What are the responsibilities and job description for the Technology Product Manager position at Baird?
About The Role
Our Private Wealth Management (PWM) division is seeking a member for its PWM Technology Best Practices team. The PWM Technology Best Practices team is an established group with a mission to help grow revenues, enhance the associate and client experience, and improve profitability through technology. We pride ourselves on providing our Financial Advisors and clients with top-notch platforms that are critical in driving our business forward.
The Research Technology Product Manager will be expected to play a leading role in the strategy, innovation, and day-to-day management of the Morningstar Advisor Workstation platform, its integrations, and the broader research technology ecosystem. This position will collaborate with various corporate resource groups, Financial Advisors (FA) and Client Specialists (CS), ensuring branches’ current and future Technology front office needs are met. The role will have a strategic focus on Morningstar Advisor Workstation, while also providing oversight of supporting research platforms, vendor relationships, and data capabilities that enable advisor workflows and client-facing deliverables. This role may grow to include additional responsibilities as PWM’s priorities change.
The Impact You'll Make
Our Private Wealth Management (PWM) division is seeking a member for its PWM Technology Best Practices team. The PWM Technology Best Practices team is an established group with a mission to help grow revenues, enhance the associate and client experience, and improve profitability through technology. We pride ourselves on providing our Financial Advisors and clients with top-notch platforms that are critical in driving our business forward.
The Research Technology Product Manager will be expected to play a leading role in the strategy, innovation, and day-to-day management of the Morningstar Advisor Workstation platform, its integrations, and the broader research technology ecosystem. This position will collaborate with various corporate resource groups, Financial Advisors (FA) and Client Specialists (CS), ensuring branches’ current and future Technology front office needs are met. The role will have a strategic focus on Morningstar Advisor Workstation, while also providing oversight of supporting research platforms, vendor relationships, and data capabilities that enable advisor workflows and client-facing deliverables. This role may grow to include additional responsibilities as PWM’s priorities change.
The Impact You'll Make
- Lead and manage the PWM Research and Asset Management Team’s key platforms and strategic roadmap, including oversight of related Morningstar tools (e.g., Advisor Workstation, Advisor Resource Center and associated datasets) in collaboration with key Baird stakeholders.
- Maintain a strategic perspective by staying current on industry platforms (e.g., Morningstar, FactSet, Bloomberg, LSEG, Y-Charts), assessing competitive positioning, understanding associate needs, journey mapping, managing enhancements, driving adoption, and participating in internal sub-committees and external industry forums to inform strategy.
- Develop deep functional expertise in Morningstar Advisor Workstation, including customizing outputs, configuring modules, and creating reports aligned to advisor workflows and firm subscription capabilities.
- Apply a broad Product Manager skillset including business scenario planning, functional design, process mapping, prototyping, requirements definition, UAT execution, issue triage, and documentation to support platform stability and scalability.
- Serve as the lead interface with IT on Research Technology initiatives, acting as Product Owner responsible for backlog prioritization, integration delivery, and ensuring data flows (e.g., market data, research content, classifications) function effectively across platforms.
- Act as primary vendor relationship manager across research technology providers (e.g., Morningstar, FactSet, Bloomberg, LSEG, S&P Global, Russell, Y-Charts), including contract awareness, usage oversight, escalation management, and coordination of enhancements and issue resolution.
- Lead governance and transparency across research platforms, maintaining visibility into user access, licensing, vendor capabilities, and costs to reduce redundancy, improve utilization, and support informed vendor and platform decisions.
- Collaborate with Investment Solutions, PWM Research, and key stakeholders to understand how datasets, analytics, and outputs support advisor workflows and client deliverables, ensuring alignment with business and investment processes.
- Oversee platform performance and data integrity, including monitoring system functionality, responding to outages, supporting UAT, and validating enhancements to ensure outputs are accurate, compliant, and reliable.
- Partner with PWM Tech Solutions, Wealth Centers, Research, Marketing and Communications, and Operations to drive awareness, change management, training, and ongoing education to support adoption of research technology platforms.
- Engage with PWM branch focus groups and serve as a point of contact for Financial Advisors, providing guidance on tool capabilities, access, and usage while advocating for associate and client needs in product enhancements.
- Maintain awareness of evolving Compliance and Supervision requirements (e.g., SEC guidance) and partner with stakeholders to ensure research tools and client-facing outputs meet regulatory standards; may assume additional platform ownership as priorities evolve.
- Bachelor’s degree preferred.
- Technical area of study preferred.
- 5 years of experience in the financial services industry preferred.
- Experience in Product Management, Business Analysis, or related technology roles preferred.
- Superior customer service attributes; willingness to go “above and beyond” for the client.
- Advanced technical skill set with the ability to translate for the non-technical end-user.
- Must be able to take ownership of issues and see them through to completion; strong problem-solving mindset required.
- Exceptional oral and written communication skills; ability to interact and influence all organization levels.
- Ability to develop, build, and maintain relationships with internal and external partners.
- Ability to identify issues and trends to anticipate change and provide recommended comprehensive solutions and remedies.
- Experience working with third-party vendors and/or external technology platforms preferred.
- Familiarity with investment research tools, market data, or analytics platforms (e.g., Morningstar, FactSet, Bloomberg, or similar) preferred.