Head of Process Excellence

This is a rare opportunity to shape and lead enterprise process excellence at Hiscox. As the organisation accelerates its operational maturity agenda, this role will be central to simplifying how work gets done, improving scalability and control, and creating better experiences for customers and employees alike. A new Enterprise Process Excellence function is being established at Group level to provide the vision, standards and momentum needed to turn process excellence into a sustained competitive advantage.

The Head of Enterprise Process Excellence will set the strategic direction for process improvement across Hiscox and build the foundations that enable it to succeed at scale. This includes defining the methodology, standards, tooling, governance, operating model and capability required to drive measurable business outcomes. The role combines strategy and delivery: influencing senior stakeholders, identifying high‑value opportunities, and, where needed, directly leading improvement programmes in areas where process excellence capability is still being built. It is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who enjoys creating momentum, raising capability and embedding a culture of continuous improvement across a complex organisation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Shape and deliver a Group‑wide enterprise process excellence strategy and roadmap aligned to business priorities.
• Ensure process excellence initiatives support wider business goals, customer needs and operational performance ambitions.
• Identify and prioritise opportunities to simplify, standardise, automate and improve critical end‑to‑end processes.
• Build the enterprise foundations for success, including methodology, governance, tooling, standards and capability development.
• Provide oversight, visibility and performance tracking across process excellence activity in Business Units and Group Functions.
• Personally lead selected improvement programmes where additional capability or leadership is needed.
• Lead the evaluation and adoption of enabling tools and technologies in partnership with Group IT and other stakeholders.
• Define and monitor meaningful KPIs to measure progress, demonstrate impact and communicate value.
• Coach, support and influence process excellence teams, leaders and champions across the organisation.
• Design and deliver engaging learning and coaching approaches that strengthen process excellence capability across Hiscox.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement, innovation and disciplined execution across the business.

Candidate Profile:

• We are looking for a credible and inspiring leader who combines deep process excellence expertise with strong commercial judgement and the ability to bring people with them.
• The successful candidate will be equally comfortable setting strategy, influencing senior stakeholders and rolling up their sleeves to make change happen.
• They will bring a track record of building capability, delivering measurable outcomes and creating energy around continuous improvement in complex organisations.
• A degree in a relevant discipline and/or recognised process excellence credentials such as Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or Master Black Belt.
• Significant experience leading process improvement, operational excellence or transformation work in complex environments.
• A strong record of delivering impactful improvement programmes that create measurable operational and commercial value.
• Insurance sector experience is essential, with a strong understanding of insurance operations, process complexity and the regulatory environment.
• Experience establishing or scaling process excellence capabilities, including methods, tools, governance and vendor management.
• Excellent analytical, problem‑solving and decision‑making skills, with the ability to translate insight into action.
• Strong communication and influencing skills, with the credibility to work across functions and engage senior stakeholders.
• Confidence using and shaping the adoption of process excellence and automation tools, including process mapping and mining, workflow, robotics, intelligent automation and AI‑enabled solutions.
• Experience operating in an international matrix environment, ideally within financial services, would be highly valuable.

Beyond technical expertise, this role calls for someone with strong delivery focus, sound commercial judgement and a pragmatic approach to solving business problems. The right person will bring an external perspective, use data to inform decisions and confidently challenge existing ways of working in order to help Hiscox achieve better outcomes.

About Hiscox:

As an international specialist insurer, we are far removed from the world of mass market insurance products. Instead, we are selective and focus on our key areas of expertise and strength - all of which is underpinned by a culture that encourages us to challenge convention and always look for a better way of doing things. We ensure the unique and the interesting. And we search for the same when it comes to talented people. Hiscox is full of smart, reliable human beings that look out for customers and each other. We believe in doing the right thing, making good and rebuilding when things go wrong. Everyone is encouraged to think creatively, challenge the status quo and look for solutions. Scratch beneath the surface and you will find a business that is solid, but slightly contrary. We like to do things differently and constantly seek to evolve. We might have been around for a long time (our roots go back to 1901), but we are young in many ways, ambitious and going places.

Diversity and flexible working at Hiscox:

We hire the best people for the job, and we are committed to diversity and creating a truly inclusive culture, which we believe drives success. Working life does not always have to be in the office so we have introduced hybrid working to encourage a healthy work life balance. This hybrid working model is set by the team rather than the business to enable you to manage your own personal work‑life balance. We see it as the best of both worlds; structure and sociability on one hand, and independence and flexibility on the other.