Every role demands some skills to meet the expectations of the position. In Agile, the role of a product OWNER is very important to keep the inputs and outputs up to the mark. Few of the essential skills to be competent product owners are:

1. Communication - It is predominantly critical for the Product Owner to have good communication skills that can adapt to different teams and behavior types. The Product Owner needs to WORK with the business to understand their vision and the development team to bring it to reality.
2. Commitment - The Product Owner should be committed to the project, vision, team and the business.
3. Vision - In connection with communication, the Product Owner should clearly communicate the vision between the small backlog items and the larger business goal.
4. Focus on functionality - A Product Owner has a focus on functionality, hours or even story points are less important. The goal of the Product Owner is to maximize value for the customer.
5. Available - A Product Owner is available for the stakeholders, the customers, the development team and the Scrum Master.

People skills are a must, relationship building, conflict management, client relationship management, vision, understanding requirements, clearly communicating the requirements to the team, and other skills are needed. These are MANY of the responsibilities/skills that POs must have to be successful. Yes, all the critical skills REQUIRED to be a product owner should be in a single person.