Chief Operating Officer

Job Description

Hello Future Strategic Chief Operating Officer

Are you a strategic leader who thrives in complex, fast-paced environments and is passionate about driving operational excellence, sustainable growth, and customer-centric innovation? Do you have the vision to translate business strategy into execution while building high-performing teams that deliver exceptional outcomes? If so, you may be the Chief Operating Officer we're looking for.

About the Role

As the Chief Operating Officer (COO), you will be responsible for strategic integration and execution ensuring Insurance operates as one coordinated business and that investment translates into tangible outcomes, rather than simply completed projects.

Are You Someone Who Can:

Insurance Target Operating Model:

• Define and maintain the enterprise-wide Insurance operating model across Life, Short-Term Insurance and other Insurance capabilities.
• Clarify capability ownership, decision rights, accountabilities and interfaces across Business, Technology, Finance and the PMO.
• Integrate the model with the FirstRand ecosystem, using group capability wherever the bank is the stronger home.

Capability Strategy and Roadmap

• Establish a single, prioritised Insurance capability roadmap.
• Determine which capabilities should be built, enhanced, consolidated or retired, and in what sequence.
• Align investment priorities to customer value, growth, efficiency, risk and strategic relevance.
• Establish and chair the relevant Capability Councils.

• Ensure business leaders own capability decisions, Technology owns build-and-run delivery, and Finance independently validates benefits.
• Recommend the allocation or reallocation of investment to the Insurance CEO and Exco where priorities compete and run clear escalation for cross-business dependencies.
• Work alongside the Enterprise PMO, which owns delivery governance, planning standards and portfolio reporting

Strategic Portfolio Prioritisation

• Assess proposals against agreed criteria, including business value, customer impact, regulatory importance, execution capacity and affordability.

Core-Platform Transition

• Set the direction for the move from multiple legacy policy-administration environments to a modern, internally owned insurance platform.
• Sequence the transition so that value lands early and risk to customers, operations and regulatory obligations is actively managed.
• Lead the strategic management of critical vendors and partners through the transition, including exit, dependency, performance and value-leakage risk

Process Simplification and Redesign

• Identify priority customer and operational journeys requiring redesign.
• Sponsor end-to-end process engineering to remove duplication, manual intervention, fragmented hand-offs and unnecessary complexity.
• Ensure that technology investment is accompanied by the required process and operating-model changes.

Data and AI Enablement

• Own the Insurance data and AI agenda, including the AI delivery model and the direction of the enterprise data platform, in partnership with the CIO
• Prioritise high-value use cases and ensure that the required business processes, ownership and controls are established.
• Track whether Data and AI investments translate into measurable business and customer outcomes.

Value and Benefits Realisation

• Define the intended benefits and measurable outcomes for each strategic capability or investment.
• Partner with Finance to validate baselines, benefit assumptions and realised value independently.
• Hold capability owners accountable for delivering benefits, not only completing projects.

Cross-Functional Delivery Orchestration

• Orchestrate execution across Business, Technology, Finance, PMO, process engineering, vendors and subject-matter experts.
• Resolve cross-functional constraints, sequencing issues and delivery dependencies.
• Ensure the Insurance portfolio operates as one integrated agenda rather than a collection of disconnected projects.

Strategic Vendor and Partner Management

• Set the strategic direction for critical operational and capability-related partnerships.
• Ensure vendor arrangements support the target operating model, capability roadmap and value objectives.
• Address duplication, dependency, service-performance and value-leakage risks across strategic suppliers.

Executive Performance and Risk Reporting

• Provide the Insurance CEO and Exco with an integrated view of:
  • capability-roadmap progress and delivery health;
  • benefits realised against plan, as validated by Finance;
  • operating-model and platform-transition progress;
  • material risks, dependencies and decisions required.
  • Escalate early where investment, delivery or technology activity is not producing the agreed outcomes

How Success Will Be Measured

The role is judged on three questions:

• Are we building the right capabilities?
• Are we moving toward the target architecture?
• Are we creating measurable business value?
• These will be tracked through:
• benefits realised and independently validated by Finance;
• progress on cost-to-income across the insurance businesses;
• delivery cycle times, such as time to launch a product or change a price;
• milestones on the core-platform transition, delivered without disruption to customers

You Will Be an Ideal Candidate If You Have:

Qualifications

Minimum Qualification

• Bachelor's Degree in Commerce, Business Management, Operations Management, Finance, Actuarial Science, Engineering or a related field.

Preferred Qualification

• Master's Degree in Commerce (MCom), Business Administration (MBA), Finance, Operations Management, or a related discipline.

Experience

• 15+ years' experience in Operations, Business Management, Financial Services, or a related environment.
• 4 to 5 years' experience in a senior leadership or functional leadership role with accountability for large-scale operational delivery.
• Demonstrated delivery through peers and partners you did not manage directly: influence across executives who own P&Ls and engineering teams.
• Experience leading an operating-model redesign or a major core-system or platform transition in a complex, regulated organisation.
• Experience shaping strategic vendor relationships, including transition or exit.
• Advantageous: insurance or bancassurance experience, and working knowledge of the regulatory frame (SAM, IFRS 17 and Prudential Authority expectations, including on material outsourcing).

What Sets You Apart

• Orchestration and influence. You get results across peers and functions through clarity, credibility and well-designed governance.
• Commercial and benefits rigour. You define value before money is spent and measure it honestly afterwards.
• Architectural literacy. You are fluent in technology and target-state architecture without needing to be the technologist.
• Process engineering. You see how work actually flows and how to redesign it end to end.
• Data and AI judgement. You can tell high-value use cases from interesting ones, and know what it takes to put them into production.
• Discipline to stay lean. You build capability in others rather than headcount around yourself.

Key Competencies

• Strategic Thinking
• Operational Excellence
• Commercial Acumen
• Financial Management
• Change Leadership
• Stakeholder Management
• Governance & Risk Management
• Customer Centricity
• Innovation & Digital Transformation
• People Leadership
• Decision Making
• Results Orientation

You Will Have Access To:

• Opportunities to shape and influence business strategy.
• A collaborative and high-performing leadership environment.
• Meaningful work that impacts customers, employees, and business performance.
• Ongoing opportunities for growth, development, and leadership advancement.

Why This Role Is Different

• Shape the operating model of what we intend to be South Africa's definitive bancassurer.
• Lead a once-in-a-generation move to a modern, AI-native insurance platform.
• Work with data, distribution and customer relationships across the FirstRand ecosystem that no standalone insurer can match.
• Sit on the Insurance Exco with direct influence on strategy, investment and the shape of the business.

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Important Closing Date Note

Take note that applications will not be accepted on the below date and onwards, kindly submit applications ahead of the closing date indicated below.

All appointments will be made in line with FirstRand Group’s Employment Equity plan. The Bank supports the recruitment and advancement of individuals with disabilities. In order for us to fulfill this purpose, candidates can disclose their disability information on a voluntary basis. The Bank will keep this information confidential unless we are required by law to disclose this information to other parties.