Director, Group Digital Platforms

About FWD Group FWD Group (<1828.HK>) is a pan-Asian life and health insurance business that serves approximately 34 million customers across 10 markets, including BRI Life in Indonesia. FWD’s customer-led and tech-enabled approach aims to deliver innovative propositions, easy-to-understand products and a simpler insurance experience. Established in 2013, the company operates in some of the fastest-growing insurance markets in the world with a vision of changing the way people feel about insurance. FWD Group is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under the stock code 1828. For more information, please visit PURPOSE The Group Platforms team is responsible for identifying, defining, and managing digital product platforms and technologies to fulfil business objectives. The Group Platforms team operates across FWD Group to: Collaborate with functions to drive the design conceptualization and development of new business platforms, provide digital product platform management and distribution partner digital solutions. Evolve digital product platform development roadmaps and collaborate on solution design to achieve optimal business outcomes. KEY ACCOUNTAIBILITIES Detailed job responsibilities are to lead the digital product management and delivery of platform solutions with the initial focus on leading a specified Regional Digital Platform, Distribution Design Lead the execution on platform design through extracting business priorities and fulfilling business needs at both the regional level, engaging with senior stakeholders at the country levels. Articulate and refine a regional platform approach that will cater for the localization of country experiences, whilst maintaining the strategic benefits of a regional led tech stack that provides tangible benefits through reduced costs and reduced time to market for each subsequent market(s). Demonstrate the expertise at applying design thinking methodologies towards the insights gathering of the platform Lead in a multi-disciplinary squad together with UX and UI designers to deliver the best customer journeys in the digital platform for our distribution partners and direct customer base at both regional level and country level Responsibly for ensuring platform is designed to support scalability, reliability and efficient maintainability. Amplify Agile practices through design and execution efforts. Ability to gather and document complex user and technical requirements, translate these to multiple business rules and logic specifications, organized within the scrum framework, and able to lead and execute with wider/cross functional technical development teams, and local QA teams Development High standard of experience and application of the agile software delivery framework. Able to mentor colleagues and team members on the Scrum environment and process. Technically savvy to work closely with developers, understanding their technical capabilities and constraints Partner technology solutions delivery and business functional teams to embed technologies to support business efficiencies Partner stakeholders to manage platforms roadmaps alongside target business goals. Operations Ensure co-ordinated design, development and deployment plans with business functions and technology solutions delivery teams. Support the operationalization of platform capabilities and best practices consistent with company vision and business goals. Strong Executor: Strongly oriented towards results. Embraces an inner drive that overcomes obstacles and propels through to the finish line of the project delivery while maintaining impeccable quality and integrity Able to dive deep and stay in touch with the details of the expected Group/Country Distribution business metrics and the technology. Assess CX feedback and prioritize quick fix optimizations and longer-term strategic fixes Manage the country backlog to fulfil the Digital distribution platform business strategy and yearly and quarterly roadmaps Financial Embed emerging technologies and techniques to optimize business benefits and improve operational efficiency. Digital Enablement Migration of digital platforms aligning with Group Cloud Strategy to optimise the operational cost of the platforms QUALIFICATIONS / EXPERIENCE Industry & functional knowledge of an e-commerce, customer servicing and/or B2C platform solution Proven experience in successful rollouts at either country or regional levels (preferably within the Asia Pacific markets) University degree in Business, Information Technology, Engineering or equivalent 10+ years' working experience in e-commerce/ InsurTech-Fintech. 7+ years’ experience with mobile application offerings to customers. 7+ years delivery of Agile, Product Management, Project Management (SCRUM, Product Management) Start-up environment experience that demonstrates execution excellence, will be advantageous. Expertise in digital best practices and its applicability to retail and/or financial services. Prior experience in managing cross-functional, multi-geography digital initiatives. KNOWLEDGE & TECHNICAL SKILLS Business Knowledge Broad understanding of the insurance and technology industry, including current and emerging financial services, online retail, operations, and technology trends Expert in partner engagement for ideation and problem-solving facilitation with stakeholders. Relevant application of design thinking methodologies. Appreciate the business applications of emerging technologies and practices; applicable knowledgebase of DevOps, Cloud, Microservices and Mobile development to ensure feasibility and relevant conversations during solution planning. Technical Skills Skilled in Agile Software delivery Proven record of Product Backlog management Strong understanding of technology concepts and developer languages Strong in facilitating people/customer centric design thinking Good understanding of customer journey design and user experience Management Skills Demonstrate excellent leadership and communication skills across all levels of the organization, including frequent engagement at the country functional heads levels Not afraid of dealing with ambiguity and can contextualize and translate a problem and its solution to internal senior partners of varying backgrounds to support the platform ideas. Can create an environment that inspires others involved with the platform development to bring their creative ideas forward. Displays leadership with a platform vision that can inspire those involved with the platform project to bring the best application of efforts from themselves Ability to use excellent judgment and have high standards and are never satisfied with the status quo. Manage cross-functional stakeholders, and able to communicate effectively with country business function leads, and where expected with external key functional leaders for country-specific and group-led initiatives Be able to communicate effectively and comfortably present to key country management stakeholders on project progress updates and issue management. Excellent communication skills and collaborative in nature, ability to make the complex seem simple Posseses good judgment in balancing between innovation and robust operation, able to optimize productivity and efficiency when working with key functional leaders and partners