Job Description

At abrdn, our purpose is to enable our clients to be better investors.

Clients worldwide trust us to find future-fit investment opportunities to deliver the outcomes they want. Our technology and insight help empower them to make better decisions, while the powerful partnerships we build help to enhance the expertise that we offer. And by enabling clients to invest responsibly, it helps us to build a better world.

About the department

The Insurance & Pension Solutions (IPS) team apply technical insurance and pensions investment expertise to strengthen abrdn’s client and investment related activities for insurers and pension clients, increasing abrdn’s ability to attract, serve and retain these clients.  This includes the origination, development and implementation of customised investment solutions for individual clients and for market propositions.

About the role

As the Senior Solutions Director (Insurance) you will get the opportunity to be responsible for contributing significantly, including in a leadership capacity, to the identification, development and implementation of holistic and/or customised investment solutions for individual insurance clients and for market propositions.  The role holder will manage junior members in the team.

Key responsibilities

General

• Maintain an exceptional understanding of the insurance industry, particularly from an investment perspective.

• In a leadership capacity, support sales, relationship management, investment, marketing, operations, product development and other activities/teams by providing technical insurance expertise as required to deliver commercial success for abrdn.

Identification, development and implementation of insurance solutions

• Be a leading contributor to business development activities, supporting colleagues to identify, originate, develop and secure business opportunities with insurers – for individual insurers and market propositions – including drafting and presentation of materials for client pitches.

• Be a leading contributor to managing our relationship with relevant insurance clients (e.g., presenting at insurance client investment committee meetings).

• Be a leading contributor to delivering on technical insurance aspects of existing client promises (e.g., servicing bespoke client solutions and/or pooled product fund solutions).

• Be a leading contributor to abrdn’s image in the market as a leading insurance asset manager (e.g., presenting at industry events and drafting written publications).  

• Be a leading contributor to supporting portfolio managers and other investment colleagues to integrate technical insurance expertise into solutions for current and prospective insurers (e.g., capital-efficient asset allocation and portfolio construction, including for matching adjustment portfolios; balance sheet hedging; capital-light/efficient investment linked policyholder solutions; other asset and liability management solutions).

• Be a leading contributor to the development of products to serve the insurance market.

• Be a leading contributor to developing tools to improve our insurance capabilities.

About the candidate requirements

• Strong understanding of the technical requirements of different types of insurers (life, non-life, reinsurers, unit-linked, with-profit, non-profit, etc.), including those with differing strategies (bulk purchase annuity writers, back book consolidators, etc.).  This includes a strong understanding of the objectives, preferences and interests of different stakeholders (boards, senior management, actuarial teams, investment teams, government and regulators, etc.).

• Exceptional understanding of Solvency II and ability to understand other regulatory regimes

• Strong understanding of technical investment matters as they relate to insurers.

• Strong ability to apply the aforementioned expertise to originate, design and create solutions for a range of insurers in a commercially attractive manner for abrdn.

• Strong ability to identify commercial opportunities (including with individual clients and at a market/industry level) and to apply technical expertise to convert such opportunities into commercial success.

• Strong ability to represent abrdn in the industry at the highest levels – e.g., interacting with government, regulators, senior representatives of other businesses, etc.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Committed employer. Therefore, if you have a disability and would like to apply to one of our UK roles under the Disability Confident Scheme, please notify us by completing the relevant section in our candidate questionnaire and one of our team will reach out to support you through your application process.

Our benefits

There's more to working life than coming home with a good salary. We have an environment where you can learn, get involved and be supported.

When you join us, your reward will be one of the best around. This includes 40 days’ annual leave, a 16% employer pension contribution, a discretionary performance based bonus (where applicable), private healthcare and a range of flexible benefits – including gym discounts, season ticket loans and access to an employee discount portal. You can read more about our benefits here.

Our business

Enabling our clients to be better investors drives everything we do. Our business is structured around three distinct areas – our vectors of growth – focused on our clients’ changing needs. You can find out more about what we do here.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive workplace where all forms of difference are valued and which is free from any form of unfair or unlawful treatment.  We define diversity in its broadest sense – this includes but is not limited to our diversity of educational and professional backgrounds, experience, cognitive and neurodiversity, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, religion or belief and ethnicity and geographical provenance.  We support a culture that values meritocracy, fairness and transparency and welcomes enquiries from everyone.

If you need assistance or an adjustment due to a disability please let us know as part of your application and we will assist.