Principal Delivery Head

Role Overview

The Principal Delivery Head will lead large-scale delivery across the Insurance and Bancassurance domain, overseeing cross-functional teams comprising Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Architects, Developers, QA and Operations teams. The role requires deep insurance domain expertise, strong delivery governance, project management excellence and proven stakeholder management skills. Experience in insurance operations, particularly claims, is highly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

Delivery Leadership

• Own end-to-end delivery across multiple initiatives, ensuring adherence to scope, budget, timelines and quality.
• Establish Agile/Hybrid delivery frameworks and governance to drive predictable execution.
• Lead delivery reviews, reporting, risk and issue management, capacity planning and release governance.
• Ensure effective sprint planning, backlog prioritisation and deployment readiness.
• Drive strong project management, planning, coordination and execution disciplines.

Insurance Domain Leadership

• Serve as the domain expert across the insurance value chain including bancassurance, policy administration, servicing, underwriting, claims, renewals and compliance.
• Provide guidance to business and technology teams to ensure delivery aligns with insurance processes and regulatory requirements.
• Drive process improvements, automation initiatives and operational efficiencies.
• Leverage claims operations expertise to improve customer and operational outcomes.

Team Management

• Lead multiple Agile pods comprising Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Developers, QA and DevOps teams.
• Foster collaboration, consistency and knowledge sharing across teams.
• Build high-performing teams through coaching, mentoring, performance management and capability development.
• Manage large delivery organizations of 80–150 employees across multiple locations and vendors.

Stakeholder Management

• Partner with business leaders, engineering teams, bancassurance partners and third-party vendors.
• Lead steering committees, governance forums, roadmap reviews and stakeholder communications.
• Provide clear updates on progress, risks, dependencies and delivery outcomes.
• Manage priorities, conflicts and expectations across business and technology stakeholders.

Quality, Compliance & Operations

• Ensure compliance with insurance regulations, governance standards and operational controls.
• Oversee SIT, UAT, release management and production stability.
• Govern incidents, enhancements, change requests and operational support processes.
• Drive continuous improvement in quality, resilience and customer experience.

Domain Expertise

• 15+ years of Insurance Delivery Management experience.
• Strong knowledge of insurance operations, bancassurance, digital transformation and regulatory frameworks.
• Experience with claims platforms, policy administration systems and operational transformation.
• Proven track record delivering complex integrations involving APIs, CRM, partner portals and claims platforms.

Technical & Delivery Skills

• Experience managing multiple Agile pods (up to 8 or more).
• Strong understanding of application architecture, integrations, cloud platforms and DevOps practices.
• Proficiency with JIRA, Azure DevOps, Confluence and Agile delivery metrics.
• Ability to manage delivery performance, release governance and operational reporting.

Leadership Skills

• Proven ability to lead teams of 80–150 members.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, negotiation and conflict-resolution skills.
• Strong project management, planning and execution capabilities.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders and make decisions in complex delivery environments.

Preferred Experience

• Bancassurance transformation and digital distribution programs.
• Claims transformation, claims operations or claims digitisation initiatives.
• Large-scale insurance platform modernization and operations transformation.
• Experience managing distributed teams and third-party vendors.
• Exposure to Southeast Asian insurance markets.

Success Measures

• Consistent delivery against scope, schedule and quality commitments.
• Improved delivery predictability, sprint velocity and operational stability.
• Strong stakeholder satisfaction and governance outcomes.
• High-performing teams with strong retention and capability growth.
• Successful delivery of business outcomes aligned to insurance and bancassurance objectives.

Ideal Candidate

A senior delivery leader with extensive Insurance and Bancassurance experience, strong application delivery expertise and exceptional stakeholder management skills. The ideal candidate combines deep insurance operations knowledge, robust project management capabilities and hands-on Agile delivery leadership, with claims experience being a significant advantage.