Being a Product Manager at Ideal Heating

We believe in investing in our people and in continuous personal development. Ideal has held ‘Investors in People’ status for over 20 years as a benchmark to ensure that our processes are effective in enabling people to perform at their very best.

As part of our careers at Ideal Boilers blog series, we will be introducing you to members of our Ideal family and discussing the skills and knowledge they bring to our company. Read about how they built their career and the training opportunities we offer, which helped them develop in their role.

We caught up with Lizzie Wilkinson, Head of Product Management here at Ideal Boilers.

Describe your role at Ideal Boilers in one sentence

In short Product Management is combining the needs of the customer with commercial opportunity to support and develop our current and future product portfolio.

What does an average day at Ideal Boilers look like?

Every day is different! One day may be customer visits to get feedback on our products, another may be working with our Research and Development team on new products and the next might be talking to our Marketing team about product launch activity. I also attend industry meetings to discuss legislation and spend time planning our product roadmap and investigating what products our customers will be wanting in the future.

What are the key skills needed for this kind of job?

The skills needed for this kind of job are excellent communication skills, the ability to interact with, and influence, a wide range of stakeholders, organisation and ability to manage a lot of different tasks and projects at once. Patience and a sense of humour help as well!

What was your path to this role?

My background is slightly unorthodox for the plumbing and heating industry with my degree and early career in physiology and anatomy. Previously I have worked in global marketing and product management in the medical device industry before starting as a product manager for the domestic boiler range at Groupe Atlantic UK in 2017. In 2018, I moved to Head of Domestic Product Management for Group Atlantic UK meaning I am responsible for product management of the domestic boilers, heating controls, Gledhill cylinders, Atlantic Heat electric heating and our renewables and new energy range. Whilst medical devices and boilers are very different, product management skills are quite transferable. It’s been a steep learning curve but it’s definitely not boring!

Watch this space for more blogs about our Ideal family or click here to view other blogs in the series:

Kris Spivey – Industrial Engineer

Zoe Field – Service Engineer

Jo Lilley – Engineer

Take a look at our careers page and begin your career in Manufacturing and Engineering at Ideal Boilers.