Head of Commercial Operations, APAC
Purpose
This is a senior leadership role with accountability for the performance and transformation of Commercial Operations across 10 APAC markets. The role spans two equally important mandates: running a high-performing, cost-efficient operations function today and leading the multi-year programme to modernise it. The right candidate will be as comfortable in a quarterly performance review as they are shaping a three-year automation roadmap and credible with underwriters, technology teams, and senior regional leadership alike.
Key Responsibilities
Operational Leadership
Own end-to-end Commercial Ops performance across APAC - issuance, bookings, submissions, indexing, renewals, and endorsements.
Drive productivity, quality, and cost-to-serve targets.
Lead and develop a distributed team of operations managers and senior specialists, including in CBS hub teams in Philippines and KL.
Partner closely with P&C and A&H underwriting leaders to ensure operational delivery aligns with underwriting appetite and service expectations.
Maintain clear performance frameworks that give senior stakeholders timely and accurate visibility of ops health - reporting cadences, KPIs, escalation paths
Manage operational risk proactively, including process controls, audit readiness, and regulatory compliance across markets.
Transformation & Change
Lead the Commercial Ops transformation programme including automation initiatives, workflow platforms, and legacy system migration from business case through to benefits realisation.
Define and own the multi-year FTE and cost reduction roadmap, ensuring initiative sequencing is realistic and savings are trackable.
Act as the primary commercial operations voice in enterprise transformation programmes.
Build the case for investment where required; prepare and present business cases to regional and global stakeholders.
Drive adoption of new tools and processes across markets, managing the people and change dimension in step with the technical delivery owners.
Establish baseline measurement and benefits tracking frameworks so transformation impact can be reported with confidence.
Stakeholder Engagement
Build trusted relationships with underwriting, finance, technology, and HR leaders across APAC markets.
Influence without authority - navigate complex, matrixed stakeholder environments to drive alignment and move programmes forward.
Represent Commercial Ops in regional leadership forums; provide clear, evidence-based reporting to the Head of Operations & Transformation, APAC.
Engage with country-level operations teams and market heads to embed regional strategy within local delivery.
Essential
Substantial experience in P&C commercial insurance operations; direct underwriting operations or underwriting leadership experience is required; candidates without this background will not be considered.
Demonstrated track record leading operational teams across multiple APAC markets, ideally including hub or shared services environments.
Experience owning and delivering transformation programmes (not just participating in them) with measurable outcomes in efficiency or FTE reduction.
Strong commercial acumen; able to build, defend, and track business cases for investment.
Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders across underwriting, finance, and technology in a matrixed organisation.
Excellent communication skills; equally effective in an exec briefing as in a working-level problem-solving session.
Highly Regarded
Familiarity with automation and AI tools in an insurance operations context - workflow platforms, intelligent document processing, and unstructured data ingestion.
Experience working with centralised processing hub models in APAC.
Exposure to commercial insurance systems such as Duck Creek, Quadient or equivalent policy administration platforms.
Formal programme or change management credentials (e.g. PMP, MSP, Prosci) are a plus, though not required.