Salome Payn
Rayleigh,Essex
Summary
Accomplished professional with expertise in leadership and team development, product strategy, and agile delivery. Demonstrates proficiency in project and programme management, stakeholder engagement, and change management. Skilled in UX and digital transformation, regulatory compliance, and product roadmap development. Adept at agile methodologies including SCRUM, Kanban, and SAFe, alongside digital project management. Utilises data analytics tools such as PowerBI, Tableau, and Google Analytics to drive business insights. Committed to process improvement and workflow optimisation through user experience enhancement and customer journey mapping.
Overview
19
19
years of professional experience
2005
2005
years of post-secondary education
Work history
Product Strategy Manager
HM Department for Works & Pensions
10.2022 - 07.2025
- Led the product strategy for inbound and outbound integrations between DWP, other Government Departments, and third parties, ensuring GDPR compliance and a seamless digital transformation for the final Universal Credit rollout affecting ~2 million households.
- Optimized cross-functional data management by identifying the most reliable data sources for accurate citizen verification across GB & NI.
- Led the transition from tactical to strategic automation for benefit calculations, ensuring scalable, long-term digital solutions.
- Drove compliance approvals by delivering Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) and Equality Assessments, securing ministerial sign-offs.
- Enabled interdepartmental technical integrations, ensuring alignment to legal and regulatory frameworks.
- Orchestrated strategic business case assessments, and an evaluative options appraisal, providing recommendations to ensure alignment with the product vision.
- Supported product owners to realise product benefits by prioritising stories, epics and themes centred around value for money (VfM)
- Example: Decreased the failure rate of Genomic sequencing by 50% by utilising insightful strong business analysis
Senior Product Owner
HM Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
01.2019 - 09.2022
- Led the digital transformation of the UK’s Radiological Emergency Response and Management System to enhance civil and defence operations.
- Product visionary, working alongside senior stakeholders to define and execute on the product strategy, shaping the roadmap and minimum viable product (MVP).
- Drove agile delivery cycles by managing multi-disciplinary teams, prioritizing backlogs, refining user stories, and ensuring feature readiness.
- Streamlined decision-making through workshops with developers and solution architects, enabling business case evaluation and technical feasibility analysis.
- Implemented governance frameworks for requirements gathering, usability testing, and feedback aligned to Government Digital Standards (GDS).
- Managed financial planning, highlight reports, sprint objectives, and risk escalation, ensuring strategic alignment.
- Example: Decreased the failure rate of Genomic sequencing by 50% by utilising insightful strong business
Product Owner
Anglia Ruskin University
08.2017 - 12.2018
- Managed the digital transformation of the university’s Learning Management System (LMS) across UK and international campuses.
- Led the discovery and conceptual design process, identifying key business drivers and translating requirements into actionable solutions and features.
- Defined the ‘as-is’ and future ‘to-be’ product features and processes, leveraging behaviour-driven data, persona definitions, and customer journey mapping to drive user-centric solution design.
- Owned the end-to-end requirements lifecycle, including elicitation, analysis, documentation, and prioritization of business needs, epics, and user stories, ensuring clear and actionable acceptance criteria.
- Facilitated cross-functional stakeholder engagement, chairing requirements prioritization meetings to provide strategic direction, challenge, and balance between business objectives and technical feasibility.
- Established and defined sprint objectives, ensuring incremental delivery of an MVP within defined time, resource, and scope constraints.
- Collaborated with Scrum development teams and solution architects, evaluating solution options and delivering strategic recommendations to senior stakeholders for informed decision-making.
- Led stakeholder engagement initiatives, guiding teams through proof of concept, development, product demonstrations, usability testing, and iterative feedback loops.
- Managed feature sign-off, release planning, and change control processes, ensuring all adjustments were reviewed and approved within appropriate governance forums prior to deployment.
- Example: Decreased the failure rate of Genomic sequencing by 50% by utilising insightful strong business
Product Owner
The Mix (Digital) Charity
London
03.2017 - 07.2017
- Company Overview: Digital charity focused on providing services for young people.
- Led the digital transformation of services for ~2 million young people by expanding digital platforms.
- Led the end-to-end requirements gathering, design, and delivery of digital products, including websites, mobile apps, e-learning platforms, and online forums, enhancing user experience and engagement for ~2 million young people (ages 13-25) across the UK.
- Provided strategic direction and real-time decision-making for the Scrum team, ensuring effective prioritization and resolution of competing demands from multiple stakeholders in product design.
- Owned and managed a £1 million budget, overseeing financial forecasting, expenditure control, and cost optimization to ensure the successful delivery of digital initiatives.
- Implemented Agile best practices to improve collaboration between cross-functional teams, ensuring rapid iteration and user-centred enhancements to digital products.
- Established governance frameworks for product development, ensuring alignment with compliance standards, accessibility requirements, and user data protection protocols.
- Example: Decreased the failure rate of Genomic sequencing by 50% by utilising insightful strong business
- Digital charity focused on providing services for young people.
Senior Business Analyst, Programme Design
RBS Divestment
11.2014 - 10.2016
- Led the implementation of governance processes to safeguard the integrity of the Divestment Programme’s Design Blueprint, ensuring regulatory compliance, operational continuity, and strategic alignment.
- Led the development and delivery of the cross-programme design blueprint, encompassing divestment, technical, operational, transitional arrangements, and cutover principles, ensuring a structured approach to programme execution.
- Established and defined standards and parameters for the consistent evaluation of emerging design proposals, ensuring alignment with programme governance and regulatory frameworks.
- Managed cross-programme impact analysis of key design issues (hotspots), safeguarding the high-level design blueprint, operating model, and customer journeys, while ensuring all solution options considered regulatory and Scheme membership implications.
- Conducted reviews and prioritisation of regulatory change initiatives, evaluating their potential impact on the programme design and strategic plan, ensuring compliance and operational feasibility.
- Example: Decreased the failure rate of Genomic sequencing by 50% by utilising insightful strong business
Project Manager (Multiple Roles)
RBS & Financial Services Compensation Scheme
07.2010 - 07.2014
Senior PMO Analyst
First Data
Essex
03.2008 - 11.2008
Business Analyst
International Financial Data Services
07.2006 - 07.2007
Education
Bachelor of Commerce - Business Management
University of South Africa
Masters in Corporate Governance - undefined
[Place of study]
Masters in Blockchain Technology - undefined
Zigurat Business School
Certified SAFe Product Manager - undefined
[Learning Provider]
APM Project Management Qualification - undefined
PMQ
ITIL4 Foundation - undefined
[Learning Provider]
Advanced Certified Agile SCRUM Master Practitioner - undefined
SCRUM Alliance
Advanced Certified Agile SCRUM Product Owner - undefined
SCRUM Alliance
Product Management - undefined
Stanford University
AI for Product Managers - undefined
Stanford University
Certified Agile SCRUM Master Practitioner - undefined
EXIN
Skills
- Leadership & Team Development
- Product Strategy & Agile Delivery
- Project & Programme Management
- Stakeholder & Change Management
- UX & Digital Transformation
- Regulatory & Compliance Expertise
- Product Roadmap & Strategy Development
- Programme Management
- Agile (SCRUM, Kanban, SAFe) & Digital Project Management
- Data & Business Analytics (PowerBI, Tableau, Google Analytics)
- Stakeholder Engagement & Cross-Functional Team Leadership
- Business Case Development
- Process Improvement & Workflow Optimization
- User Experience (UX), Wireframing & Customer Journey Mapping
Custom
Available upon request
Timeline
Product Strategy Manager
HM Department for Works & Pensions
10.2022 - 07.2025
Senior Product Owner
HM Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS)
01.2019 - 09.2022
Product Owner
Anglia Ruskin University
08.2017 - 12.2018
Product Owner
The Mix (Digital) Charity
03.2017 - 07.2017
Senior Business Analyst, Programme Design
RBS Divestment
11.2014 - 10.2016
Project Manager (Multiple Roles)
RBS & Financial Services Compensation Scheme
07.2010 - 07.2014
Senior PMO Analyst
First Data
03.2008 - 11.2008
Business Analyst
International Financial Data Services
07.2006 - 07.2007
Masters in Corporate Governance - undefined
[Place of study]
Masters in Blockchain Technology - undefined
Zigurat Business School
Certified SAFe Product Manager - undefined
[Learning Provider]
APM Project Management Qualification - undefined
PMQ
ITIL4 Foundation - undefined
[Learning Provider]
Advanced Certified Agile SCRUM Master Practitioner - undefined
SCRUM Alliance
Advanced Certified Agile SCRUM Product Owner - undefined
SCRUM Alliance
Product Management - undefined
Stanford University
AI for Product Managers - undefined
Stanford University
Certified Agile SCRUM Master Practitioner - undefined
EXIN
Bachelor of Commerce - Business Management
University of South Africa
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