• Design and implement job architecture, salary bands, and grading structures across the organization, replacing the current inconsistent, relationship-driven approach to offers and pay decisions.
• Establish an annual market benchmarking process and build the governance and approval frameworks needed to keep compensation decisions consistent as the business scales.
• Lead the redesign of the company's LTIP plan, including eligibility criteria and plan structure, moving the plan to a fully performance-based model.
• Build out a broader, whole-person benefits and wellness strategy, working alongside the existing comp and benefits lead to modernize plan design, improve employee understanding, and evolve beyond a purely transactional benefits offering.
• Act as a trusted advisor to the CFO, CEO, and board on compensation strategy; sit on the newly established compensation committee and present directly to the board on reward matters.
• Partner with Finance on budgeting, forecasting, and reporting for compensation and benefits, and manage relationships with external partners including Fidelity and other benefits providers.
• Take ownership of the current comp and benefits function, including managing, and eventually succession-planning around, the tenured comp and benefits lead who has run the function tactically for close to two decades.
• Build and grow a small but capable team over time, adding resource as the function's scope expands.
• Help extend the North American reward framework into Canada as the business opens an office there, and remain flexible as the company's footprint expands further across the Americas.
Qualifications:
• Significant experience leading total rewards, compensation, or a combined comp and benefits function, ideally comp-heavy with working knowledge of benefits and wellness strategy rather than a pure benefits specialist.
• A track record of building compensation infrastructure (bands, benchmarking, governance) within a growing or historically under-structured organization; experience selecting or implementing compensation-related systems is a plus.
• Comfortable operating with real seniority: able to sit with a CFO and CEO, present to a board and compensation committee, and hold their own in that room, even if this would be a first board exposure.
• Strong stakeholder and change management skills. This person will be introducing structure and rigor into an organization used to operating without it, and will need to navigate resistance from managers and leaders attached to the current way of doing things.
• Not required to come from insurance or financial services specifically. Candidates from any sector who have built or matured a comp and benefits function through a period of growth will be considered; adaptability matters more than industry pedigree.
• Enough seniority and gravitas to be credible from day one. This is not a first-time people-manager or a newly promoted individual contributor; the CHRO is looking for someone who brings genuine presence and confidence into senior rooms.
• Comfortable in a lean, build-from-scratch environment, with the autonomy to define what's needed and the confidence to ask for more resource as the team grows.
It’s an exciting time for our company and a great opportunity to join a financially sound and growing global insurance group!
