AXA
Head of Direct Retail Strategy & Performance
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Lead the strategy, transformation, and performance agenda for Direct Retail at AXA Ireland
Reporting to the Director of Direct Retail, you will play a key role in shaping the future direction of our Direct Retail business. You will lead the development and execution of strategy, drive large-scale transformation initiatives, and enhance business performance to support sustainable growth, operational excellence, and outstanding customer outcomes.
Working closely with senior leaders across AXA Ireland and the wider AXA Group, you will identify opportunities to modernise our customer journeys, accelerate innovation, and ensure the Direct Retail function is equipped to deliver on its growth ambitions.
At AXA, we work smart empowering our people to balance their time between home and the office in a way that works best for them, their team, and our customers. This role can be based in Dublin, Derry, or Belfast with hybrid working in place.
What You'll Be Doing
You will lead the strategy, transformation, performance, and governance agenda for Direct Retail, ensuring the function is positioned to deliver sustainable growth, operational excellence, and exceptional customer outcomes.
Strategic Leadership & Planning
- Lead the development, refinement, and communication of the Direct Retail strategy, ensuring alignment with business objectives, customer needs, and market opportunities.
- Translate strategic priorities into clearly defined projects and initiatives, establishing delivery milestones and performance measures.
- Monitor market trends, customer behaviour, competitor activity, and technological advancements to identify opportunities for growth and innovation.
- Provide strategic recommendations and insights to senior leaders to support effective decision-making and long-term planning.
People Leadership
- Lead, motivate, and develop the Strategy & Performance teams, including First Line Risk and Product Owners across ROI and NI.
- Foster a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
- Support talent development through coaching, mentoring, succession planning, and capability-building initiatives.
- Promote effective cross-functional collaboration and communication to deliver strategic priorities and operational excellence.
Customer & Project Delivery
- Oversee Product Owners in defining and managing product development roadmaps aligned to business strategy, customer needs, and risk management standards.
- Lead key transformation and change initiatives from concept through to implementation, ensuring delivery within agreed timelines, budgets, and benefit expectations.
- Prioritise projects that support modernisation, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and business growth.
- Ensure customer needs remain central to decision-making, shaping initiatives that improve customer journeys and experiences.
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Operational Performance & Governance
- Drive continuous improvement across processes, systems, and tools to optimise performance and maximise business value.
- Ensure the Direct Retail function remains focused on strategic objectives and delivers measurable business outcomes.
- Collaborate with senior leaders across HR, IT, Compliance, and other business areas to ensure strategic initiatives are fully supported and successfully embedded.
- Act as a trusted advisor to senior management, providing performance reporting, strategic insights, and recommendations.
- Lead transversal projects of strategic importance, working with AXA Group and external partners where required.
- Monitor external trends and emerging innovations, including the evolution of the "contact centre of the future", conducting research and development activities to identify opportunities for AXA Ireland.
- Ensure all supporting processes comply with CPC and other relevant regulatory requirements, working closely with Compliance teams.
- Lead the Direct Retail Risk function, ensuring projects and operational activities comply with regulatory, legal, risk, and governance requirements.
- Proactively identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with strategic initiatives, operational processes, and transformation programmes.
Financial Management
- Develop robust business cases for proposed projects and strategic initiatives, providing detailed analysis, recommendations, and financial rationale to support investment decisions.
- Support the delivery of growth and performance objectives through effective evaluation and prioritisation of strategic opportunities.
What We're Looking For
Experience
- 10+ years' professional experience within financial services or insurance, including at least 5 years in senior leadership roles, with a proven track record of driving strategic change, business transformation, and operational performance improvement.
- Minimum 10 years experience in the General Insurance/ Financial industry with at least 3yrs experience in delivering operational change and innovation projects.
- Significant experience delivering large-scale transformation initiatives and embedding sustainable change across customer-centric organisations.
- Demonstrated experience delivering operational change and innovation projects within the insurance or financial services sector.
- Strong track record of leading complex programmes and cross-functional teams to deliver measurable business outcomes.
- Hands-on experience applying Agile methodologies and change management principles within programme and project delivery environments.
- Proven ability to engage, influence, and collaborate with senior stakeholders across complex organisational structures.
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Specialist Knowledge
- Excellent programme, project, and change management expertise.
- Strong business and commercial acumen, including financial planning, budgeting, analysis, and performance management.
- Good knowledge of insurance products, customer journeys, and market dynamics.
- Understanding of risk management principles relating to operational processes, product development, and transformation initiatives.
- Awareness of regulatory, compliance, health and safety, IT security, and data protection requirements within the insurance and financial services sectors.
- Knowledge of emerging technologies, industry trends, and innovations relevant to retail insurance and customer engagement.
Specialist Skills
- Proven ability to translate strategy into practical initiatives that deliver measurable results.
- Strong leadership capability, with experience building, developing, and motivating high-performing teams.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use data and insight to inform decision-making.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills across all organisational levels.
- Outstanding communication and presentation skills.
- Highly organised, with excellent planning, prioritisation, and execution capabilities.
- Ability to lead change effectively in complex and fast-paced environments.
- Strong financial and business case development capability.
Desirable
- Experience leading major transformation programmes or enterprise-wide strategic initiatives.
Qualifications
Essential
- Third-level degree or equivalent qualification.
Desirable
- APA and/or CIP qualification.
- Agile Product Owner or related Agile certification.
Regulatory Requirements
This role is designated as a Controlled Function (CF1) under the Central Bank of Ireland's Fitness and Probity Regime.
The successful candidate will be required to:
- Meet and maintain Fitness and Probity standards.
- Demonstrate they are competent and capable, honest and act with integrity, and financially sound.
- Comply with the Minimum Competency Code where applicable.
- Adhere to the Consumer Protection Code and all applicable regulatory requirements.
- Ensure continued compliance with the Central Bank of Ireland's Conduct Standards.
This role has also been identified as a Certificated Function under the UK Senior Managers and Certification Regime and is subject to annual certification and ongoing fitness and propriety assessments.
Further guidance can be obtained from Compliance@axa.ie.
This recruitment campaign will be used to support permanent, temporary and/or extension for any upcoming similar positions.
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