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.