Interim Regional Chief Product and Technology Officer — Integration (Insurance)

A year spent deciding where engineers work

The end of the 12 months is the easiest place to begin, because the destination is concrete. By then the allocation of engineering capacity should be reported to the Technology Committee on a set cadence, and the engineering bench should be stronger than the one the interim found. Getting there takes two earlier steps.

The first ninety days must settle the rules for capacity: what counts as existing demand, such as keeping current systems running, regulatory change and defect repair, and what counts as new work, along with which allocation decisions local leaders make for themselves. Without that line every request claims to be urgent and the loudest sponsor wins.

By around month nine capacity should actually be allocated against those rules, with the inherited engineering commitments that return least either parked or wound down. This is where the seat earns its authority, because each paused commitment had someone who wanted it, and engineers who were building it.

The authority beneath the allocation

Although interim, the appointment holds executive authority and reports to the Technology Committee Chair. You will set the regional rules for engineering capacity decisions, including how much capacity country engineering leads may allocate on their own authority. You will set the test that money, engineering time and control effort must pass before they are allocated. Inherited commitments proceed only with your agreement, and any proposal that loads cost or risk onto a team that never accepted it stops with you. You will decline investment where the case does not deal with take-up, with what it depends on, or with its downside. You will approve the leadership team's shape and the route issues take upward, mediate when the Technology Committee and business heads disagree, and decide how often allocation progress, breaches and pending choices come to the board.

Underneath the formal powers sits a quieter judgement. Legacy demand is never only legacy: some of it protects policyholders, some keeps a regulator satisfied, and some survives because nobody has asked whether it still matters. Separating the three is most of the job.

Engineering capacity is a people question

Because engineering capacity comes down to people, the Technology Committee Chair will give particular weight to your record in succession, alongside digital transformation and professionalisation. The organisations behind your record turned over $950 million or more and employed 1,400 or more, across six or more countries. Risk judgement is expected at level 4; data and AI governance, product delivery, and architecture at scale each at level 3. Baselines you have set held up when a committee chair pushed on them, and when the engineers running underwriting, claims and capital systems did the same. You keep controls that earn their place, put a price on every exception, and hand over a deeper engineering bench than you inherited.

Four sittings, from the technology chair to the directors

The Technology Committee Chair opens in week one with a confidential conversation on screen. The Board Chair follows two weeks later, in week three, with a session built around a real allocation problem. Week five gathers executives from across the business to meet you in person; the seventh week puts you before the full board. You will hear back in writing within two working days of each meeting.