Group Leadership Development Lead

Who are we?

Howden is a global insurance group with employee ownership at its heart. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mindset, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of 24,000 employees spanning over 56 countries.

People join Howden for many different reasons, but they stay for the same one: our culture. It's what sets us apart, and the reason our employees have been turning down headhunters for years. Whatever your priorities - work / life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering - you'll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.

We are looking for a Leadership Development Lead to set and deliver Howden's global leadership development strategy: building the capabilities, behaviours and succession pipelines leaders need at every level to deliver our 2030 vision, strengthen performance today, and protect Howden's people-first culture as we scale.

What will you be doing?

1. Leadership Development Strategy
   • Set the global leadership development strategy, aligned to business priorities, growth plans, culture and future capability needs.
   • Define leadership expectations and capability frameworks so leaders understand what great leadership looks like at each level, from first-time people leaders through to enterprise leadership.
   • Ground the strategy in the H Behaviours and connect it explicitly to Howden's wider Learning & Skills Strategy so leadership development is one part of a joined-up capability pathway, not a standalone programme agenda.
2. Flagship Leadership Programmes & the Wider Learning Ecosystem
   • Design and deliver leadership development programmes for emerging, mid-level, senior and executive leaders across regions and business units, including the core/flagship programmes (eg: H Leaders).
   • Build the wider 'in-the-moment' ecosystem - nudges, toolkits, peer pods, communities of practice and development bursts - so that learning becomes habit in the flow of work, not just a classroom event.
   • Create scalable global learning experiences while allowing for regional and cultural adaptation.
3. Coaching, Team effectiveness, leadership capability for key Howden initiatives
   • Develop and implement a coaching strategy in order to further develop and amplify leadership capability and growth; cost-effectively and at scale.
   • Develop and implement a Howden approach to team effectiveness in order to align work in this area, eventually building internal capability to support team effectiveness interventions.
   • Provide support as needed to other key initiatives from a leadership capability perspective, eg: building feedback capability to support performance enablement.
4. Succession & Talent Pipelines
   • Build succession and talent pipelines by identifying critical roles, high-potential talent and readiness gaps, in partnership with the Talent & Succession Lead.
   • Coach and advise senior leaders on leadership capability, team effectiveness, succession planning and development priorities.
   • Partner with TA, Talent and Succession lead to implement executive assessment to support talent recruitment, onboarding, assessment and development .
5. Future-Ready & AI-Fluent Leadership
   • Embed inclusive and future-ready leadership behaviours, including leading through complexity, change, digital transformation, AI and diverse global teams.
   • Thread AI fluency through every level of the leadership pathway as a leadership capability, not a technology add‑on, so leaders know when AI should augment judgement and when human judgement must lead.
6. Stakeholder Partnership & Delivery
   • Partner with senior stakeholders to understand business needs, ensuring leadership development is relevant, practical and commercially focused.
   • Manage external partners and internal faculty, including coaches, facilitators, business leaders and learning providers.
7. Governance, Budget & Quality
   • Oversee budgets, resources, governance and programme quality so leadership investments deliver value.
   • Own the leadership architecture, core models and quality standards centrally, while enabling divisions to own local delivery, adoption and contextualisation - recognising that some leaders sit within Howden's senior manager function and that learning reflects relevant non-financial misconduct requirements.
8. Insights, Measurement & Continuous Improvement
   • Measure impact and effectiveness through leadership outcomes, participant feedback, behavioural change, business metrics and talent movement, using the four-level Learning & Skills evaluation framework (engagement, capability build, application, outcomes).
   • Stay current on leadership trends and research, bringing innovative thinking and evidence-based practice into the organisation.

What we are looking for.

Extensive experience designing and delivering leadership development at scale in a global, matrixed organisation, ideally spanning people leadership through to executive/