Vice-president, Strategy

**Date**:May 5, 2023

**Location**: Remote - Canada, CA Nova Scotia, CA New Brunswick, CA Newfoundland & Labrador, CA Saskatchewan, CA Alberta, CA Quebec, CA Manitoba, CA Ontario, CA Yukon, CA British Columbia, CA Prince Edward Island, CA

**Company**:Wawanesa Insurance

**Job ID**:6440

**Working Business Language**: English

**We’re proud to give our employees the flexibility to choose how and where they want to work. In this role, you can decide whether your preference is to work from home (remote), work from the office or a hybrid of time spent at both. You may work from any of the following locations: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador and/or the Yukon.**

We are currently looking for dedicated, driven, and enthusiastic individuals who thrive in an environment that welcomes change and are looking for an opportunity for diverse experience and advancement on a growing team.

**Job Overview**:
This role is accountable for leading effective corporate strategy design and facilitating alignment and execution of the company’s short-term and long-term goals. Providing expert stewardship, this role will be responsible for enterprise strategic planning, innovation and research, while building an effective strategy framework across functional and business teams to lead enterprise-wide programs that accelerate Wawanesa’s ability to achieve and realize strategic objectives.

**Responsibilities**:

- Lead the corporate strategic planning and development process, providing thought leadership, quantitative and qualitative analysis, recommendations, and materials preparation for senior leadership and the Board on key strategic and financial decisions.
- Provide fact-based thought leadership on key strategic and financial decisions, partnering with Finance and across all business functions to integrate strategic planning with enterprise budgeting and planning.
- Establish sound governance and develop key performance indicator system to facilitate realization of strategic objectives and monitor the effectiveness of the strategy framework and its impact on business performance.
- Establish Corporate Development Strategy to leverage opportunities for appropriate growth and innovation to achieve strategic objectives.
- Build an Innovation and Research Centre of Expertise (COE) to foster an innovation mindset in the organization and actively seek ways to enhance the capability and performance of the organization.
- Lead market research and benchmarking to determine emerging issues and trends, and analyze the impact and implications of those trends on various business lines / functional roadmaps
- Partner with business leaders to understand long term objectives, utilizing a disciplined approach to identify future strategic direction by translating research into strategy development and generating new ideas for product and market opportunities
- Present complex business cases and actionable recommendations to senior leadership based on insights on a variety of relevant industry, competitive, product, markets, regulatory and environmental factors. Facilitate follow up research and investigation to answer questions and refine recommendations
- Create an effective work environment by developing a common vision, setting clear objectives, expecting teamwork, recognizing outstanding performance, and maintaining open communications
- Lead a talented Strategy and Innovation team and nurture strong executive relationships across the organization.
- Prepare materials for Board of Director and other executive updates that reflect effective story-telling and narrative to support decision making and strategic oversight.
- Perform other duties as assigned.

**Qualifications**:

- 12+ years of progressive, practical and relevant leadership experience in corporate strategy.
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business; MBA preferred and/or industry designation.
- Experience working with and collaborating across functional teams, facilitating various technical and business stakeholders including C-Suite, and delivering powerful presentations.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to establish relationships at all levels
- Strategic mindset with the ability to think broadly, plan strategically and execute cross-functionally
- Proven experience leading programs/projects and delivering against commitments and timelines.
- Excellent leadership skills with the ability to influence and gain respect, credibility and confidence from others
- Ability to make excellent and well justified decisions in complex and high-pressure situations
- Ability to develop and implement comprehensive plans and solutions that bridge complex issues that span across time
- Strong business and financial acumen with excellent analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to recognize and identify critical issues, and make recommendati