Head of Application, Life & Health Insurance (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)

About Our Client

A global insurance and asset management company that offers a variety of insurance services.

Position Summary

In line with our client's aim to be a truly customer and product-centric organization, the functional area Applications ensures end-to-end responsibility for all applications in its scope. These applications are clustered in Verticals owning the build, roll-out, and maintenance/run.

This regional role will lead and own the build, roll-out, and maintenance of the Application by creating business solutions. The role will be responsible for the full Application life cycle to achieve strategic transformation goals.

Responsibilities

1. Direct the large-scale, region-wide program of full life cycle including design, development, and implementation of our client's IT platform across countries in scope, striving for the strategic transformation goals, collaborating with extended project resources, i.e., different entities and external vendors as appropriate.
2. Develop and drive the implementation roadmap that will be jointly created by working with countries, regional and global leads, and key functional leads across multiple organizations and delivery partners.
3. Render and convey company strategy, e.g., our client's Customer Model, application modernization, etc. into design and implementation strategies for the broad project team to ensure necessary outcomes are achieved in alignment with strategic outlook and resource optimization.
4. Ensure effective senior stakeholder engagement and communication. Furnish regular reporting in several senior steering forums that include global leadership, regional leadership, and local Steering committees in the OEs.
5. Undertake and develop an industrialized approach throughout the region and in alignment with the global model to standardize onboarding, solution, and delivery of IT applications to maximize economies of skill and scale. Enable initiatives and practices to provide foreseeable and repeatable outcomes.
6. Ensure service management delivery, fulfillment of service levels, and assurance aspects with continuous improvement and adherence to technology group entities. Ensure financial governance for the applications in scope of responsibility.

Requirements

1. Degree in information technology or other comparable technical qualification.
2. Must have worked in a matrix organization, with a strong track record of meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
3. 15+ years of relevant experience from multi-national organizations. The ideal candidate would have experience in application development, maintenance space, and running production support teams, ideally from a Life and Health insurance company, or a Shared Services/Service Provider organization.
4. Strong experience in managing project financials, demand management, change management, managing distributed teams, KPI tracking, and reporting alignment within a complex matrix organization would be advantageous.
5. Goal-oriented self-starter with the ability to work independently and as part of a team. Experienced in managing multi-cultural and geographically dispersed teams through both direct and influence management.
6. Customer-centric mindset; transparent & fact-based collaboration.