Business Process Owner
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Who are we?
Howden is a collective – a group of talented and passionate people all around the world. Together, we have pushed the boundaries of insurance. We are united by a shared passion and no-limits mind-set, and our strength lies in our ability to collaborate as a powerful international team comprised of over 20,000 employees spanning over 100 countries.
Our people are our biggest asset as well as our largest shareholder group and are everything that makes us unique; our inclusive culture, the quality service we offer our clients, and our continued growth, all come from our people-first approach. There’s no such thing as individual success. We all need to play our part, contributing our skills and experience to make a true difference. That’s Howden.
Why work at Howden?
We have always been employee-owned and driven by entrepreneurial spirit. Right from the beginning, we've focused on employing talented individuals and empowering them to make a real difference to the company, whilst building successful and fulfilling careers at the same time. Simply put, we hire talented specialists and give them what they need to make a difference for clients. Always have, always will.
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 disappointed head-hunters for years. Whatever your priorities – work/life balance, career progression, sustainability, volunteering – you’ll find like-minded people driving change at Howden.
The Role
The Business Process Owner (BPO) for Placement is accountable for the end-to-end performance, continuous redesign, and optimisation of the placement process — ensuring it consistently delivers better outcomes for the business through technology and AI-enabled ways of working. This role ensures that the process is efficient, compliant, and aligned to strategic, digital, and regulatory objectives.
You will partner closely with product, engineering, and data teams to enhance system capabilities, embed automation, strengthen data quality, and enable a seamless, digitally supported user experience across the lifecycle. This includes incorporating AI and advanced technologies into process transformation, to ensure the placement process leverages emerging capabilities such as automation, agentic, and intelligent workflows to drive efficiency and innovation.
The BPO operates within the framework set by the Global Process Owner (GPO), adopting common methods, standards and tooling, while feeding learnings and successful innovation back into the group-wide process ownership community.
What you’ll do
Process Design & Improvement
- Lead a continuous pipeline of sprint-based process improvement cycle, leveraging cross-functional teams to redesign placement workflows end-to-end, embed automation and AI, and deliver business outcomes.
- Define, track and report benefits associated with process improvement initiatives, ensuring changes in how work is done are clearly linked to measurable outcomes including cost, cycle-time, quality and control.
- Maintain a prioritised backlog of optimisation opportunities, continuously refreshed as technology capabilities evolve and new improvement areas are identified.
- Lead process walkthroughs with subject matter experts (SMEs) to validate current‑state design, identify pain points, and define opportunities for optimisation.
- Drive standardisation, automation, and digital‑enablement initiatives to enhance efficiency, improve user experience, and reduce operational risk.
- Collaborate closely with technology, product, and data teams to ensure systems, tooling, integrations, and workflows are designed to support an optimised placement process.
- Translate business requirements into clear functional and non‑functional specifications to guide system enhancements and technology roadmap decisions.
Process Ownership & Governance
- Own end-to-end process performance - maintaining documentation, controls, and performance metrics.
- Ensure compliance with internal policies, regulatory requirements, and market standards.
- Oversee the implementation and monitoring of controls, including regular attestations and audits.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Act as the primary liaison between broking teams, compliance, risk, IT, Data & AI and operations regarding placement processes, ensuring alignment between business objectives, technical capabilities, and operational needs
- Operate as an active member of the Group-wide process ownership community, adopting GPO methods, tooling and standards, sharing learnings, and contributing to scaling of innovation across the business
- Coordinate with adjacent process owners and divisional leadership to manage dependencies, share resources and align priorities.
- Support training and communication efforts to embed process changes across the business.
Performance Monitoring
- Define and track key performance indicators (KPIs) for placement efficiency, accuracy, and compliance.
- Analyse process data to identify trends, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Maintain a live view of process performance and a forward-looking pipeline of improvement opportunities, ensuring continuous improvement and ongoing value realisation.
- Report regularly to divisional leadership and Global Process Owner on process health and improvement initiatives.
Who we’re looking for
- Proven experience in insurance broking, ideally within placement or broking operations.
- Deep understanding of the specialty insurance domain and its operational nuances.
- Understanding of placement systems and platforms (e.g., Acturis, PPL, Whitespace).
- Strong understanding of AI and emerging technologies, with proven experience applying them to transform business processes.
- Ability to bridge business and technology, and translate complex technical capabilities into clear and practical business outcomes.
- Experience in process mapping, control frameworks, and continuous improvement methodologies (e.g., Lean, Six Sigma).
- Demonstrated credibility with senior stakeholders, with the ability to influence and shape strategic direction.
- Visionary mindset with the ability to identify future opportunities and drive innovation within the placement process.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Familiarity with regulatory frameworks such as Sarbanes-Oxley, FCA, Lloyd’s Minimum Standards, and Consumer Duty.
Desirable
- Professional qualifications such as ACII or Lean Six Sigma certification.
- Familiarity with agile or sprint-based delivery methodologies.
- Experience working in a matrixed or global insurance environment.
What do we offer in return?
A career that you define.
Our business succeeds by allowing our people to make a mark in the areas they care about most: personal development, volunteering, and fundraising for charity, or creating new insurance products that address society’s greatest challenges.
And we know that separate home and work lives don't really exist. If you're happy and healthy at home, you're more likely to be happy and fulfilled at work – and vice versa. That's why we do our best to support our people in every aspect of their lives.
Diversity and Inclusion
At Howden we value diversity - there is no one Howden ‘personality type’. Instead, we’re looking for individuals who share the same values as us:
- Our successes have all come from someone brave enough to try something new
- We support each other, in the small everyday moments and the bigger challenges
- We are determined to make a positive difference, at work and beyond
We consider our people our chief competitive advantage and as such we treat colleagues, candidates, clients, and business partners with equality, fairness, and respect – regardless of age, disability, race, religion or belief, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, or family circumstances.
Reasonable adjustments
We're committed to providing reasonable accommodations at Howden to ensure that our positions align well with your needs. Besides the usual adjustments such as software, IT, and office setups, we can also accommodate other changes such as flexible hours* or hybrid working*.
If you're excited by this role but have some doubts about whether it’s the right fit for you, send us your application – if your profile fits the role’s criteria, we will be in touch to assist in helping to get you set up with any reasonable adjustments you may require.
*Not all positions can accommodate changes to working hours or locations. Reach out to your Recruitment Partner if you want to know more.
Our sustainability promise
We’re on a life-long journey to become an ever-more sustainable group. It's a commitment to taking care of our people and the world we live in, to doing good business, and to making a positive impact wherever we can. Our governance processes, company policies, and review systems are all geared towards our goal of making a positive impact in the world. You can read more about our sustainability work here.