Director of Technology-Insurance/Finance/ テクノロジー・ディレクター

Responsibilities:

Planning & Strategy
• Manage the execution and support of the integrated strategic plan and Company's product roadmap to achieve the Japan technology objectives in Japan and continuously oversee to achieve the outcomes and deliver results.

•Work with executive leaders on roadmap oversight and decision-making, business transformation, and opportunities for strategic exploration.
• Provide leadership for Japan Strategic programs including effectively coaching and mentoring, system design, delegating authority and measuring results
• Utilizing the change management techniques & tools, manage the overall change management capabilities for the strategic initiatives.
• Nurture a team-oriented environment that fosters Company's Japan and Asia participation, accountability and balance between strategic goals and business benefits.
• Maintain a thorough understanding of Company's Japan business strategies to provide support during various delivery decisions.
• Provide timely, transparent and accurate information and communications to the Executive, key Company's personnel and partners/service providers on health of the key strategic programs.

Delivery Execution
• Manage Delivery, Execution & Application Quality Assurance of the business insurance products and ensure all projects are built, tested and supported to a high level of quality and continuous delivery of multiple projects on time.
• Lead in a collaborative and dynamic environment while supporting the overall strategic planning process with the various technology teams to determine proper prioritization for deriving and maintaining the strategic roadmap.
• Collaborate on the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Agile processes across all Japan initiatives/applications.
• Interact and develop strong collaborative communication/relationships with key Japan technology leaders to share and leverage the best practices on key development & delivery service activities and practices.
• Defining Insurance Products Quality assurance strategy, approach for multiple project dependencies and organize the release based testing & delivery with proper retrofit planning.
• Develop and maintain relationships with external vendors while also providing strategic direction to promote and ensure effective collaboration between vendors and project teams.
• Scrutinize progress on overall development and delivery while identifying any risks or challenges that need to take action on.
• Drive effective management of resources to drive resolution of identified project issues and risks, and gains internal / external buy-in that risks and issues are effectively mitigated within desired tolerance levels.
• Maximize the reuse of Digital technology, solutions & skills across Company's Japan to achieve cost efficiencies utilizing Agile, DevOps and collaborative IT process automation practices.

Financial Management
• Responsible for the effective management of Company's Japan Delivery Assurance function within financial budgets assigned.
• Collaborate with appropriate Company's  Japan leadership peers and suppliers to attain necessary financial insights, to ensure value realization.
People Management& Leadership
• Provide leadership and management to Company's and Service provider(s) organization of +75 resources across various geographies (Japan, China and India) to ensure the delivery.
• Foster an innovative, collaborative culture within the organization, encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset among team and stakeholders.
• Establish clear accountabilities and authority levels for direct reports and build a strong culture of accountability and performance in order to ensure delivery of business goals.

INTERNAL
• Demonstrate a strong work ethic to guide the staff to inspire enthusiasm and stimulate their interests towards being productive and maintaining high company standards.
• Collaborate with the Company's Japan IT and Operations team to build an ‘exciting and innovative’ culture within the teams that strives to be best in market and customer focused.
• Ensure the resource mix and talent is appropriate to the required delivery challenges across the function.
• Promote excellence through the attraction, continual development and retention of high quality team members with the knowledge, skills and behaviors to deliver excellent outcomes and service.
• Demonstrate an understanding of and sensitivity to local, regional and global sensitivities.
• Monitor and manage employee engagement.
• Establish organizational options and succession planning for the function.
• Alignment to internal performance measurement mechanisms and working with peer leaders to properly identify High Potential and Outstanding performing talent.
• Provide career direction for direct reports through an understanding of all disciplines and their desire for career progression.

Knowledge/Skills/Competencies/Education:
• 10+ years of Life and Wealth Insurance experience preferable or Finance Industry Experience
• University degree (Computer Science or relevant)
• 10+ years’ work experience with proven leadership and demonstrated people management skills.
• 10+ years of experience with all stages of the Software Development Life Cycle, with the proven ability to drive the Software development life cycle in accordance with current trend.
• Experience in building & setup team with efficient offshore model.
• Ability to make difficult decisions by pragmatically weighing the complexities involved against the need to act.
• Extensive knowledge of application and digital: concepts, practices and tools
• Extensive knowledge of finance business, systems, processes and understanding of finance industry strategies, especially insurance products in the whole life and financial planning area.
• Experience of working and engaging with a wide range of stakeholders, including senior staff and external organizations
• Experience in initiating and engaging the center of excellence.
• Knowledge on emerging and disruptive technology applications.
• Highly developed communication & relationship skills, Business level English and Japanese Language capability required.
• Understanding and appreciation of cultural differences with Japan and other regions.
• Japanese language fluency