Role Description

Allianz has a new opportunity for a Head of IT Business Engagement, working in the IT Service Delivery space. This is a hybrid role primarily based out of our London office with travel to other Allianz Offices as and when required.
As our Head of IT Business Engagement you will have extensive experience in the delivery of IT Services/Service Management and extensive stakeholder management at Board and Exec Level

This role reports directly into the Head of IT Service Delivery, working closely with the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Allianz Holdings Executives and is responsible for leading delivery of service into our business areas of Commercial, Personal, Specialty and Central Functions.

You will be responsible for the delivery of Production ‘Run’ Services across Allianz Holdings ensuring both the robust delivery of service and continual strive for Service Excellence. This is achieved by the management of Allianz Technology (including 3rd parties), Processes and disciplines across the Allianz IT Framework using ITIL Best Practice to lead and provision the IT ‘run’ services for the UK business.  This includes all aspects of service delivery into Commercial, Personal, Specialty and Central Functions Business Areas.

Key focus for the role is facing off to the Allianz Holdings leadership teams of our three business lines and Central Functions Executives, the management of outsourced IT Suppliers and continual process improvement.

Key accountabilities

Accountable for the following core areas of service delivery including but not limited to:

• Deputise for the Head of IT Service Delivery (as and when required).
• Responsible for representing IT in Personal, Commercial and Specialty Leadership meetings – providing updates on all areas of IT, taking IT assigned actions and feeding these into the appropriate area of IT. Supplying the Head of IT Service Delivery and CIO with appropriate meeting briefing notes covering salient talking points relating to IT and wider OpsIT topics.
• Responsible for the delivery and governance oversight of core Service Management processes across Allianz Holdings,  provided by our intra group supplier Allianz Technology.
• Responsible for delivery of governance control attestation, including provision of evidence and remediation plans for all Controls under the accountability of the Head of IT Service Delivery – supported by the IT Service Manager Team.
• Setting the direction of work undertaken by the Service Managers and Customer Service Managers, ensuring a consistent engagement model is in place across all business areas.
• Ensuring IT are communicating IT Strategy and Service Performance to Direct Reports of MD’s either through a dedicated IT/Business meeting framework or IT attendance at business led meetings.
• IT Service demand is being fed back from the business into the Retained IT Team.
• Responsible for the delivery of all Holdings IT Reporting into IT Management Board.
• Service challenges are being picked up via regular engagement and fed into the appropriate area of IT (both Retained IT and Allianz Technology).
• Ownership responsibility of Audit Actions, Risks and Issues assigned to IT Service Delivery – ensuring they are appropriately driven and closed within target dates.
• Ensure that IT Service Delivery accountable governance controls are delivered on time and with accurate compliance outcomes.
• Drive Service Improvement activity across the IT Service Management Framework of Processes, Controls and Tooling.
• Ensure business escalations are dealt with swiftly and appropriately.
• Responsible for delivery of the Allianz Holdings Service Acceptance Process for all newly introduced or amended Services entering the Production Environment.

Specifically the Head of IT Business Engagement will ensure that Allianz Technology especially deliver effective:

• IT  Service Operations

• Ensuring delivery of the Service Desk & local service support functions
• Ongoing and robust Incident (and Major Incident), Problem Management processes

• Service Transition

• Service Introduction and Service Acceptance
• Change Management
• Knowledge Management
• Ownership of the forward schedule of change

• Service Design

• Service Catalogue Management
• Service Level Management and Service Reporting

• Service Strategy & IT Business Relationship Management related to service provision

• Ensuring strong business relationships management with each department across the UK business
• Identify Service requirements
• Monitoring of  Customer satisfaction / dissatisfactions (NPS)
• Act as a Service escalation point
• Collaborate with delivery teams for Service adoption and ongoing service improvement
• Conduct Service reviews and understand Service status

• Continuous Service Improvement

• Understand requirements for and initiate Service improvement activity
• Monitor and track progress of Service improvement initiatives

• Allianz Specifics

• Ensure that the Service Provider supports the maintenance to applications that have an impact on the trading business of Allianz UK
• Work closely with Allianz group colleagues who are responsible for IT reporting and IT service management aspects
• Ensure the IT appropriate preparation of (a) reports to the Board and sub-committees of Allianz UK and (b) periodic reports by Allianz to Supervisory Authorities.
• Reports to Allianz management and Board meetings; contribution to Allianz strategic objectives and business plan.

Providing leadership direction for the IT Service Delivery Team in the delivery of:-

Strategic Activities

• Interfacing with the business area leadership team (Managing Directors and Direct Reports) understands the internal business Service requirements and inputs into the building of a Service Management framework and capability to deliver and meet the needs of the Business today and in the future.
• Work closely with Business area Leadership to understand the internal business strategies and initiatives.
• As a supporting member of the IT Leadership team, inputs to IT strategy and roadmap ensuring the business Service requirements are understood and factored.
• Input into Development strategies and frameworks based on an in depth understanding of business requirements.

Management Activities

• Manage internal business expectations and requirements. Specifically being able to report on and oversee the service expectations of the Personal, Commercial and Specialty MD’s and their extended Executive management teams.
• Chair Service reviews, IT performance / Service Level Agreement based reporting.
• Responsibility to resolve escalated issues relating to IT Service delivery.
• Responsible for overseeing the delivery of continuous service improvement initiation and tracking to completion.
• Ensure the day to day running of Customer facing IT services by defining, implementing and monitoring execution of incident and service request management processes across the IT function.
• Manage the resolution of  major incidents and communication into Holdings ExCo.
• Ensure robust root cause analysis is performed and preventative measures are taken to avoid repeat outages to minimise risk to IT services.
• Drives the stability and on-going operation of IT services by ensuring Change Management procedures are defined, executed and adhered to.
• Ensures the stability of newly introduced IT services by promoting and ensuring the execution of Service Transition and Service Introduction processes – with responsibility of Service acceptance delivery.
• Responsibility for ownership of risks associated with IT Service Delivery.
• Promote, gain sponsorship of and implement new technology processes or capabilities that drive benefit for the UK business.
• Work closely with outsourced application development teams to ensure all IT services are available and improving as the platform complexities increase. 
• Promote and be an ambassador for the UK business Digital strategy and implement the necessary IT service skills and processes to support that vision.
• Support the Head of IT Service Delivery with the delivery of all Regulatory and Group Controls for respective area of service. Ensuring non-compliant areas have associated action plans and are driven to completion.
• Support the Head of IT Service Delivery with all Internal Audit and 2nd Line Risk  partnering within IT Service Delivery – ensuring audit findings are met with a strong management response on how they are to be remediated and with a committed delivery date.

Common Activities

• Ensure staff are recruited in order to fulfil the requirements of the function, and maintain effective performance measurement, management and development procedures
• Lead and motivate the internal and third party teams to deliver to requirement
• Establish, monitor and report on all relevant aspects of the IT service
• Partner with colleagues across the Allianz Operations & Change Functions in the effective delivery of all BAU IT services and project and programme related activities

Technical skills

• Extensive experience of ITIL disciplines
• Management of IT outsourced third-party service provision
• Extensive experience and understanding of system development methodologies
• Extensive experience and understanding of system testing approaches, methods and tools
• Extensive experience of configuration management processes and disciplines
• Extensive understanding and experience of IT service introduction methods, disciplines, tools and reporting 

About You

• Proactive and “get involved approach”
• Strong business awareness and focused on customer service
• Adaptive and responsive to change
• Ability to build and manage relationships
• Ability to build partnerships across Allianz Business units
• Excellent communication skills; approachable; authoritative; diplomatic; demonstrates empathy
• Effective team-manager, trainer and coach
• Team building, leadership and motivation

Essential Skills

• Experience of operating at an Executive level in the IT Service Management arena within a regulated industry, preferably Financial Services and Insurance.
• Experience of working closely with and influencing senior stakeholders across a large multi-national commercial organisation.
• Experience of providing SME level expertise in Service Management Processes and IT service introduction methodology .
• Experience of managing IT in an outsourced service environment with service integration responsibility.
• Experience of coaching technical delivery resources to ensure SME level expertise in respect of IT Service Management.
• Experience of driving and leading technical and skills improvement in a professional community.
• Experience of dealing with IT vendors of differing sizes is beneficial.
• Experience of managing third parties service provision – especially offshore, internal business stakeholders and parallel work streams.
• IT Service Management expertise within a multi-stakeholder environment with a demonstrable ability to negotiate compromise and gain stakeholder buy in.
• Experience of designing and implementing IT service introduction methods, disciplines, tools and reporting.
• Experience of designing and implementing IT continuity and disaster recover processes.
• Experience of interpreting, communicating and implementing ITIL disciplines.

What We Will Offer You

Recognised and rewarded for a job well done, we have a range of flexible benefits for you to choose from- so you can pick a package that’s perfect for you. We also offer flexible working options, global career opportunities across the wider Allianz Group, and fantastic career development and training. That’s on top of enjoying all the benefits you’d expect from the world’s number one insurance brand, including:

• Flexible buy/sell holiday options
• Hybrid working.
• Annual performance related bonus
• Contributory pension scheme
• Development days
• A discount up to 50% on a range of insurance products including car, home and pet
• Retail discounts

Our Ways of Working

Do you need some flexibility with the hours you work? Let us know as part of your application and if it’s right for our customers, our business and for you, then we’ll do everything we can to make it happen. 

Here at Allianz, we are signatories of the ABIs flexible working charter. We believe in supporting hybrid work patterns, which balance the needs of our customers, with your personal circumstances and our business requirements. Our aim with this is to help innovation, creativity, and you to thrive - Your work life balance is important to us.

Diversity & Inclusion

At Allianz, we prioritize diversity and inclusion, demonstrated by our numerous accreditations: EDGE certified for gender inclusion, Women in Finance Charter members, Disability Confident employer, Stonewall Diversity Champion, Business in the Community’s Race at Work Charter signatories, and Armed Forces Covenant gold standard employer.

We embrace neurodiversity and welcome applications from neurodivergent and disabled candidates, offering tailored adjustments to ensure your success.

We encourage our employees to advocate for their needs, whether it’s assistive technology, ergonomic equipment, mentoring, coaching, or flexible work arrangements.

Accessible Application for All

As part of the Disability Confident Scheme, we support candidates with disabilities or long-term health conditions through the Offer an Interview Scheme, for those meeting the essential skills for the role.

Contact our Resourcing team to opt into this scheme or for assistance with your application, including larger text, hard copies, or spoken applications.

Hr-recruitment@allianz.co.uk

resourcingteam@allianz.co.uk

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