Financial Services – Vice-president, Digital Development And Engineering
: Job Details :

Financial Services – Vice-president, Digital Development And Engineering

About the company

Our client, a global leader in the property and casualty insurance industry with corporate headquarters located in the UK, is committed to being an industry leader in providing its customers with a superior customer service and experience. With this commitment in mind, our client is undergoing a digital transformation which will challenge the status quo while establishing new standards for organizational as well as industry wide excellence.

Driving this transformation agenda for the Canadian business will be the task of the Vice President, Digital Development and Engineering. Leveraging a well-established global brand and global resources this is a unique opportunity to build a digital team with a mandate to work across the organization to help changethe way the company competes. The successful candidate will need the creativity and pragmatism to challenge existing mind-sets to effect change for both the Canadian and global organizations.

This role will appeal to digital leaders with the drive, confidence and sophistication to be the catalyst for change our client and the industry now requires. Individual's comfortable working in slow paced, bureaucratic organizations need not apply!

Scope of Position

Broadly, the objective of the role of the VP, Digital Development and Engineering is to cultivate an environment that attracts, deploys and retains the human and other resources required to effectively develop, deliver and support a digital solution offering that will provide value to the company's customers, while meeting the business strategy and goals for profitable growth.

Reporting to the Canadian CIO and collaborating with the global CIO team, the VP, Digital Development and Engineering is responsible for providing leadership in all activities related to the development and delivery of the Canadian subsidiary's web and mobile offering from definition and specification through design, release, enhancement, quality assurance, implementation and support.

The successful candidate will hire, develop and lead a team of approximately 30 experienced and highly capable individuals who are characterized by their loyalty, creativity and commitment to delivering a ‘best in class', consumer facing suite of innovative web and mobile solutions.

Functional Tasks

Hire and manage direct reports, along with their goal setting, performance measurement and development feedback.

Work with the senior management team to develop, deliver and support the digital roadmap consistent with and reflecting the company's overall strategic plans for corporate growth.

Develop software engineering roadmap and provide leadership on tool and process adoption to drive a higher level of engineering maturity in support of agile development.

Develop reliable, robust software on-time, within cost targets, using accepted, state of the art methodologies balancing the demands of release content, quality and desired release dates.

Establish new scalable development platforms and processes which meet current organizational requirements, anticipate future growth and complexity and balance the need for predictability and creative license.

Maintain keen awareness of the trends and conditions in technology, products and development tools relative to the needs of the company's customers and business.

Establish key indicators for competitive performance in completion of development projects and for rapid, realistic decisions on strategies, plans and projects.

Align the application development and maintenance organization's activities with the company goals and strategic direction, as well as with the company's corporate values in areas such as people, integrity, passion and innovation.

Build and facilitate the development of strong relationships and synergy with all other areas of the business, with key suppliers and with the company's technical partners in order to achieve the corporate goals and objectives while executing technology development plans.

Foster an environment that enables highly technical staff to consistently perform with excellence, to set and meet personal and team goals, and to develop and be recognized for best in class competence in their field(s) within the context of the company's software development programs.

Establish and maintain succession plans and programs for all positions within the engineering organization to ensure the smooth transition and minimize vacancies for critical roles.

Key Performance Deliverable

Acquisition and retention of industry leading talent.

Development of a highly innovative and ‘best of breed' development team.

Delivery of engineering roadmap.

Significant uplift in capability and maturity across the IT and development teams.

Operation within budget.

Delivery of the core Digital first activities through the web and mobile teams.

Effective delivery on time and on budget of web and mobile platform teams.

Innovation as measured by benchmarking against competitive offerings.

Productivity as measured by developers/revenue ratio.

Technology functionality and performance; Reliability and defects per design.

Massive uplift in employee engagement.

Competency Profile

The following competencies listed below define the role of Vice – President, Digital Development and Engineering:

Leading ChangeRecognizes when change is necessary. Challenges the status quo and champions new initiatives. Acts as a catalyst to change and stimulates others to change. Develops an effective action plan to implement change and monitors results.

MotivatingEncourages others by creating enthusiasm, a feeling of investment and a desire to excel. Inspires a healthy attitude to work by recognizing positive contributions.

DriveAdopts an energetic approach. Works towards goals and willingly tackles demanding tasks. Demonstrates capacity for sustained effort and hard work over long periods of time, even in the face of adversity.

Strategic ApproachDevelops a strategic plan to realize the vision. Revises strategy in light of changing circumstances. Takes a long-term view of organizational success. Works to clarify long-term organizational goals. Able to stand back from immediate problems in order to focus on more far reaching ideas.

InnovationGenerates new ideas; Challenges existing assumptions; Goes beyond the status quo; Recognizes the need for new or modified approaches; Brings various perspectives and approaches together, combining them in a creative fashion to implement effective improvements.

Industry & Market AwarenessSeeks to anticipate and respond to industry and market changes/challenges by understanding key characteristics, issues and the factors driving them. Aware of competitor's products, services and position.

Results OrientationFocuses strongly on achieving agreed upon outcomes and ensures that key objectives are met. Conveys a sense of urgency and drives issues to closure. Aims to improve upon past performance. Establishes aggressive personal targets and strives to achieve them.

Preferred Experience / Education

The following indicates specific industry, academic and functional experience/qualifications that are important to the successful achievement of the identified responsibilities and performance deliverables:

The successful candidate will be an expert in agile development and have a long resume of successfully developing quality web and mobile platforms using agile methodology.

The successful candidate will have a technical degree with at least 15 years of commercial software development experience, with at least 5 to 7 years leading software development teams of 30+.

The preferred candidate will have experience working in both larger corporate settings as well as more entrepreneurial, fast-paced and innovative environments often associated with high growth, cutting edge technology enterprises.

The successful candidate will have superior communication and people management skills with a proven ability to motivate teams, instill accountability and achieve agreed upon outcomes.

The successful candidate will have a proven record of inspiring teams to deliver transformational change to the business.

A leadership style that ensures projects are driven by a unified purpose, a development process suitable to the project at hand, a team culture of understanding the problem, and a flow of ideas such that the best ideas rise to the surface.

Excellent planning and control skills capable of driving effective functional governance frameworks and decision-making.

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