Swiss Re
Head Surety UK & Ireland (80 - 100%)
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Are you a seasoned surety leader ready to shape the future of a high-performing business in one of the world's most dynamic insurance markets? This is your opportunity to combine strategic vision, underwriting excellence, and inspiring people leadership in a role that truly makes an impact. As Head Surety UK & Ireland at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, you will drive the growth and performance of our UK & Ireland surety portfolio — building relationships, leading talent, and delivering results that matter.
About The Role
As Head Surety UK & Ireland, you will be at the forefront of Swiss Re Corporate Solutions' surety business, combining strategic vision with hands-on leadership to maximize underwriting performance. Working in close collaboration with the Regional Surety Head, you will set the local portfolio strategy, lead key client and broker relationships, and inspire a talented team to excel. You are responsible for developing top and bottom-line results and ensure adherence to business plans, C&S underwriting standards, risk appetite and best practices. This is a high-impact, highly visible role that sits at the intersection of underwriting excellence, business development, and people leadership.
Key Responsibilities
Team Leadership
- Lead a dedicated team of underwriters focused on originating new business relationships, products, and transaction opportunities across the UK & Ireland and international markets
- Drive talent development by contributing to recruiting, onboarding, and facilitating regional underwriting training and technical growth programmes
Business Development and Strategy
- Deliver country targets for the local surety team, ensuring alignment with broader regional and group ambitions
- Shape and execute the country-specific surety strategy, defining priorities for key ongoing and future business initiatives including new markets and new products
- Lead and execute strategic underwriting initiatives such as International Bonding, and represent Swiss Re Surety to external stakeholders in the market
- Drive the development of appropriate UW standards for the country in close alignment with global Credit & Surety standards and ensure correct implementation of end-to-end processing
Product & Portfolio Management
- Steer the country surety portfolio, continuously enhancing monitoring, analysis, guidance, and tactical execution
- Drive capacity planning at obligor, country, and portfolio levels to ensure sustained profitability in line with cycle steering initiatives
- Proactively identify key market trends and translate insights into actionable portfolio steering decisions
- Contribute to the design and implementation of underwriting-relevant IT infrastructure projects
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About The Team
Our Surety team in the UK & Ireland is a key part of the regional surety leadership structure, operating at the heart of a global network of underwriting expertise. The team is responsible for originating and managing surety business across the UK & Ireland market, as well as contributing to international bonding initiatives. We are a collaborative, ambitious, and intellectually curious group, committed to delivering excellence for our clients and brokers while fostering a culture where every voice is valued.
About You
We are looking for a confident, commercially minded leader who combines deep surety expertise with the ability to inspire teams, influence stakeholders, and navigate complexity with sound judgement. You bring a positive mindset, a courageous approach to challenging the status quo, and a genuine commitment to developing people and driving sustainable business performance.
Expertise and experience
- 10+ years of experience in underwriting surety, commercial banking, and/or credit-risk related financial services, with demonstrable market knowledge and a strong professional reputation
- Strong leadership capability with experience building and developing high-performing underwriting teams, including talent recruitment, onboarding, and technical development
- Proven track record of successfully managing a profitable surety or credit portfolio across the business cycle, with end-to-end understanding of the Surety value chain
- Strategic, analytical and conceptual thinking with an entrepreneurial mind-set focused on delivering results
- Deep industry network across the UK & Ireland surety and/or broader banking market, with the ability to represent the business credibly at senior levels
- Fluency in English, with excellent written and verbal communication skills for client-facing, regulatory, and internal stakeholder engagement
Our company has a hybrid work model where the expectation is that you will be in the office at least three days per week.
Role
For London the annual base salary range for this position is between GBP 106 000 and GBP 158 000 (for a full-time role). The specific salary offered considers:
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- the requirements, scope, complexity and responsibilities of the role,
- the applicant's own profile including education/qualifications, expertise, specialisation, skills and experience.
In addition to your base salary, Swiss Re offers an attractive performance-based variable compensation component, designed to recognise your achievements. Further you will enjoy a variety of global and location specific benefits. Eligibility may vary depending on the terms of Swiss Re policies and your employment contract.
About Swiss Re Corporate Solutions
Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer. We anticipate and manage risks, from natural catastrophes and climate change to cybercrime.
Swiss Re Corporate Solutions is the commercial insurance arm of the Swiss Re Group. We offer innovative insurance solutions to large and midsized multinational corporations from our approximately 50 locations worldwide. We help clients mitigate their risk exposure, whilst our industry-leading claims service provides them with additional peace of mind.
Our success depends on our ability to build an inclusive culture encouraging fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. Swiss Re Corporate Solutions embraces a workplace where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and develop professionally regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, skillset, thought or other characteristics. In our inclusive and flexible environment everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and their passion for sustainability.
If you are an experienced professional returning to the workforce after a career break, we encourage you to apply for open positions that match your skills and experience.
We may use AI-powered tools to support the review and evaluation of applications for this position. These tools provide additional insights to our recruitment teams, but all hiring decisions are carefully reviewed and made by people. To learn more about how we use AI in recruitment and how we handle your personal data, please review our Data Privacy Statement before applying.
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