Regional Head of GBO Asia and Operations Delivery, Transformation and Governance Lead

 

Job Purpose/Summary:

 

This role is based in Singapore. The Regional Head of GBO Asia is accountable for end-to-end operational delivery across all structured and high-volume processing activities within the Asia region, covering all lines of business in alignment with agreed Service Level Agreements. The role leads onshore delivery teams across Asia, drives regional implementation of the GBO Target Operating Model, and acts as the senior operational partner to regional Underwriting, Claims, Finance, Accounting and broker stakeholders. The role supervises delivery from offshore locations, in close collaboration with GBO Global teams and Domain leads in particular.

 

The role carries a dual mandate: in addition to core operational delivery leadership, the Regional Head of GBO Asia owns the regional transformation agenda and the regional operations governance framework - combining transformation velocity with governance rigour. This includes ownership of the regional risk and controls environment, Business Continuity Management, operational reporting quality, and the end-to-end transformation roadmap for GBO Asia.

 

The role operates in a matrix structure, with a solid line to the Regional Head of Operations and a dotted line to the Global Head of GBO. Regional Head of GBO Asia ensures full integration between GBO's global priorities and the broader Asia business agenda.

 

The role operates within the GBO global Target Operating Model and is accountable for its faithful regional implementation. Regional adaptation is permitted within defined boundaries, but deviation from global standards, frameworks and blueprints requires explicit approval from the Global Head of GBO.

 

Regional Heads are key enablers of GBO's global strategy. Consistency across regions is the foundation for scale, efficiency and leverage of the global shared capacity model.

 

Key Responsibilities:

 

Operations Management

• Own end-to-end operational delivery for the Asia region across all business lines, ensuring SLAs, quality standards and KPIs are consistently met.
• Manage a regional portfolio of significant GWP, with accountability for both onshore teams and matrix shared management of offshore delivery capacity across India, Singapore, Hong Kong and other Asia locations.
• Implement and maintain full adherence to the GBO global Target Operating Model, process governance standards and operational blueprints - regional execution must not deviate from globally defined frameworks without formal approval from the Global Head of GBO.
• Build and sustain effective working relationships with regional Underwriting, Claims, Finance and broker stakeholders across Asia markets.
• Actively participate in the Regional Extended Leadership Team, representing GBO's operational agenda and ensuring alignment between global GBO priorities and Asia business needs.
• Represent GBO in regional leadership forums and act as the senior operational voice in Asia.

 

People Leadership

• Lead, develop and manage regional teams including Team Leaders, with full accountability for performance management, capacity planning and talent development across Asia
• Drive a high-performance culture aligned to Allianz values and GBO's One Team One Model principle, reflecting the cultural diversity of the Asia region.
• Support hiring, succession planning and career development in close collaboration with HR.
• Foster collaboration across regional and global GBO teams, including offshore shared delivery locations.
• Set clear targets, manage performance and develop career pathways for all team members.
• Actively apply and contribute to the GBO global career pathing framework by identifying talent, mapping development pathways and ensuring regional teams have visibility of growth opportunities across the global GBO network.

 

Process & Performance Management

• Define, implement and manage operational KPIs and SLAs to measure and continuously improve regional performance, in alignment with the global GBO performance framework.
• Align regional KPIs and reporting to the global GBO performance framework and contribute to global benchmarking and best practice sharing across regions.
• Conduct regular business reviews with underwriting and operational partners, using data-driven insights.
• Identify and drive process improvement and lean initiatives, sharing best practices across GBO globally.
• Ensure full productivity accountability for all teams under direct and matrix management.
• Collaborate with regional and global functions on cross-functional operational topics.

 

Transformation & Change Management

• Lead and own regional delivery of globally mandated transformation programmes, with full accountability to the global programme governance structure

• Own the GBO Asia transformation agenda end-to-end - from opportunity identification through execution and sustained delivery of measurable efficiency improvements
• Develop and maintain the GBO Asia transformation roadmap, aligned with the global Target Operating Model and GBO's strategic priorities, incorporating local regulatory and market context across Asia-Pacific
• Build business cases for regional transformation investments with quantified benefits; maintain portfolio-level oversight of all regional transformation initiatives
• Drive transformation governance for GBO Asia through regional SteerCo and working groups; provide structured progress reporting to global transformation leadership
• Serve as GBO Asia's representative in global transformation forums; ensure regional learnings and innovations are captured and fed into the global pipeline
• Lead process redesign and harmonisation across GBO Asia lines of business, eliminating operational fragmentation and aligning with the global Target Operating Model
• Identify and prioritise automation opportunities across GBO Asia operations; lead implementation of RPA, intelligent automation, and AI-enabled workflows
• Champion AI adoption within GBO Asia - supporting use case development including Agentic AI applications and contributing to the GBO AI Champions network
• Pilot regional automation and AI use cases; package successful pilots for global scaling in partnership with the global transformation team
• Develop and maintain an environment that enables offshoring and nearshoring initiatives to progress in line with the global shared capacity model
• Design and execute change management strategies for GBO Asia transformation initiatives, reflecting the cultural and operational diversity of the region.

 

Operations Governance

• Own the GBO Asia operational risk and controls framework, ensuring alignment with GBO's global control environment and enterprise risk appetite; define, document and monitor controls across key operational processes including task transfer, data handling and third-party dependencies.
• Partner with Compliance, Internal Audit and Risk functions to align the regional control framework with regulatory obligations across all Asia locations; drive periodic control testing and self-assessment cycles, tracking findings to closure with clear accountability.
• Maintain the GBO Asia risk register and escalate material operational risks to GBO leadership in a timely and structured manner; build a risk-aware culture through clear escalation paths and embedded first-line-of-defence practices.
• Own the GBO Asia Business Continuity Management (BCM) framework for both onshore and offshore delivery locations; develop, maintain and test BCM plans covering a wide variety of scenarios; conduct regular tabletop exercises and act as the primary GBO interface for Group BCM and local Country Risk teams across Asia.
• Own the GBO Asia operational reporting framework; govern the dashboard ecosystem, set quality standards, ensure data integrity and drive adoption across delivery units and business partners.
• Maintain a harmonised KPI taxonomy across GBO Asia, eliminating fragmented or inconsistent metrics; lead quarterly operational performance reviews and synthesise insights for senior regional stakeholders.
• Drive continuous improvement and efficient processing to achieve best-in-class operational standards.
• Ensure innovations and process improvements adopted locally are validated against global GBO standards before implementation, to preserve consistency and scalability across the GBO network.

 

Global Responsibilities & Contribution

• Adopt and embed global process standards within Asia to drive consistency, scalability and operational leverage across all GBO locations.
• Champion and implement global automation and agentic AI solutions within GBO Asia, ensuring timely adoption and contributing to scaling across the GBO network.
• Actively contribute to global GBO initiatives and projects as a regional subject matter expert, ensuring Asia regional needs are reflected in global design decisions.
• Drive the evolution of the offshoring operating model towards a higher proportion of shared delivery and shared capacity, strengthening resilience and adaptability to seasonality across regions.
• Contribute to building a globally consistent, scalable GBO delivery model that enables efficiency, cost leverage and quality through shared capabilities.
• Ensure that regional teams are fully briefed on and compliant with global GBO governance policies, operating procedures and quality standards - local workarounds that undermine global consistency are not permitted.

 

Key Experience / Requirements / Skills:

 

Required Experience

• Minimum 10+ years in operational management in (re)insurance or financial services, with demonstrated accountability for large-scale, multi-country operations in Asia.
• Significant experience leading operational transformation, process redesign and automation / AI adoption programmes at scale in an Asia-Pacific context.
• Experience designing or owning operational risk/controls frameworks and/or BCM plans in an offshore delivery context (India captive model experience preferred).
• Demonstrated experience at senior leadership level in a global matrix organisation, contributing to global initiatives and executive-level stakeholder engagement.
• Proven track record leading high-performing international teams across onshore and offshore locations in Asia, including matrix management of 50+ FTEs.

 

Requried Education

• University degree (preferably in business administration, economics, finance, mathematics or law) or equivalent insurance specific qualification.
• MBA preferred or other Masters degree.

 

Technical Skills

• Insurance operations and business knowledge across multiple lines of business (Property, Casualty, Marine, Aviation, Financial Lines), including Asia-Pacific market dynamics.
• Operational transformation, process redesign and automation / AI implementation (RPA, Agentic AI, intelligent automation).
• Operations governance: risk and controls framework design, ICOFR, risk registers, control testing and BCM planning in an offshore delivery context.
• KPI and SLA design, operational reporting, BI dashboard governance and harmonised performance management.
• Financial management, budgeting, cost control and benchmarking; data literacy and working knowledge of AI-enabled platforms.
• A deep knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), with the ability to leverage AI-driven insights to shape strategic decisions and drive innovation across the organization.

 

General Skills

• Strategic Planning: ability to develop, implement and communicate strategies to address business trends, operating model evolution and competitive dynamics.
• Senior Stakeholder Management: ability to develop and positively influence key stakeholders at board and executive level across locations, functions and cultures.
• Communication & Presentation: ability to express complex ideas clearly at executive level, both written and verbally, including board-level reporting.
• Change Leadership & Transformation: ability to lead organisations through significant change including digital and AI transformation at global scale.
• Cross-Cultural Leadership: ability to lead diverse, geographically distributed teams across onshore and offshore locations in Asia, with sensitivity to different cultural, regulatory and market contexts.

 

Languages

• Fluent in English.
• Fluency in regional language advantageous (Mandarin, Hindi or other Asian language).

 

99268 | Operations | Management | Allianz Executive | Allianz Commercial | Full-Time | Permanent