AVP, Underwriting Practices - Small Commercial Lines

Nationwide•Columbus, OH

7d•$154,000 - $290,000•Onsite

About The Position

The AVP of Underwriting Practices for Small CL, will serve as a strategic and inspiring leader, driving a nimble, data-centric, solution oriented culture across the organization. They will lead a high-performing team responsible for assessing product performance, extracting actionable insights, and deploying advanced analytics solutions to improve underwriting, pricing, and overall business outcomes. This role is pivotal in transforming data into strategic assets, enabling faster, smarter decision-making across all Small Commercial, integrating data from CLESS (Claims, COE, Actuary) stakeholders. They will collaborate directly with senior leaders within Small CL, CLESS, and Claims, delivering high-impact analytics that support enterprise strategy and execution.

Requirements

College degree required, and advanced degree preferable
Actuarial and/or data, analytics licenses/certifications preferred
Minimum 10 years’ experience in related roles
Extensive knowledge of Commercial Lines (CL) products, product management, underwriting methodology, pricing principles, and the interdependencies among these functions.
Deep expertise in business analytics, including the implementation of predictive models and technology-enabled solutions to forecast outcomes and enhance business performance.
Proven ability to lead and coach others in building strong business partnerships, influencing stakeholders, and delivering timely, relevant insights for decision-making.
Strong leadership capabilities with a demonstrated ability to mentor teams, drive transformation, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to translate complex findings into impactful, actionable communications tailored to diverse audiences.
Strategic agility and critical thinking, with the ability to navigate ambiguity and align analytics initiatives with broader P&C business objectives.
Expert knowledge of industry standards, best practices, methodologies, and frameworks within insurance and financial services, including business process management.
Advanced proficiency in financial and operational measurement, analysis, and solution design, with a strong understanding of emerging technologies in third party data, analytics, and data science.
Extensive knowledge of project management principles, organizational design, performance management, and change leadership.
Ability to lead change, plan business transformation initiatives, and champion data-driven strategies that deliver measurable impact.
Executive presence and organizational agility, with the ability to clearly articulate a vision and influence across all levels of the organization.
Must be an active learner with a natural inclination to identify opportunities to simplify, automate, and improve business practices.

Responsibilities

Partner with senior leaders across Small CL (Underwriting, Portfolio, Sales & Distribution, and Operations) to anticipate evolving business strategies and data needs. Serve as a trusted advisor, influencing innovative, data-driven solutions and ensuring alignment with enterprise and planning unit goals. Guide solution design, execution, change management, and cultural transformation initiatives.
Engage actively with leaders in Analytics, Pricing, IT, Claims, and other CLESS partners to ensure alignment of priorities, integration of insights, and cohesive execution across the enterprise.
Own the integration and ownership of rules-based data science to further simplify quote rules and improve the quality of risk selection.
Lead efforts to transform our data into strategic assets to enable faster, smarter decision-making across Small CL.
Support the Technical Underwriting Organization and Portfolio and Underwriting through analytics and insights.
Enable quoting and binding business with more accuracy and create speed to scale to become a $3B organization.
Ensure consistency in team delivery, partner satisfaction, and project outcomes.
Lead efforts to monitor external sources, integrate third-party data, and verify accuracy to support strategic growth, risk management, and portfolio profitability.
Leads the deployment of predictive models, advanced analytics, and AI solutions that simplify underwriting practices/decision-making and enhance business performance.
Ensure seamless integration across PMUW, Sales, TUO and IT while leading organizational adoption of analytics-driven practices.
Collaborate with Enterprise and Advanced Analytics partners to ensure alignment on methodology, data sources, and model development.
Leverage global sourcing strategies to expand data engineering, science, and visualization capacity.
Lead and expand our offshore data science capabilities which increases cost-efficiency and speed to insight and delivery.
Build scalable, cost-effective capabilities that support a future-ready analytics organization
May perform other responsibilities as assigned.