"AVP, Strategic Initiatives"

AVP Strategic Initiatives

Small Commercial Business Segment The Hartford P&C 

THE HARTFORD:With 2006 revenues of $26.5 billion, The Hartford Financial Services Group is one of the oldest and largest investment and insurance companies in the United States.  Founded in 1810, The Hartford is a leading provider of automobile and homeowners products, business insurance, investment products, life insurance, and group & employee benefits.  Recognized for the diversity of its product portfolio and distribution networks, the client serves customers through independent agents and brokers, financial institutions, affinity groups and via the Internet.  Approximately 11,000 independent agencies and more than 100,000 registered broker/dealers sell the company?s products.  The company has about 30,000 employees in the U.S. and serves customers worldwide.

BASIC FUNCTION:The AVP will drive internal strategy and operating projects within The Hartford?s Small Commercial Business segment.  He/she will provide consulting expertise and ?program management"" to cross-functional teams. This role impacts multiple teams by providing leadership, oversight, analytic support as well as process and content support. In addition, this role is accountable for providing general business consulting to the management team on a variety of projects and initiatives (e.g., market sizing, agent segmentation, industry research, etc...).  The role is also responsible for formulating senior management presentations, and interacting with his/her peers across the enterprise to ensure enterprise alignment and synergy across business lines.

ACCOUNTABILITIES:

1.  Strategic Initiatives:Responsible for managing and/or participating on multiple work groups focused on developing solutions and/or recommendations on key strategic topics. Specifically responsible for:

• Developing decision frameworks and hypotheses,
• Organizing the work of the teams
• Establishing clear priorities-among various ideas
• Managing projects and influence management
• Ensuring that work-plan objectives are met (e.g. establishing tracking mechanisms, closely monitoring progress and problem solving to get things back on track, if necessary)

This role requires working within short time frames and meeting critical deadlines. Successful execution of this accountability requires building close working relationships with multiple layers in multiple organizations, gaining insight into business requirements and influencing diverse and sometimes competing agendas in order to gain consensus.Impact on the business: These strategic initiatives are expected to have significant impact on the business. All of them closely relate to aggressive growth targets or ambitious productivity gains  

2.  Competitive Intelligence (CI) and Market Research: Work with CI to help consult or lead projects for Competitive Intelligence and Market Research groups to ensure work product meets existing and future needs of the business.Impact on Business: Industry specific market research and competitive intelligence are becoming pivotal foundations for the development of our strategies. The ideal candidate will have experience in the design and analysis of secondary research studies, including some knowledge of market segmentation.  

3.  Executive Level (and other) Communications:Responsible for effective communications of business strategies.  Successful execution of this role requires the ability to interact with senior management, understand various audiences and craft communications appropriate for such audiences. Specifically, it requires an ability to ""translate"" strategic vision/direction into actionable steps and to synthesize significant amounts of information and data points into pertinent messages/themes for relatively broad consumption. 

4.  TeamworkResponsible for working in a highly effective team in Select Customer Strategic Initiatives with a focus on skill assessment and development, mentoring, and career planning of junior team members. 

5.  Strategy & Innovation Projects, Ad Hoc ProjectsResponsible for executing (developing solutions and implementing such solutions) on key projects specific to Strategy & Innovation.  Also manage Ad Hoc requests from multiple points in the organization. 

QUALIFICATIONS:

• MBA (major in Strategy, Finance, Marketing, or Operations) from a leading Business School.
• 3-5+ years of strategy consulting experience with a recognized strategy consulting firm
• At least 6-8+ years of broad work/management experience within the insurance and/or financial services field (post-MBA)
• Excellent knowledge of consulting processes.
• High level of strategic thinking with the ability to integrate knowledge of diverse business functions
• Demonstrated ability to solve complex business problems
• Ability to articulate and promote a vision that is based on a depth and breadth of the strategic direction of corporation
• Ability to manage conflict, negotiate and create compelling business arguments
• Ability to influence diverse teams and building strong business relationships
• Ability to collaborate with and understand the needs of senior leadership and their staff- and translating those needs into actionable plans
• Strong Project Management Skills
• Strong Leadership Skills
• Experience working with Senior Executives
• Strong functional expertise in Marketing, Finance, Strategy, Operations or IT