Role: Life CFO, UK
Location: UK-Swindon with some London presence
Recruiter: Michelle Ransome
Closing date: 24/4/23
The Opportunity:
The Life CFO in the UK will have overall responsibility for all financial and capital management, reporting, performance, governance, and controls for our UK Life business. With responsibility for driving the long-term strategy of the life business supporting both the ZAL Board and Life Management Team.
This role reports into the UK CFO, with a matrix line into the ZAL CEO, and will play a pivotal role as part of the Finance Executive Team, the ZAL Board and the Life Management Team.
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead all Financial matters relating to the Financial Performance of UK Life, providing challenge and support to the Life Management Team, ensure delivery against strategic and financial targets.
- Lead/oversee the Finance implementation of key projects as part of major change or business improvement initiatives.
- Liaison with UK PPM and EMEA/Group colleagues as required, to provide information and insight, representing the UK Life business and UK Finance in the appropriate way.
- Provide business plans and forecasts that reflect strategic initiatives and external environment to ensure plan numbers are in line with all agreed targets.
- Oversee the sign off and process of statutory and regulatory reporting for the UK Life Business to ensure that any relevant regulatory requirements are adhered to.
- Oversee the financial matters for UKISA and related subsidiaries.
- Lead and oversee the board reporting process for all financial related matters including Financial and performance reporting, Actuarial and Investments.
- Develop strong understanding of the balance sheet, Profit & Loss and key financial items to provide input into UK results, with proposal for improvements where appropriate.
- Oversee the actuarial life function with oversight for all actuarial deliverables, bringing both challenge and support to the Chief Life Actuary and Head of Pricing & Profitability.
- Responsible for the oversight and recommendation for approval of major cash, liquidity and capital management transactions ensuring adherence to all relevant governance from a Zurich Group perspective.
- Hold PRA Approved Person - SMF2 for the ZAL business, responsibility for management of the financial resources of a firm and reporting directly to the governing body of the firm in relation to its financial affairs. Prescribed regulatory responsibility includes capital, regulatory reporting, reinsurance, and oversight of investments.
- Develop a strong relationship with the regulators, build an open and constructive communication channel with the regulators, raise issues and trends in a timely manner.
- Maintain close working relationship with Head of Life (ZAL CEO) and Life Management Team to deliver key strategic priorities and targets, to partner the business and encourage collaboration between finance, the business and other functions.
- Attendance at the ZAL Audit Committee, providing insight and support to members. Attendance where relevant at the ZAL Risk Committee and Board meetings.
- Build strong relationships with Board members and become a trusted advisor to all board and audit committee members.
- Drive a high-performance culture within the function to create a philosophy for performance management
- Lead the functional area by setting individual objectives, reviewing performance and providing on-going feedback on a formal & informal basis so that all staff are aware of what they are required to achieve and how they are performing against their objectives.
- Lead by example by managing own personal development and encourage others to do the same.
Your Skills and Experience:
- Significant senior level experience and a high level of acumen in a Finance function
- Qualified accountant or actuary with significant post qualification experience in a relevant role. (10 years+)
- Proven delivery in working with a Life business market
- Awareness of requirements and obligations of operating in a senior manager role in a regulated organisation
- Experience of successful leadership in complex and matrix organisational environments
- Experience in significant leadership roles including demonstrating successful navigation of large-scale change, including cultural change.
- Ability to link and balance the requirements of customer needs, internal governance, and the regulatory environment.
- Awareness of requirements and obligations of operating in a senior manager role in a regulated forum, including legal entity or board responsibility.
- Experience of holding strong relationships with regulators and boards in previous roles.
- Highly developed communications skills and ability to influence and negotiate on strategic impact matters
Who we are:
With about 55,000 employees serving customers in more than 170 countries we aspire to become the best global insurer as measured by our shareholders, customers and employees. If you're interested in working in a dynamic and challenging environment for a company that recognises and rewards your creativity, initiatives and contributions - then Zurich could be just the place for you. The success of our business is built on the contributions of our highly talented employees - people who work every day to position us at the forefront of the insurance industry. We therefore look to hire great people and we encourage those people to give their best.
You’ll feel the support of being part of a strong and stable company. A long-standing player in the insurance industry, we make every effort to address the career development needs and plans of our employees to ensure their success in the future.
Further information:
At Zurich we are proud of our culture. We are passionate about Diversity and Inclusion. We want you to bring your whole self to work we have a diverse mix of customers and we want our employee base to reflect that.
Our diversity and inclusion initiatives are creating an environment where everyone feels welcome regardless of protected characteristics.
With the above in mind we accept applications from everyone regardless of your background, beliefs or culture however we especially welcome applications from women, people from ethnic minorities, people with a disability and people who are LGBT+ as these groups are currently under-represented in our organisation.
We are committed to continuous improvement and we offer access to a comprehensive range of training and development opportunities. Zurich is passionate about supporting employees to help others by getting involved in volunteering, charitable and community activity through the Zurich Community Trust.
We have won numerous awards for our work on Diversity and Inclusion. We are also proud to be nominated for the 2020 Insurance Times award for Diversity and Inclusion. You can read about our awards on our website.
So make a difference. Be challenged. Be inspired. Be supported, Love what you do. Work for us.
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