Director, Product Innovation
Munich Re View all jobs
- Toronto, ON
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Build and maintain an enterprise innovation roadmap across multiple lines, translating strategy into a prioritized portfolio of product and service opportunities.
- Lead structured market and customer discovery-synthesizing broker/customer insights, competitor intelligence, market research, and emerging risk trends into clear product hypotheses and recommendations.
- Develop executive-ready business cases and investment recommendations, managing research and insights budget.
- Define the IoT solution strategy for Canada: priority use-cases, target segments, value proposition, required data/telemetry, and partner ecosystem.
- Shape bundled offerings that combine insurance with technology and value-add services (prevention, monitoring, response), in line with HSB's broader IoT and technology-enabled risk approach.
- Run a hypothesis-driven “test & learn” approach-designing low-risk experiments to validate desirability, viability, and feasibility before scaling.
- Build and own a repeatable incubation playbook (problem framing → customer discovery → prototype/P&L → underwriting/claims/legal review → pilot → launch), reinforcing speed with discipline.
- Steward and continuously improve the established innovation governance process-intake criteria, prioritization, stage gates, and transparent decision documentation-to drive throughput and quality.
- Establish meaningful metrics and dashboards for pipeline health, launch progress, and measurable outcomes.
- Lead cross-functional delivery of 1-2 new products per year from concept to launch: coverage design/wording, underwriting appetite, pricing approach, operational readiness, and go-to-market enablement. Define product KPIs and performance monitoring plans and translate insights into iteration post-launch.
- Partner with Underwriting, Actuarial, Claims, Legal/Compliance, and Technology to ensure new and evolving products are implementable, governed, and aligned with underwriting intent and risk appetite.
- Bring structured thinking to profitability and sustainability-supporting segmentation, rate adequacy discussions, and portfolio insights as needed.
- Serve as a trusted advisor to senior leaders-framing decisions, facilitating alignment, and telling a clear story from data to recommendation. Manage complex senior stakeholder dynamics across the business and with global partners, ensuring strong alignment and decision velocity.
- Leading, coaching, and developing team of Product Innovation Strategists
- Establishing team operating rhythms and removing delivery blockers
- University-level education in finance, business administration, economics, risk management, or equivalent professional experience; MBA or equivalent graduate degree an asset
- 8-12 years demonstrated experience in strategy, innovation, or product roles; insurance or broader financial services
- Structured, hypothesis-driven problem solving: ability to frame ambiguity, develop options, assess trade-offs, and drive to clear decisions.
- Strong analytical capability: extracting insights from data and market research and translate them into strategy and action.
- Multi-workstream leadership: proven ability to manage multiple initiatives in parallel while maintaining quality, pace, and stakeholder alignment.
- People leadership experience (formal or informal): ability to coach talent, delegate effectively, and drive accountability in a small, high-performing team.
- Executive communication: ability to produce crisp, compelling materials and present complex topics simply and persuasively to senior audiences.
- Strong P&C insurance (or broader financial services) product knowledge-coverage/wordings, underwriting appetite, pricing fundamentals, and regulatory considerations is an asset
- Prior strategy consulting experience (e.g., strategy consulting Engagement Manager/Senior Manager level) or equivalent internal strategy/innovation consulting experience is an asset
- Experience building ecosystems/partnerships (vendors, data providers, technology partners) to enable product and service innovation is an asset
- An engaging and collaborative environment that promotes continuous learning and development
- A hybrid work environment that combines weekly in-office and remote days
- A great compensation package including an annual company bonus
- Competitive company-paid flexible health and dental benefits, starting on your first day
- Flexible dollars provided by the company to put towards a Health Spending Account and/or Wellness Spending Account
- Wellness program with tools and resources supporting your mental, physical, and financial wellbeing - on and off the job
- Participation in the DC Pension Plan with a progressive employer contribution scale based on tenure starting at 4%, plus optional company match in the RRSP plan
- Generous time off including vacation, personal days, unplanned time, Statutory Holidays and company-wide early closure half-days
- Learning and development programs and resources, including unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning, Education Assistance Program, and reimbursement for professional fees
- Employee Referral Program and Recognition Program