Regional Head of Product Development - North America

Regional Head Of Product Development – North America

The Chief Technical Office is responsible for working with technical functions including Pricing, Product Management, Underwriting Integrity, Reinsurance, Portfolio and Accumulation Steering including Catastrophe Management, and Risk Consulting to ensure we are building Technical Excellence across our North America region, and in alignment with the overall global approach.

Reporting to the Chief Technical Officer – North America, the Regional Head of Product Development – North America will centralize product development resources currently embedded within individual lines of business. Today, these resources operate with a high degree of autonomy within their respective lines of business (LoBs), which supports deep line-specific expertise but limits our ability to drive consistency, coordinate on cross-cutting topics, and present a unified product development function. This role would address that gap by establishing a single point of leadership and accountability across all product development activity, while maintaining high autonomy with LoBs leading the day-to-day. Additionally, this structure will support career development and upskilling of the individuals within this area.

The role is envisioned as a strategically oriented, coordination and governance leader rather than a deep technical wording expert.

Some of your specific responsibilities could include:

• Cross-LoB coordination: Acting as the central point for product development topics spanning multiple lines, including emerging risks from a product perspective, blended products, and shared wording standards, addressing regulatory requirements and changes.
• Governance and wording authorities: Owning the framework for wording authorities and referrals, ensuring consistent application across all LoBs, working with the Regional and Global line Heads, and providing a clear escalation path for underwriters. Establishing and maintaining referral thresholds and approval protocols. Overseeing coordination of on-going oversight of State Regulatory requirements with respect to forms or rates, including rate/form filing exceptions with respect to commercial deregulation, manuscript forms, competitive rate rules or statutes and surplus lines company options.
• Standards and tools ownership: Coordinating with the LoBs to understand existing tools and drive improvement and/or consistency where applicable. Acting as subject matter expert to build, implement, and maintain wording tools across the LoBs as applicable. Ownership of external/third party contracts and services (e.g. ISO) used across the organization as applicable to product.
• Emerging risk and product strategy: Providing a holistic, cross-functional lens on emerging risk topics as they surface. Continuing to monitor and assess product/form impacts and coordinating an appropriate response.
• Team structure and development: Bringing cohesion and structure to the centralized team, supporting prioritization across LoBs while preserving the existing expertise within each line. Mentoring and developing product development professionals.
• Stakeholder and Relationship Management: Proactively driving involvement of functional areas (Legal, Actuarial, Claims, Operations) in the product development process. Maintaining strong relationships with LoB leadership, brokers, and key internal stakeholders.

What You'll Bring to the Role:

• A minimum of 11 years of experience in in product development or underwriting across multiple lines of business, with a strong understanding of product portfolios and cross-LoB dependencies;
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams and build consensus across multiple stakeholders in a matrix organization;
• Strong understanding of North American insurance markets, regulatory landscape, and competitor product offerings across multiple lines;
• Strong understanding of legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to product development, including forms, rates, and filing requirements;
• Ability to establish and oversee wording authority frameworks, referral protocols, and standardized product development processes across multiple LoBs;
• Ability to identify and coordinate on cross-cutting product topics including emerging risks, blended products, and shared wording standards across lines of business;
• Ability to evaluate and govern the quality and consistency of contract wordings across all LoBs, without necessarily drafting them directly;
• Understanding of state regulatory requirements with respect to forms, rates, and filings, with ability to oversee compliance across multiple lines;
• Ability to effectively absorb information from various sources, then analyze, study or examine data in detail, and draw appropriate conclusions;
• Ability to build cohesion across a distributed team, set priorities, and develop talent within a centralized function;
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills with an ability to communicate with a variety of people across the organization;
• Ability to persuade and motivate others to act, without executive authority;
• The ability to ensure ethical AI practices and stay updated with emerging AI technologies will be key to maintaining a competitive advantage; and
• Degree in Economics, Business or Law (Masters/JD preferred).

External applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future employment-based sponsorship. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time, nor can we guarantee future sponsorship.

The annualized base pay range for this role is $180,000 - $250,000 (Chicago and Alpharetta), $190,000 - $210,000 (Alpharetta) $210,000 - $275,000 (New York) and $163,000 - $210,000, including a 35% target bonus (Toronto). The annual base salary range represents a nationwide market range. The actual salary for this position may be above and will be determined by a number of factors, including the scope, complexity and location of the role, the skills, education, training, credentials and experience of the candidate. The base pay is just one component of the AzC total compensation package. As part of our comprehensive compensation and highly rated benefits programs, employees are also eligible for annual performance-based cash incentive awards.