Director, Business Capability – Annuity Data

Nationwide Mutual Insurance•Columbus, OH

23h•Hybrid

About The Position

This role is with Nationwide Financial, a Fortune 100 company. The Director, Business Capability is expected to apply business intelligence and advanced analysis within the annuity and broader financial-services environment. This role will lead analytical teams and advise executives, connecting business questions to annuity economics, product design, investment considerations, market conditions, and measurable business outcomes. The successful candidate will translate complex annuity business needs into practical analytical, reporting, modeling, AI-enabled, and decision-support solutions. They will apply broad knowledge of the annuity business across product development, distribution, sales, operations, servicing, risk, finance, and customer outcomes. This role requires partnering effectively with business, actuarial, investment, finance, risk, technology, and data-governance stakeholders, evaluating analytical methods, assumptions, and outputs for business relevance, financial reasonableness, transparency, and appropriate controls. The Director will communicate implications, trade-offs, risks, and recommended actions to senior leaders clearly and in a decision-oriented manner. Additionally, they will identify and prioritize opportunities to apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, and generative AI to improve business insight, workflow efficiency, decision support, customer and advisor experiences, and operational effectiveness. The position is on a SuccessFlex basis, requiring 3 days in the office and 2 days remote, located at Plaza One in downtown Columbus. This is a closed posting as part of a reorganization. The team aspires to lead business innovation in the insurance and financial services industry, requiring an entrepreneurial and agile approach to fueling growth, driving improvement, and solving needs. The Director will lead a creative and passionate team, develop talent and resources, and stay current on product management trends to drive continuous improvement. They will work with customers and business partners to provide strategic direction, aligning product and journey teams around a holistic vision and enabling work efforts towards common outcomes aligned with annual operating and multi-year strategic plans. This requires an in-depth understanding of the owned capability/journey and underlying technologies to deliver on internal business and customer outcomes.

Requirements

Translate complex annuity business needs into practical analytical, reporting, modeling, AI-enabled, and decision-support solutions.
Apply broad knowledge of the annuity business across product development, distribution, sales, operations, servicing, risk, finance, and customer outcomes.
Partner effectively with business, actuarial, investment, finance, risk, technology, and data-governance stakeholders.
Evaluate analytical methods, assumptions, and outputs for business relevance, financial reasonableness, transparency, and appropriate controls.
Communicate implications, trade-offs, risks, and recommended actions to senior leaders in a clear and decision-oriented manner.
Identify and prioritize opportunities to apply artificial intelligence, machine learning, and generative AI to improve business insight, workflow efficiency, decision support, customer and advisor experiences, and operational effectiveness.
Bachelors degree in business, IT or related field with advanced degree preferred.
Typically, 10 or more years in product management, including building and leading high performing teams.
Product, operations, business or software engineering background is preferred.
Proven knowledge of end-to-end agile practices and product management practices.
Strong entrepreneurial mindset.
Data visualization through effective story-telling.
Proven ability to lead large teams of associates focused on agile delivery of solutions and experiences.
Demonstrated ability to retain and acquire talent and assess and develop the skills required for successful execution in a product management organization.
Strategic problem solver with the ability to tackle key resource and capacity issues, while setting the vision for a successful product management practice.
Insurance/financial services industry knowledge.
Expertise in skills assessments, talent and acquisition practices needed.
Command of both verbal and written communication and presentation abilities.
Able to present and interact with all levels of management.
Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.
Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and Human Resource Business Partner.
Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values.

Nice To Haves

Broad experience across the annuity business, including familiarity with fixed annuities, fixed indexed annuities, variable annuities, registered index-linked annuities, or related retirement-income products.
Experience working across multiple annuity functions, such as product strategy, product development, pricing, distribution, sales effectiveness, in-force management, operations, service, risk management, finance, or competitive intelligence.
Experience with financial modeling, including the development, review, validation, and interpretation of models used for forecasting, scenario analysis, profitability analysis, business cases, planning, and management reporting.
Familiarity with annuity product features and their business implications, including crediting methods, index-linked strategies, participation rates, caps, spreads, floors, buffers, surrender provisions, guarantees, riders, liquidity provisions, and income or withdrawal benefits, as applicable to the product set.
Exposure to investments and financial indices, including the role of underlying investment strategies, market performance, index construction or methodology, benchmark behavior, and market assumptions in annuity products and financial analysis.
Experience assessing the impact of market, product, policy, distribution, or operational assumptions on financial and business results.
Experience converting complex analyses into executive-level recommendations, decision materials, and actionable business priorities.
Experience applying artificial intelligence, machine learning, or generative AI to business problems, including identifying use cases, defining business requirements, evaluating outputs, and measuring value.
Experience partnering with technology, data, risk, legal, compliance, privacy, or information-security teams to implement AI-enabled solutions responsibly and within applicable controls.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including complex data modeling, structured analytical workbooks, scenario analysis, sensitivity analysis, dynamic dashboards, data validation, and executive-ready reporting.
Ability to build and maintain scalable Excel solutions using advanced formulas, linked data structures, pivot tables, Power Query, Power Pivot, dynamic arrays, lookup and aggregation functions, and other appropriate automation techniques.
Ability to automate recurring analysis and reporting processes in Excel, while maintaining traceability, documentation, data quality, and appropriate review controls.
Ability to design dynamic analytical tools that allow users to evaluate assumptions, compare scenarios, identify trends, and understand key business drivers without extensive manual intervention.
Ability to reconcile Excel-based analysis to source data, financial statements, management reports, or other authoritative information and investigate material variances.
Working knowledge of financial and operational metrics relevant to annuity businesses, including sales, assets, premiums, persistency, lapses, surrenders, withdrawals, benefit utilization, profitability, expenses, and other performance indicators, as applicable.
Ability to use Excel, AI-enabled tools, and other business-intelligence or analytical technologies together, selecting the appropriate tool based on scale, complexity, repeatability, governance, explainability, and user needs.
Working knowledge of practical AI applications for business solutions, such as intelligent document or data processing, workflow automation, natural-language interfaces, knowledge retrieval, forecasting, anomaly detection, predictive analytics, and decision support.
Ability to assess AI-generated outputs for accuracy, relevance, bias, explainability, privacy, security, and appropriate human oversight before they are used in business decisions.

Responsibilities

Creates high level strategy for products and are responsible for ensuring the team's effort and work is prioritized to execute and advance the business strategy in the most effective manner.
Collects and analyzes feedback from end customers, stakeholders to apply to product development and strategic direction for the business line; monitors product usage and impacts.
Accountable for the holistic view of multiple products; setting the product vision and strategy and ensuring connection across product teams.
Accountable for securing funding needed in support of product outcomes.
Represents the product roadmap when interacting with other parts of the organization or product lines, provides coordination of business strategy with other products across the organization.
Models continuous learning for team by staying current with technology and industry trends; applying outside-in best practices to executing work.
Monitors effectiveness of the product delivery process.
Helps to manage interdependencies and coordination across business units and development teams.
Defines, monitors and analyzes metrics that inform the success of business product outcomes.
Applies data and analytics from each product line overseen toward broader success metrics of the business as a whole.
Manages product staffing strategy to support Business Product Managers, Owners, Analysts, and agile delivery teams to ensure successful delivery of product solutions.
Oversees associate management including performance management, salary planning and administration, training and development, workflow and organization planning, day-to-day management, hiring and placement, and disciplinary actions for direct and possibly indirect reports.
May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Benefits

medical/dental/vision
life insurance
short and long term disability coverage
paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date
nine paid holidays
8 hours of Lifetime paid time off
8 hours of Unity Day paid time off
401(k) with company match
company-paid pension plan
business casual attire