VP, IT Business Partner

Since Aspen was founded in 2002, we have become a leading, diversified specialty insurance and reinsurance company. We respond thoughtfully and creatively to find the best outcomes for our clients and business partners through carefully-tailored solutions.

We believe the way we work is just as important as the work we do, and we are guided by our core values of respect, honesty, trust and professionalism.

Aspen is a great place to develop your career offering an exciting and challenging environment where achievement is rewarded.

The minimum and maximum salaries for this job role are below:

Minimum Salary - $127,600.00

Maximum Salary - $159,500.00

The Role

Primary focus is being the Business Partner for a business function and their principal point of engagement. This includes taking accountability for the function’s IT Delivery, Incidents, Technology Vision/Roadmap, IT investment plan and IT Supplier Management.

In doing so, the IT Business Partner must:

• demonstrate leadership and take into account stakeholder perspectives
• demonstrate impeccable customer servicing skills and team working
• negotiate with elegance and know when to escalate
• communicate, escalate and manage incidents
• act as an internal management consultant to frame a business concern – using inhouse and supplier team members
• be a trusted technology advisor for the business function leadership team
• interpret business needs and how to apply technology to enable them
• conduct appropriate due diligence to ensure that the solution meets the need
• assess the right balance between delivery, affordability, execution risk, strategic objectives and alignment to architecture principles and policies
• prepare quality deliverables that are consumable by stakeholders across the organization
• mentor and support junior staff – demonstrate our values and professionalism
• will be required to manage Aspen staff, contractors, suppliers or consultants
• have a good working knowledge of the business function and their requirements

As required, the IT Business Partner may be asked to stand in for the Group Head of ADM and Our Aspen Values are expected to be reflected in the delivery and performance of every role.

Key Accountabilities

• Acts as the IT portfolio expert to support projects and identify opportunities within area of expertise, including formulating inter-connected projects, holistic dependencies and downstream impacts.
• Produces standard documentation and guidelines in order to enforce Aspen’s IT & EPMO delivery methodology.
• Provides technical consultancy to the business, ensuring users have sufficient understanding to make informed decisions
• Acknowledged as technical/subject matter expert
• Personal credibility
• Sought after resource.
• Quality of documentation/MI produced (clarity, accuracy, timeliness etc.)
• Activities conducted in line with best practice/Aspen’s Project Methodology.
• Technical and security standards clearly articulated and adhered to.
• Regularly participates in activities (meetings/presentations etc.) to share information and knowledge.
• Positive stakeholder feedback
• Accuracy of MI provided (e.g. portfolio budget, resource, trends, risks, issues, decision tracking).
• Evidence of continuous professional development.
• Legal and regulatory compliance.
• Proactive identification of risks/potential issues.
• Contributes to functional strategy development and prioritizes the operational deliverables and activities of team to support delivery of overall business targets.
• Manages tactical plan and provides support to others to achieve positive results for the business in line with strategy
• Benchmarking against plan objectives
• Delivery of profitable growth of business
• Tactical plan developed with informed targets clearly articulated/cascaded
• Regulator reports positive
• Achievement of cost synergies
• Delivery of business and financial targets (COR, profit and NWP etc.)
• Alignment, and engagement of business areas to tactical goals.
• Senior management team feedback
• Oversee and prioritize the planning, organization, direction and tracking of all major portfolio components including cost, schedules, resources, analysis, deliverables, etc.
• Lead the team charged with delivering the overall technology project portfolio with the ability to balance between the strategic and day-to-day tactical needs.
• Managing Business Systems Analysts and Delivery Managers allocated to managing multiple technology projects monitoring the quality output to ensure business objectives are met.
• Champions continuous improvement through the creation and management of a Continuous Service Improvement plan to increase cost effectiveness, process flexibility and enhanced levels of service.
• Regularly monitors and reviews the technology project portfolio with an enterprise view of risks, actions, issues, and decisions tracking lens, in order to ensure timely, cost effective, and quality outcomes.
• Managing the portfolio communications, resourcing, budgeting, broad risk/issue escalations, financials, and reporting to ensure success of all projects to enable stakeholders, sponsors and management to make appropriate decisions.
• Working with partners within IT and the business, ensuring the IT portfolio serves as a roadmap for future development of products, processes and systems.
• Compliance with best practice, regulatory/legal requirements and Aspen processes and policies.
• Compliance with IT project methodology/security & data privacy protocols and procedures.
• Can demonstrate that uncovering and resolving potential conflicts or disagreements about project priorities.
• Satisfactory internal audit.
• Demonstrable continuous business improvement
• Progress closely monitored and reviewed.
• Consistently applied processes and procedures.
• Back-up plans in place for business applications
• Technical recovery plans are tested on a timely basis
• Software licences in place and maintained.
• Hardware assets are accounted for and adequate controls/records in place.
• IT risk dashboard fully reflects all identified risks.
• Quality of information on compliance/outsourced registers.
• Compliance returns submitted within deadlines.
• Audit MAP closed on a timely basis.
• Adherence to technical standards/SLAs
• Risks identified in good time and action plans in place to deal with potential issues.

Skills & Experience

• Specific professional qualifications at the level of degree or equivalent.
• Previous Insurance experience preferred and familiarity with Outwards Reinsurance
• Working as part of a senior team within a complex organization (preferably within financial services industry)
• At least 5 years of enterprise IT portfolio management and leading a team of Business Systems Analysts, Delivery Managers and delivery teams Strong customer orientation skills and ability to proactively manage customer expectations.
• Agile delivery certification
• Previous experience of working within a multi-vendor environment or complex infrastructure.
• Demonstrable experience negotiating difficult situations to a successful conclusion.
• Experience with project planning, timeline management and implementation execution. Excellent knowledge of IT Portfolio & Project Methodologies; both waterfall and Agile.
• Software Delivery
• Supplier management
• Project management.
• Change management.
• Resource and budget management

At Aspen we know that having a diverse and inclusive workforce is good for our people, good for our business and good for the environments in which we operate. We therefore welcome applications from people which allows us to draw on diverse cultures, perspectives, skills and experiences.