerings and improve engagement.
- Financial Assessment: Assess key financial drivers that influence product performance and business outcomes.
- Competitor Analysis: Analyze competitor strategies to identify differentiation opportunities and mitigate market threats.
- Market Intelligence Integration: Support the development of competitive products by integrating market intelligence and client insights.
- Data-Driven Growth: Ensure the continuous growth and relevance of products through data-driven analysis and innovation.
- Product Refinement: Maintain market competitiveness by regularly refining product features in response to customer and industry dynamics.
3. Investment Product Manager Accountabilities
- Product Ideation: Generate new ideas for investment products by monitoring and analyzing ongoing market developments.
- Trend Awareness: Ensure awareness of emerging trends and opportunities to support product innovation.
- Product Management: Oversee end-to-end product management processes, from conducting due diligence and selecting providers to performing ongoing evaluations.
- Product Launch Management: Manage product launches to deliver competitive offerings that align with business goals and customer expectations.
- Promotional Strategy: Develop promotional strategies and services tailored to meet the needs of various market segments.
- Performance Review: Continuously assess and refine product effectiveness through post-launch reviews and performance analysis.
- Advisory Guidance: Guide Relationship Managers (RMs) and Investment Consultants (ICs) to support appropriate client recommendations.
- Regulatory Compliance: Ensure all product-related advice and actions comply with regulatory and compliance requirements.
- Stakeholder Coordination: Coordinate with internal stakeholders such as compliance, legal, and marketing teams to facilitate smooth product implementation.
- Partner Management: Maintain strong working relationships with external partners, including product providers and distributors.
- Advisory List Management: Assist in managing and updating regional advisory product lists to ensure relevance and accuracy.
- Product Monitoring: Conduct periodic monitoring and reviews to uphold the quality and suitability of the advisory list.
4. Investment Product Manager Functions
- Domain Ownership: Take full ownership of the investment and payment domain, setting a clear vision and strategic direction for involved teams.
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Collaborate with both internal stakeholders and external partners to align goals and expectations.
- Customer Insight: Identify genuine customer pain points and develop bold, innovative solutions to address them.
- Vision Advocacy: Promote the product vision and gain support from internal teams and key external stakeholders.
- Prioritization Strategy: Establish priorities and scope for initiatives based on customer needs and business impact.
- Product Advocacy: Serve as a strong advocate for the product to increase awareness and foster engagement.
- Customer Engagement: Actively represent the company by meeting with customers to gather direct feedback on offerings.
- Insight Application: Leverage customer insights to refine product strategies and enhance service delivery.
- Cross-Functional Partnership: Work in close partnership with product, proposition, project, UX, and engineering teams.
- Strategic Execution: Drive effective execution of the strategic vision through cross-functional collaboration.
- Objective Alignment: Ensure alignment between product delivery and overarching business and customer objectives.
5. Investment Product Manager Job Description
- Tech Strategy Leadership: Lead the strategic design and direction of technology initiatives to support business objectives and client needs.
- Research & Innovation: Conduct thorough research and due diligence to generate innovative ideas for new initiatives.
- Initiative Evaluation: Evaluate the scope and feasibility of proposed initiatives to determine their strategic fit and practicality.
- Initiative Prioritization: Help prioritize initiatives based on resource availability and business impact.
- Governance Alignment: Ensure alignment of initiatives across both regional and global governance structures.
- Project Management: Manage projects from the initial research phase through to final implementation.
- Issue Resolution: Facilitate issue resolution and escalate challenges to maintain momentum and meet timelines.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Engage stakeholders regularly to maintain transparency and ensure alignment with broader goals.
- Technology Development: Guide evolving technology demands by developing cutting-edge solutions for clients.
- Platform Stability: Safeguard platform continuity and ensure the stability of supporting systems.
- Business Scaling: Act as a driving force in scaling the business across key functional pillars, including trading, operations, and technology.
- Ecosystem Integration: Support long-term integration goals within a larger ecosystem through consistent and strategic execution.
- Sustainable Growth: Ensure all initiatives contribute to sustainable growth and competitive differentiation in the marketplace.
6. Investment Product Manager Overview
- Product Implementation: Drive implementation and onboarding for new products, as well as for any product changes, managing projects from inception through implementation, ensuring project deadlines are met.
- Stakeholder Liaison: Serve as primary product liaison with key stakeholders in compliance, legal, fund administration, and investment operations.
- Compliance Oversight: Coordinate all compliance oversight, including SOX and 38a-1 reporting.
- Regulatory Monitoring: Monitor regulatory trends and changes that could impact products.
- Prospectus Management: Coordinate prospectus changes and updates for the product range.
- Derivatives Oversight: Manage oversight for the derivatives rule 18f-4.
- Program Oversight: Oversee commission recapture and securities lending programs.
- Transition Management: Oversee all transition management.
- Board Coordination: Own and coordinate all Board materials.
- Partner Management: Serve as strategic relationship manager and primary point of contact for sub-advisory partners.
7. Investment Product Manager Duties
- Investment Expertise: Act as an investment expert both internally and externally in the industry.
- Investment Support: Provide investment support and guidance to relationship management and sales teams, and participate in client meetings related to index equity product offerings.
- Issue Analysis: Lead analyses of investment product issues confronting the index equity line-up and manage cross-functional teams.
- Strategic Presentation: Prepare and present strategic analysis and recommendations to senior management at various forums.
- Stakeholder Relationships: Develop and maintain key internal stakeholder relationships across the organization.
- Product Feedback Integration: Leverage client and sales feedback on index equity products to assess product health and drive ongoing product improvements and positioning.
- Industry Engagement: Attend and present at industry conferences and client-specific events related to index equity funds and ETFs.
- Thought Leadership: Provide thought leadership in support of the index equity product lineup.
- Technical Marketing: Drive the creation of dynamic content and technical marketing to position index equity products and respond to investor queries.
- Product Launch Support: Contribute to new product launches and develop go-to-market strategies.
- Internal Training: Facilitate internal training and communications, including updates on launches and changes to existing index equity products.
- Marketing Coordination: Ensure coordination and consistency of product-related marketing initiatives and external communications across divisions.
- Research Support: Support business line research agendas to enhance client experience and business results.
8. Investment Product Manager Details
- Market Research: Engage in regular research and reading to stay apprised about the world, global financial markets, and general current events.
- Product Knowledge: Maintain current knowledge about financial products available to corporate and individual clients, including bonds, stocks, investments, blockchain, and trusts.
- Analyst Collaboration: Work closely with investment analysts to assess financial information and investment opportunities.
- Client Presentation: Present investment opportunities and related analysis while pitching proposed courses of action in meetings with clients.
- Financial Modeling: Use complex financial models to project future earnings and profit potential, and use this data to inform decisions and proposals.
- Client Acquisition: Acquire and manage high-net-worth clients with high efficiency.
- Financial Solutions: Provide financial solutions to clients to meet their objectives.
- Product Promotion: Promote and sell a wide range of wealth products to clients.
- Competitor Monitoring: Monitor and assess the activities of competitors to proactively satisfy and retain clients.
9. Investment Product Manager Details and Accountabilities
- After-Sales Support: Provide after-sales and product management support for the private equity and real estate product set to internal partners and external clients.
- Business Support: Support the relevant Private Bank Business, and potentially the Consumer Bank business.
- Fund Monitoring: Partner with Research to monitor existing funds, including periodic calls with fund managers.
- Regional Coordination: Work closely with regional sales management to determine regional after-sales requirements and refine existing processes and standards.
- Product Coordination: Manage and coordinate product-related functions, including investor reporting/fund highlights documents, investment manager updates, and product-specific banker and investor communications in coordination with internal/external product partners.
- Servicing Resolution: Engage with external service providers, the fund administration team, and global operations to resolve investor servicing queries.
- Documentation Management: Maintain documentation across the internal intranet.
- Project Management: Manage ad-hoc projects.
10. Investment Product Manager Tasks
- Product Strategy: Define, communicate, and execute the Liquidity Solutions Off-Balance Sheet Product Strategy, including product offering, marketing message, and platform rationalization.
- Sales Engagement: Engage with the Sales and Sales Specialist teams to understand client patterns, usage, and requirements related to excess cash and short-term investments.
- Market Alignment: Ensure the product suite meets current market needs and is marketed appropriately to optimize balances.
- Material Development: Create standard marketing materials, training materials, user guides, and onboarding procedures.
- Sales Support: Support Sales and Sales Specialist teams through subject matter expertise, client solutioning, and product demos.
- Opportunity Identification: Identify product opportunities and develop and socialize compelling business cases for new projects.
- Requirement Development: Provide detailed business requirements to Product Delivery and Technology partners for development projects and work within the Waterfall and Agile Project Delivery Framework (PDF) Methodology to bring new products to market.
- Project Communication: Communicate progress of development and ready-to-launch program elements to the management team and key stakeholders, and be accountable for project deadlines and delays.
- Regulatory Awareness: Understand the regulatory landscape and anticipate changes that may impact products.
- Risk Management: Maintain close partnerships with Legal, Risk, Compliance, and Audit partners to identify, escalate, and remediate risk items.
- Performance Tracking: Develop reporting to track key performance indicators such as revenue realization, segment penetration, and product/platform usage.
- Team Management: Manage staff, provide training, perform performance reviews, and facilitate career development planning.
11. Investment Product Manager Roles
- Partner Management: Assist with managing and supporting strategic partners and other product provider relationships.
- Committee Leadership: Serve as chair and/or co-chair of various Product Review Committees, including presenting products for approval, maintaining due diligence records, meeting minutes, developing meeting agendas, and facilitating meetings.
- Product List Oversight: Oversee development and maintenance of approved product lists of specified product lines, including mutual funds, ETFs, alternative investments, structured products, and annuities.
- Due Diligence: Perform due diligence analysis of specified product lines.
- Material Integration: Identify product sales and training material to incorporate with the practice management group.
- Comparative Analysis: Help advisors with comparative analysis of various products.
- Information Management: Ensure representatives, sales assistants, and program managers have the most current product information.
- Fintech Platform Promotion: Promote various fintech product support platforms used by financial professionals, such as electronic annuity order entry, annuity search and comparison tools, structured product analysis tools, and alternative investments due diligence and training platforms.
- Training Coordination: Participate in and coordinate training and rollout of new product offerings.
- Issue Resolution: Serve as the primary point of contact to resolve trading, compliance, or other operational issues with product partners and escalate to the manager.
- Product Updates: Provide product updates, quotes, and sales materials with full responsibility for ensuring information is always kept current.
- Representative Support: Interface with investment programs and registered representatives regularly to answer questions and inquiries regarding investment and other core products offered.
- Support Delivery: Ensure that representatives, program managers, sales assistants, and staff consistently receive the highest level of product support.
- Project Management: Manage multiple projects and coordinate tasks concurrently.