Director

Description:

The Director, Insurance Product Enablement is accountable for end-to-end program management of all product initiatives, from assessment & design of new ideas to rollout. The Director, Product Enablement also has ownership of the insurance product development process, and actively seeks to improve the process by diagnosing issues and working with stakeholders to implement improvements that will accelerate time-to-market. This role builds and cultivates relationships with key partners including, product, pricing and risk, distribution, IT, operations and underwriting, and marketing to collaborate effectively in the product/solution development process. The focus of this role is leading the design and execution of an effective product development process that brings profitable, competitive and saleable products/solutions to market in a timely manner.

This role reports to Tracey Kropf, AVP, Insurance Product Development & Digital Advisor Experience

What will you do?

Product Development Process

Drives improvement of the product development process:

• Maintain a current state view of the end-to-end process for different categories of product initiatives: process steps, artefacts, stakeholders and timelines

• Conduct post-implementation retrospectives, seeking feedback from internal stakeholders

• Monitor and analyze initiative adoption and performance metrics to identify development process improvement initiatives

• Leads the implementation of development process improvements to accelerate time to market and improve the quality of product initiatives

• Leads the end-to-end program management of all product initiatives, from assessment and design of new ideas to rollout, for a specific product category

• Monitor, manage and report on the progress of initiatives to ensure they are meeting the needs and objectives of the organization

• Proactively identify program risks and collaborate with stakeholders to resolve or escalate as required

• Lead internal stakeholders in the completion of early assessments and business case documentation

• Lead internal stakeholders in the completion of detailed initiative build milestones and approvals

• Provide overall program management tracking of go-to-market and operational readiness plans, identifying dependencies and risks to delivery

• Leading the implementation and execution of development projects, working with the Insurance Solutions platform on the technology build, and ensuring a successful hand-off to product management for post launch support.

Leadership

• Provide leadership, mentorship and management to the Product Enablement Manager(s)

• Build and foster strong relationships with internal and external partners to lead and guide projects through ideation to execution

Process Improvement

• Champion new process changes to enhance the product/solution development process, expediting delivery times and/or reducing costs

What do you need to succeed?

• In-depth understanding of the insurance product development process, from concept to go-to-market

• Solid understanding of individual life and health insurance, key markets and methods of distribution

• Strong program and project management skills and experience required

• Strong stakeholder management and facilitation skills

• Strong collaboration and partnership skills

• Excellent influencing skills sufficient to manage and execute the completion of projects and

• assignments in a changing environment

• Excellent relationship-building skills – with both senior management and employee level

• Demonstrated self-management and prioritization skills

• Passion: for delivering solutions with a client first focus

• Influencing: you have the ability to impact decisions within Insurance Solutions and with internal stakeholders

• Relationship Management: Ability to establish and build healthy working relations and partnerships with leaders and peers

• Clear Communicator: You know how to get your message across effectively to all you collaborate with

• Flexibility: Brings order to ambiguous situations, and demonstrates an ability to manage multiple concurrent initiatives, making effective judgements in prioritization of effort.

• Drive for results: motivating the team to get the job done is natural for you

Education and Training

• 5-10 years experience within the financial services industry, with program management experience

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in business

• MBA is an asset

• Bilingualism (English/French) is an asset but not required