Product Owner - Finance

The Role: The role spans the Finance Value Stream and sits as a direct report to the Head of Core Value Streams as a member of the Group Enterprise Systems (GES) function. The remit includes all business applications within the Finance function, which includes our core finance suite Oracle and the wider eco-system of finance technologies and tools. Building on a period of substantial technology investment in rolling out new finance systems, the Finance Value Stream now needs to build out, and deliver, continuous improvement roadmaps for the finance systems. They also need to continue to deliver a first class level of maintenance and support for the critical systems that they have responsibility for. There currently exists a significant Finance function support team within GES. This includes operations and data engineering as well as testing, environment management, DevOps, and Service Management. Key Responsibilities:

• Resilience: ensure the provision of all Finance applications to meet the quality, resilience and usability of all user groups.
• Customer Liaison: collaborate with functional leadership teams to set and drive the strategic agenda for all applications within the Finance function to ensure they support the group technology goals to Simplify, Protect and Enable the wider business.
• Technical Consultant: nurture ideas and solutions to existing Finance function problems, determine roadmaps for the applications, work closely with the support teams to achieve goals and objectives.

Ensure:

• All Finance function applications are robust, secure, scalable and comply with regulatory mandates and standards.
• Manage, inspire, and develop the team. Ensure they have necessary capabilities/training to perform their roles to the highest standards.
• Promote a commercially oriented culture where the support team recognize their importance to Hiscox’s commercial aims and work to enhance and enable them.
• Provide relevant strategic management information to stakeholders as required to help assess project progress, service levels and key decisions.
• Adopt a value focused approach to technology leadership, maximizing commercial return on investment, whilst effectively managing a finite budget.

Candidate Profile: Previous experience working with Oracle ERP & EPM in a product owner, product manager, program manager or change lead role would be highly advantageous. Experience working within an insurance or reinsurance organisation with exposure to reserving, capital modelling, business planning & reserving would be beneficial. Whilst a technical background in either data or software delivery is valuable for this role, there are a number of key capabilities that the successful candidate needs to be able to demonstrate which are more important than a strong technical background:

• Strategic thinking: Our current application estate is set to go through a fairly significant transformation programme over the next 3-5 years to enable it to better respond to evolving business needs specifically in the Finance function. Strong analytical skills and complex problem solving is parament to the success of this role.
• Leadership: Having the ability to communicate a product vision, a set of objectives, as well as delivering change through teams (both internal and third party) is a key feature of the role.
• Communication & stakeholder management: The role requires a strong ability to communicate effectively and influence at different levels of the organisation, from the individual developer in the team through to the heads of function. The Value Stream Product Manager role is a key business partner for a key function across the group so the successful candidate needs to be able to manage complexity in prioritisation and stakeholder management, as well as being very adept at written, verbal, and listening skills.
• Programme management: lead across vendors and internal teams, comfortable working with both traditional methodologies and modern agile methodologies in a multi-faceted application estate with a wide range of different tools and technologies.
• Technical Capabilities: In-depth understanding of Finance function tools and technologies, strong knowledge of Agile principles and processes, experience working Value Streams and/or product development.

Diversity & Benefits: At Hiscox we care about our people. We hire the best people for the job and we’re committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. Working life doesn’t always have to be in the office, so we have introduced hybrid working to encourage a healthy work life balance. This hybrid working model is set by the team rather than the business to enable you to manage your own personal work-life balance. We see it as the best of both worlds; structure and sociability on one hand, and independence and flexibility on the other. Our benefits package includes a bonus, contributory pension, 25 days annual leave plus 2 Hiscox days and a 4 week paid sabbatical with every 5 years’ worth of service, private medical for all the family and much more.