Head of Direct Development & Distribution

AXA Group; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 114,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking an experienced insurance leader to drive their business forward. This role involves activating continuous improvement programs and managing key relationships to enhance customer and commercial outcomes. You will lead change product squads, ensuring alignment with financial targets while fostering a collaborative environment. With a flexible working approach, this position allows you to balance your time between home and the office, making it an exciting opportunity for those passionate about the insurance sector and committed to delivering excellence.

Benefits

Annual company & performance-based bonus

Contributory pension scheme (up to 12% employer contributions)

Life Assurance (up to 10 x annual salary)

Private health cover

Cash allowance £5,000

28 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays

Opportunity to buy/sell extra days leave

AXA employee discounts

Gym benefits

Qualifications

• Significant insurance experience at a senior management level.
• Expertise in relationship management and team leadership.

Responsibilities

• Drive continuous improvement and brand strategy for customer outcomes.
• Manage relationships and evaluate new distribution options.

Skills

Insurance Experience

Relationship Management

Team Management

Data Analysis

Strategic Thinking

Customer Focus

Job description

Are you an experienced insurance leader? AXA Retail’s Direct team are looking for an influential, functional leader to drive their business. You’ll activate continuous improvement programmes and brand strategy to deliver customer and commercial outcomes in line with financial plans, group targets and brand strategy.

You’ll be responsible for price comparison relationships and assessing new distribution options, building collaborative plans to drive growth for three brands including AXA Direct, Swiftcover and Moja. Alongside this, you’ll lead change product squads, empowered to decide on priorities and able to execute through a multi skilled team of experts.

At AXA we work smart, empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team and our customers. You'll work at least 40% of your week away from home, moving to the majority of your working week from September 2025. Away from home means either attendance at either our Redhill or Ipswich office, visiting clients or attending industry events.

We’re also happy to consider flexible working arrangements, which you can discuss with Talent Acquisition.

What you’ll be doing:

• Own approach to using marketing offers, customer experience, ancillary products and price comparison website co-funds.
• Responsible for excellence in relationship management.
• Evaluate, on-board and optimise progressive proposition enrichment opportunities via new digital or data partnerships.
• Responsible for delivering the financial targets through delivery of change product squads and active management of relationships.
• Expertly drive approach to performance management, using data to drive fast paced decisions making.
• Activation of brand and loyalty strategies, ensuring it aligns financial plan targets.
• Work with and influence the functional leaders within the business to ensure alignment of the target parameters, with particular focus on operations and customer experience.
• Develop and motivate a high calibre team.

Due to the number of applications we expect to receive for this role, we reserve the right to close this advert earlier than the listed closing date to ensure we’re able to effectively manage interest. Therefore, if you’re interested in joining us at AXA, please don’t hesitate to apply.

What you’ll bring:

• Significant insurance experience at a senior management level within a distribution, commercial or target driven environment – essential.
• Relationship management experience - essential.
• Able to effectively manage a diverse team across multiple disciplines – essential.
• Results and data focused, track record of hitting revenue and profit targets through insight driven action – essential.
• Thorough understanding of UK general insurance, in particular direct personal lines products, current direct market conditions and competitor landscape.
• Understanding and evaluation of financial performance, business plans, budgets and forecast modelling experience.
• High level of customer focus and understanding of customer needs, segmentation and insights.
• Strategic thinking and problem-solving capability – ability to develop practical solutions to real problems.

As a precondition of employment for this role, you must be eligible and authorised to work in the United Kingdom.

This position has been defined as an Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) role under the IDD regime which means that in addition to pre-employment screening checks, the successful candidate will be subject to background screening every 4 years with an annual declaration in interim years.

What we offer:

At AXA UK, we’re appreciative of the people who work for us and our rewards package is reviewed regularly to reflect that. You can expect to receive:

• Annual salary of up to £114,000 dependent on experience
• Annual company & performance-based bonus
• Contributory pension scheme (up to 12% employer contributions)
• Life Assurance (up to 10 x annual salary)
• Private health cover
• Cash allowance £5,000
• 28 days annual leave plus Bank Holidays
• Opportunity to buy up to 5 extra days leave or sell up to 5 days leave
• AXA employee discounts
• Gym benefits

To apply, click on the ‘apply for this job’ button, you’ll then need to log in or create a profile to submit your CV. We’re proud to be an Equal Opportunities Employer and don’t discriminate against employees or potential employees based on protected characteristics. If you have a long-term condition or disability and require adjustments during the application or interview process, we’re proud to offer access to the AXA Accessibility Concierge. For our support, please send an email to [e-mail].

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Who we are:

AXA Retail helps people live the life they love, knowing we’ve got their back, at home and on the road. Our people are vital to us becoming more digital, faster and easier to access. We’re a dynamic team of experts completely committed to making sure our customers ‘get back to the good stuff’ when the unexpected happens.