Director, Underwriting Portfolio Leader

AXA UK; London; On-site; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

AXA UK is seeking a Director, UW Portfolio Leader to oversee Global Risk Selection and Rating. This permanent role in London involves leading product teams, developing digital strategies, and aligning resources to maximize business outcomes within an Agile framework. Strong stakeholder management and experience in Agile methodologies are essential for success in this position.

Benefits

Vibrant and inclusive work environment

Career development opportunities

Flexible working arrangements

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in product ownership, ideally within insurance or financial services.
• Strong technical proficiency and proven experience with Agile practices.
• Ability to manage ambiguity and make decisions under uncertainty.

Responsibilities

• Articulate and translate underwriting business vision into a global digital strategy.
• Manage a team of product managers and oversee Agile product teams.
• Ensure stakeholder satisfaction and progress against objectives using agile methodology.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Agile methodologies

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in relevant field

Job description

Job Title: Director, UW Portfolio Leader: Global Risk Selection and Rating

Department: Business Agility Operations

Location: London

Duration: Permanent

About the Department & Team:

The role will be responsible for Global Product ownership of GRS business objectives within the Underwriting Domain for Agile Products spanning the core capabilities of all Risk Assessment, Coverage, Rating and Pricing technology capability, including working closely with our UW, Actuarial and Data teams on how the both Globally and Locally engage with those capabilities, the flow of data between other linked capabilities such as Submission, Quote, Book/Bind and Policy Administration.

You will be responsible for articulating and translating the overall Underwriting business vision into a Global digital strategy that ties in with ‘One GRS’, Segment and Regional strategies, prioritising within our financial and resource capacity available, as well as making tactical decisions within their respective Portfolio.

Responsibility for overseeing Agile product teams and ensuring they are appropriately resourced, focused on the key priorities, and aligned on comprehensive roadmaps to achieve portfolio objectives for Key Stakeholders and the overall business strategy.

Directly managing a team of Product Managers and helps oversee their respective Agile teams and stakeholders to align priorities, remove roadblocks and secure resources.

Accountable for outcomes and key results (OKRs) tied directly to their Portfolio’s aligned strategic objectives.

Responsible for ensuring stakeholder satisfaction and overall progress against objectives using agile methodology.

Key Responsibilities:

• Set ambitious and clear digital portfolio strategy and oversee Product Managers who translate this into strategic digital roadmaps for their respective Underwriting Agile Products.

• Responsible for business results of the related set of customer journeys or agile Products as measured by relevant OKRs.

• Deeply understands the businesses that comprise GRS, their go-to-market strategies, their common opportunities to leverage scale, and their unique differences that are required to win in local markets.

• Responsible for communicating the Portfolio vision effectively to key stakeholders and team members.

• Works closely with IT and other Business Unit counterparts to ensure resource alignment in support of Portfolio vision and roadmaps.

• Partner with Design Team ensures customer-driven design is prioritized, considering user pain points from usability test results and market industry knowledge to deliver a well-positioned product.

• Partner with Data Team to ensure that our data model design is prioritized, considering the global and local data strategies to ensure the robustness and usability of our data to deliver the business objectives, preventing user pain points from re-keying and poor data availability for analysis in other capabilities.

• Owns alignment of development and business resources on goals and priorities while working with stakeholders and team to remove roadblocks to execution.

• Directly manage a team of Product Managers who are responsible for all Agile Products.

• Participates to provide feedback, support, coaching, in sprint-and release plans together with Product Managers and Technology counterparts.

• Manages delivery of scope, partners with the Leadership Team and Business Sponsors to align on key functional strategic outcomes, Portfolio and initiative performance and funding / resource demand and allocation.

• Works with Product Manager to ensure Epics and Features are clear and resolves open issues/questions quickly and efficiently.

• Acts as the `voice of the customer’ for the larger Portfolio. Leads the analysis of feasibility, cost ramifications, economies, or other aspects of planned or potential programs within their respective Portfolio.

• Approves final Epics and approves completed user features or series of features.

• Overall responsibility to the quality and consistency of Digital Product and Portfolio Roadmaps, Maintaining healthy Backlogs, product Catalogues, Opportunities for reuse and resilience.

• Ultimate decision maker for Priority calls for Global Risk Selection and Rating Products for Technology investments / trade-offs, though the investment appetite will be set by COOs.

Skills and Experience:

• Strong key stakeholder management and influencing skills in order to be seen as the decision maker when interfacing with business, and willingness to dissent with both teams and business.

• Advanced knowledge of Agile development methodologies as typically acquired through a Bachelors` degree in relevant field (business, computer science, etc.) or significant experience working as a Product Owner.

• Experience in business, engineering, technology and/or consulting.

• High level of proven business expertise needed to set clear priorities for product within the Distribution Domain and understand business value impacts.

• Technical proficiency is required to participate in sprint planning and have an informed, independent voice.

• Proven experience with Agile practices and expectations.

• Comfortable with making decisions with some level of uncertainty.

• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.

About Liberty Specialty Markets (LSM)

Liberty Specialty Markets is part of Global Risk Solutions and the broader Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, which is a leading global insurer. We offer a breadth of world-class insurance and reinsurance services to brokers and insureds in all major markets.

Our people are key to our success. That is why "Put People First" is one of the five Liberty values which unite us as a global organisation. We bring this to life for our colleagues through:

• Offering a vibrant and inclusive environment and committing to their career development.

• Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Our Inclusion Matters framework and employee-led networks strengthen the diversity of our workforce and our inclusive environment.

• Reinforcing that collaborating together to share our unique perspectives help us make better decisions, deliver innovative solutions and pursue our ambitious goals.

• A supportive culture, which includes promoting a healthy work-life balance and working flexibly.

For more information, please follow the links below:

https://www.libertyspecialtymarkets.com/gb-en/careers/working-for-us

https://www.libertyspecialtymarkets.com/gb-en/careers/diversity-inclusion-wellbeing/diversity-and-inclusion