Commercial Strategy Manager

Commercial Strategy Manager (Darwin)

London or Leeds– Hybrid working, 2 days per week in the office

Let’s make the most of your talent

About us

At Direct Line Group, insurance is just the start. Combining decades of industry experience with talented people in every field from data, technology, customer care and auto repair, to HR, finance and procurement, we’re a customer-obsessed market powerhouse. And we all work together to be brilliant for customers, every single day.

At Darwin, we’re all about individuality. We believe that insurance should work for you – not the other way round. That’s why all our policies are tailormade with our customers in mind. We focus on smart and uncomplicated, so our customers can focus on the important things in life. Real people. Real evolution. It’s as simple as that.

What you’ll be doing
We work like a fintech start-up/scale-up and have removed hierarchy across the business to unleash the true potential of our people. Darwin is organised more like a tech company, with multi-functional ‘squads’ that have specific delivery objectives. We are evolving the traditional idea of a business to running a business as a collection of experiments with the objective of aligning long term value creation for our shareholders with value for our customers. Darwin has great opportunities; we remain the highest rated motor insurer on Trustpilot for more than 2 consecutive years.

In the role of Commercial Manager you will focus on Commercial Trading. You will be responsible for driving growth & profitability by setting the commercial plan for the business and develop the trading strategies to deliver against the plan. Some specifics the role will include:

• Define and deliver Darwin trading MI, metrics and measures (from a multiple of sources)
• Deliver the business plan and trading KPIs
• Use a range of insight and direct approaches to actively keep track of the ‘Price Comparison Website’ market, present analysis and findings
• Develop retail price tests to improve trading metrics of written premium, volume, loss ratio and risk mix
• Build a deep understanding of the drivers of profitability, especially underlying risk pricing and the uncertainty inherent in the risk price
• Use data and commercial instinct to make big calls in uncertain economic conditions and help CEO /CFO / ExCo members understand these
• Use multiple sources of insight to help unpack the equity story for our shareholders
• Use insight to actively keep track of the Insurance Market and give direction for pricing / product / customer journey improvement

What we’re looking for

The successful candidate will be data driven who can couple data skills to build credible insight into trading performance and then work with pricing & underwriting, technology and operational teams to deliver initiatives to drive trade.

• You will have a passion for driving real change by demonstrating your data and commercial skills and harnessing the full potential of people around you.
• Highly quantitative and with previous experience of budgeting, forecasting & trading
• Previous experience of working with linear and non-linear models, valuation models – ability to instinctively understand 2nd and 3rd order impacts of movements along a distribution curve
• Ability to set their own agenda and independently deliver against their objectives
• Commercially astute – create new value in all activity and ability to challenge / develop others in commercial thinking.
• High quality data analysis– e.g., excel, tableau, SQL, Python
• Ability to discuss pricing models with insurance pricing and underwriting teams
• Bias towards practical application in a live trading environment

What we’ll give you

We wouldn’t be where we are today without our people and the wide variety of perspectives and life experiences they bring. That’s why we offer excellent benefits to suit your lifestyle and a flexible working model combining the best parts of home and office-working, varying with the nature of your role. Core benefits include:

• 9% employer contributed pension
• 50% off home, motor and pet insurance plus free travel insurance and Green Flag breakdown cover
• Up to 10% annual bonus
• 25 days holiday (rising by 1 each year to 28) + bank holidays and option to buy or sell up to 5 days
• Additional optional Health and Dental insurance
• EV car scheme allows all colleagues to lease a brand new electric or plug-in hybrid car in a tax efficient way.
• Buy as you earn share scheme
• Employee discounts and cashback
• Plus many more

Ways of Working

Our hybrid model way of working offers a 'best of both worlds' approach combining the best parts of home and office-working, offering flexibility for everyone. When you'll be in the office depends on your role, but most colleagues are in 2 days a week, and we'll consider the flexible working options

that work best for you. Read our flexible working approach here

There’s no-one else like you. No-one with the exact same mix of strengths, quirks, skills and thoughts. That’s why you could belong here. As part of a team of brilliant individuals, in a place that empowers you to be the best you can be. We’re proud of who we are, of what we do, and what every single one of us brings. Join us. Help us keep innovating and putting customers at the heart of everything. To be an insurance company of the future. When we work together, we can all achieve great things. Inspiring, challenging, and supporting each other to aim higher.

Together we’re one of a kind.

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