IT - Head of Technology Planning & Business Partnership.

Zurich Cover-More; Schaumburg (IL); Hybrid; USD 175,000 - 287,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual leave and personal leave

Parental leave

Health plan

401(k) with employer matching

Job summary

Zurich Cover-More in Schaumburg, IL, seeks a senior technology strategist to align business strategy with technology priorities across North America. You will partner with senior leaders to translate needs into clear requirements, set priorities, and ensure investments and capacity meet business aims.

You will lead demand intake, maintain visibility of the technology demand pipeline, evaluate competing demands, and provide actionable recommendations.

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of business strategy and how technology enables outcomes.
• Experience partnering with senior business and technology leaders.
• Background in technology strategy, IT planning, governance, or portfolio management.
• Strong knowledge of technology delivery processes and capacity planning.
• Ability to assess competing priorities, evaluate trade-offs, and provide clear recommendations.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills.
• Experience leading technology teams and developing talent.
• Desirable: Insurance, financial services, or similarly complex environments.

Responsibilities

• Act as a technology partner to senior business leaders, understanding strategies, priorities, and challenges.
• Translate business needs into clear technology requirements and actionable priorities.
• Strengthen alignment between business objectives and the North American technology agenda.
• Lead the technology demand intake process with clearly defined requests.
• Maintain visibility across the technology demand pipeline and priorities.
• Evaluate competing demands based on business value, urgency, dependencies, and capacity.
• Provide recommendations to senior leadership to support investment decisions.
• Partner with IT leadership to understand delivery capacity and resource allocation.
• Ensure problems, outcomes, scope, and requirements are defined before delivery.
• Establish expected business value and report on whether investments deliver outcomes.
• Provide clear reporting on demand, portfolio priorities, capacity, and decisions.
• Lead and develop technology talent within a collaborative IT planning culture.

Skills

Business strategy alignment

Executive partnership

IT planning

Governance

Portfolio management

Resource planning

Decision-making

Stakeholder management

Team leadership

Talent development

Insurance/FS familiarity

Job description

At Zurich Cover-More, we're proud to be one of the world's leading travel insurance and assistance providers. Each year, we protect more than 20 million travellers worldwide, making sure we're there every step of their journey with proactive care, personalised cover and specialist support. Zurich Cover-More partners with many of the world's best-known brands - think major airlines, travel giants, top banks, credit card providers, and large retailers - to deliver more care, more cover, for all.

Launched in December 2024, Zurich Cover-More is the global travel brand of Zurich Insurance Group, one of the world's leading multi-line insurers. Our family of customer-facing brands includes trusted names like Travel Guard, Cover-More Travel Insurance, Travelex Insurance, Universal Assistance, World Travel Protection, Freely, and Blue Insurance. Together, we're redefining what it means to travel safely and with confidence. Whether it's a long-awaited holiday, a last-minute business trip, or an unexpected detour, we deliver in the moments that matter.

What you'll be doing:

In this role, you'll strengthen the connection between business strategy and technology priorities across North America. Working closely with senior business and technology leaders, you'll shape demand, establish clear priorities, and help ensure technology investments, resources, and delivery capacity are aligned to the priorities that matter most to the business.

• You'll act as a key technology partner to senior business leaders, developing a strong understanding of their strategies, priorities, and challenges.
• You'll translate business needs into clear technology requirements and actionable priorities.
• You'll strengthen alignment between business objectives and the North American technology agenda.
• You'll lead the technology demand intake process, ensuring new requests are clearly defined and assessed before prioritisation.
• You'll maintain visibility across the technology demand pipeline, including emerging requirements and business priorities.
• You'll evaluate competing demands based on business value, urgency, dependencies, and available capacity.
• You'll provide recommendations to senior leadership and steering committees to support informed investment and prioritisation decisions.
• You'll partner with IT leadership to understand delivery capacity, identify constraints, and recommend how resources should be allocated against business priorities.
• You'll ensure business problems, expected outcomes, scope, and requirements are clearly defined before initiatives progress into delivery.
• You'll establish expected business value upfront and provide visibility into whether technology investments are delivering their intended outcomes.
• You'll provide clear reporting on technology demand, portfolio priorities, capacity constraints, and decisions requiring leadership attention.
• You'll lead and develop technology talent, supporting a collaborative and business-focused approach to IT planning.

What skills and experience you'll bring on this journey:

• A strong understanding of business strategy and how technology enables commercial and operational outcomes.
• Experience partnering with senior business and technology leaders.
• A background in technology strategy, IT planning, governance, or portfolio management.
• Strong knowledge of technology delivery processes and resource or capacity planning.
• The ability to assess competing priorities, evaluate trade-offs, and provide clear recommendations.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills.
• Experience leading technology teams and developing talent.
• Desirable: Previous experience within insurance, financial services, or a similarly complex business environment.

Why you'll love working with us!

We value optimism, caring, togetherness, reliability, results-orientation, and forward-thinking.

We have more than 3000 employees worldwide. We are a global group of digital specialists, actuaries, marketers, doctors, nurses, case managers, claims specialists, finance experts, customer service and corporate services professionals. We share a global purpose to look after travellers, at every step of their journey.

Job flexibility.

We understand the importance of making sure that work fits into your life, not the other way around. Our hybrid approach ensures you can maintain work-life balance with the flexibility of 3 days in the office and 2 days working from home.

Career growth.

This is an extremely exciting time for us at Zurich Cover-More, as we rapidly expand our business across the globe. We're committed to helping our people thrive through a comprehensive onboarding experience, continuous professional development, and a supportive work environment that empowers growth at every stage of your career.

Take the time you need, for you and your community.

We encourage you to take the time you need when you need it.

• We offer regular annual and personal leave benefits along with volunteer leave and a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme.

Investing in your health and your future.

We offer a competitive high-deductible health plan, EAP programs and access to health and well-being activities along with a 401(k) program with employer matching to help you plan for your future.

• We offer a competitive high-deductible health plan, EAP programs and access to health and well-being activities along with a 401(k) program with employer matching to help you plan for your future.

Diversity and inclusion.

We respect who you are and thoroughly embrace diversity. Wherever life has taken you, we welcome you to bring your whole self to work. Just be you - because that's exactly who we're looking for.

At Zurich Cover-More, compensation for roles is influenced by a variety of factors, including but not limited to the specific office location, role, skill set, and level of experience. In compliance with local laws, Zurich commits to providing a fair and reasonable compensation range for each role. For more information about our Total Rewards, please click here. Additional rewards may encompass short-term incentive bonuses and merit increases. We encourage candidates with salary expectations beyond the provided range to apply as they will be considered based on their experience, skills, and education.

The compensation indicated represents a nationwide market range and has not been adjusted for geographic differentials pertaining to the location where the position may be filled. The proposed salary range for this position is $175,200 - $287,000 with STIP of 25%.