Head of Distribution Strategy & Sales Governance in Leeds

Head of Distribution Strategy & Sales Governance

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Do you have experience building broker propositions? Are you looking to progress your insurance career with a forward‑thinking, people‑driven business? Come and join Markel as our Head of Distribution Strategy & Sales Governance.

What part will you play? If you’re looking for a place where you can make a meaningful difference, you’ve found it. The work we do at Markel gives people the confidence to move forward and seize opportunities, and you’ll find your fit amongst our global community of optimists and problem‑solvers. We’re always pushing each other to go further because we believe that when we realise our potential, we can help others reach theirs.

The Opportunity

We have an exciting opportunity for a Distribution Strategy & Sales Governance to join the Markel UK Broker team. This is a hybrid working role which will involve some travel to our Leeds & London offices, so we can base this from any of our offices – Leeds, Manchester or Birmingham. The Head of Distribution Strategy & Sales Governance (Broker) is a pivotal leadership role responsible for overseeing the strategic direction, operational effectiveness, and regulatory compliance of broker distribution channels (Open market, Digital and Schemes). The role ensures that all sales activities, partnerships, and broker relationships align with the organisation’s objectives, compliance requirements, and best practice standards. The position requires a strong blend of commercial foresight, governance expertise, and partner management skills and will report into the Divisional Director for Broker.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Strategy Development: Develop and implement the broker distribution strategy in alignment with Markel’s commercial objectives and growth targets.
• Sales Governance: Design and implement robust governance frameworks to ensure all broker sales activities adhere to regulatory, legal, and company standards.
• Performance Management: Work with the Head of Strategic Sales to set and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) for broker sales teams, driving continuous improvement and accountability.
• Regulatory Compliance: Act as the primary point of contact for all matters relating to sales compliance, ensuring timely adaptation to regulatory changes and industry best practices.
• Broker Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong, productive relationships with key broker partners, fostering trust and collaboration for remuneration/ISA’s.
• Accountability for broker proposition – development and continuous improvement.
• Risk Management: Identify, assess, and mitigate risks within the broker sales channel, ensuring effective internal controls are in place.
• Training & Development: Oversee the development and delivery of training programmes to ensure broker distribution teams are fully equipped in compliance, product knowledge, and sales effectiveness.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders, including Legal, Compliance, Underwriting, Marketing and Product teams, to support business objectives.
• Reporting & Insights: Provide regular updates and actionable insights to senior management on broker performance, compliance issues, and emerging risks.

Our Must Haves

• Previous experience within the General Insurance industry and working with senior leadership and placement teams of large, sophisticated brokers with a UK footprint of offices.
• Distribution experience – including strategy setting, framework development and implementation of change.
• Demonstrable experience and success in roles with a distribution/development focus and a proven track record of delivery against new business and portfolio growth targets and objectives.
• Understanding of project management techniques and stakeholder management of both internal and external stakeholders.
• High level competence in the use of data to robustly performance manage distribution delivery and instigate corrective action as necessary.
• High standard of presentation skills, including the ability to differentiate these according to audience and target outcome.
• A challenging, self‑starting, and success‑oriented individual who brings expertise, initiative and a desire to build a market‑leading business.
• Creditable and engaging representative of Markel, cultivating long‑term relationships within the industry.

What’s In It For You

• A great starting salary plus generous annual bonus & strong benefits package.
• 25 days paid holiday plus Bank Holidays, with the opportunity to buy or sell extra leave.
• Fantastic company pension scheme, private medical and dental cover, life assurance, travel insurance cover, income protection, season ticket loan and other great benefits on offer.
• Countless opportunities to learn new skills and develop in your career, with the support needed to do just that.

Who We Are

Markel Corporation (NYSE – MKL) a Fortune 500 company with over 60 offices in 20+ countries, is a holding company for insurance, reinsurance, specialist advisory and investment operations around the world.

Are you ready to play your part?

Choose ‘Apply Now’ to fill out our short application, so that we can find out more about you.

Markel celebrates the value of a diverse workforce that brings experience and expertise from a wide variety of backgrounds and life circumstances. Whatever your background, if you feel you meet the requirements of this role then we want to hear from you. We are also happy to consider candidates who are looking for flexible working patterns.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with all reasonable accommodations to be able to participate in the job application or interview process and to perform essential job functions if successful. Please contact us via email at rec@markel.com or call us at 0161 507 5827 to request any accommodations that may be needed. This includes any alternative formats of any documents or information on how to apply offline.

Seniority level: Executive

Employment type: Full‑time

Job function: Management and Manufacturing

Industries: Insurance