Commercial Director

Established in 1918, New Ireland Assurance is the first wholly Irish owned life assurance company to transact business in Ireland. It is currently the second largest life assurance company in the Irish market with over 500,000 policyholders and €20 billion in assets under management. New Ireland is key to the Bank of Ireland growth strategy, as well as having undergone significant transformation in recent years. Bank of Ireland Group, through New Ireland sells a broad range of protection, investment and pension products to individual and corporate customers in the Republic of Ireland. Its liabilities are predominantly unit linked and it has a multi-channel distribution strategy, selling products through the Bank’s branch network, the independent broker market and a tied agent channel (financial advisors).

Key highlights in 2020

Transformation:

• Developed and launched our broker portal, it provides a secure access point for external and internal advisors and customers to access self-service options and policy information, including digital connection to brokers and their customer relationship management systems.
• Launched a new Group Pension platform ‘mypension365’ providing customers with a modern, digital and customer-friendly experience and a significantly faster onboarding process.
• Proactive response to COVID-19, to protect the Financial Wellbeing of customers, including decreasing minimum premiums on savings and pensions products and six months mortgage protection premium waiver for customers who have been granted a mortgage payment break by their lender.
• Phased roll-out of Wealth and insurance digital advice platform and general insurance wallet, delivering end-to-end digital fulfilment capability and enhanced digital experience to customers.

Customer:

• Relationship NPS +7 (New Ireland)
• Persistency 92%
• Claims paid of > €1.7bn, including risk claims of c€120m
• Over 45% of customers transacted through new digital channels in 2020
• Increased the penetration of Wealth and Insurance products to our Bank customer base to 35%

Colleague:

• Increase in employee engagement score to 60 points, up 18 points since 2017
• Culture embedding 66% up 15 points since 2019

Grow sustainable profits:

• Cost Income ratio 55%
• Operating Contribution for 2020 of €93m and underlying contribution of €56m
• Market share 19% ( up from 14% in Q1 2020)

Purpose of the Role

Central leadership role in the business to lead development and execution of strategic and commercial change, customer technology and digital delivery in support of our transformation, customer experience and growth goals.

Ensure an excellent technology, transformation and delivery experience from early stage innovation through design & implementation to ongoing maintenance of the technology estate.

Lead key change (strategic change, risk & regulatory and business change) programmes across the business, identifying optimal delivery plan, managing/tracking delivery of benefits and taking prompt action when issues arise.

Act as a central point in the business with responsibility for ensuring delivery of an excellent customer experience across sales, service, customer communications, tone of voice, complaints and claims. This involves working with all sales, service and claims areas to ensure consistency and excellence with customers across all product lines and channels.

Key Accountabilities

• IT, digital, change and customer experience
• Responsible for strategic leadership and development of change, digital and technology delivery related to full product suite across group and individual risk, pension and protection products for customers distributed through broker, FA and bank channels
• Creation and delivery of robust strategic delivery plans aligned to strategic ambitions
• Ownership of technology roadmap, collaborating with the wider team to drive continuous improvement, brilliant customer experience, market leading platforms and ongoing digital delivery
• Accountable for ensuring this delivers a consistent and excellent customer experience in all areas and across all parts of the business. This includes ensuring alignment between front and back office customer related activities to drive strong NPS, improving customer persistency and reducing complaint levels.
• Managing a range of internal and external stakeholders, including SMT colleagues and their teams, Group colleagues (IT, IT security, Operations, Customer) and external digital, technology & change partners.

What is the opportunity

SMT leadership role reporting to Managing Director of Wealth & Insurance division.

Working at Bank of Ireland doesn’t have to mean working in an office to have an impact. Our commitment to enabling colleagues to thrive means that depending on role type you can have choice and flexibility in where you work and live, subject to your role, customer needs and our requirements. We have a hybrid working model, with home, agile hub and office based options available. We will always list a primary location which can be where you go for in person collaboration, and [a location where you can best perform your role.

Please note you must live in the jurisdiction for the business to which you are contracted.

This job can be done anywhere in the Republic of Ireland with the primary office location as Baggot Plaza to which travel will be required for in person collaboration. Exact frequency to be agreed with manager.

Essential Qualifications

• Degree level qualification and/or FS or Professional Qualification
• Experience gained in consulting as well as in house in technology and change leadership
• Senior Programme leadership associated with product development, ideally in a financial institution.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Senior Management experience in change design and delivery within a Financial Services environment
• Experience of leadership in an organisation focused on product distribution through a significant network as well as digital channels
• Significant experience in medium/large Financial Services environment
• Proven experience of managing P&L and of forming and managing budgets
• Proven experience in dealing with compliance and risk functions in a regulated environment
• Proven project management skills to deliver complex projects on time and to budget
• Proven ability to implement change in a matrix environment & think strategically
• Ability to develop Executive level business case proposals and to influence decisions at Board level (internally and externally)