A major Belgian life insurer is delivering the fourth phase of a portfolio migration covering Classic Life and remaining Unit-Linked policies. This senior operational readiness lead will coordinate cross-functional operational readiness, with particular responsibility for Belgian life insurance operations, migration, cutover and hypercare delivery from preparation through stable Business as Usual.
The mission
The programme translates product, system, data, legal, risk and finance changes into operating processes that protect policyholders, brokers, regulatory obligations and service levels. The work covers policy servicing, premiums, commissions, claims and benefits, buybacks, disability covers, complaints, documents, AML and sanctions, reconciliations and legal declarations. It includes operational readiness for a portfolio migration, controlled Day 1 activation and a defined transition to BAU.
You will own the operational view of the programme across Operations, Finance, IT, Legal, Compliance, Risk, Actuarial and Customer Service. Your scope runs from impact and gap assessment through process and control acceptance, training, staffing, cutover planning, business continuity, hypercare and final sign-off by business owners and executive governance forums.
Your responsibilities
- Lead the readiness plan, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions and Go/No-Go evidence for each migration wave.
- Design executable processes, exception paths, KPIs, reconciliations, maker-checker controls and accountable process ownership.
- Define operational requirements, test scenarios and acceptance criteria, including mass-data testing and data-quality exception handling.
- Establish the target operating model, RACI, capacity plan, access profiles, segregation of duties, training curriculum and knowledge-transfer evidence.
- Coordinate the operational runbook with the integrated cutover plan, including freeze windows, staffing, manual workarounds and fallback arrangements.
- Direct hypercare, incident triage and controlled BAU handover until agreed stability and acceptance criteria are met.
Your profile
Essential skills
- Bring at least 8 years of experience, including 3 or more years leading operational readiness, transformation or migration delivery in insurance or financial services.
- Demonstrate strong knowledge of Belgian life insurance operations, policy administration and customer or broker servicing.
- Understand Classic Life and Unit-Linked products, including premiums, commissions, reserves, benefits, buybacks and disability covers.
- Lead cross-functional readiness across business, technology, control functions, vendors and executive stakeholders, while communicating risks and recommendations clearly.
- Turn incomplete or changing information into structured plans, decisions, controls, acceptance criteria and measurable readiness outcomes.
- Manage cutover, incident response, business continuity and BAU transition with a customer, policyholder and regulatory focus.
- Apply knowledge of GDPR, AML and sanctions, complaints, product governance and Solvency II in operational design and control decisions.
- Work confidently with MS Project, Azure DevOps, Excel, Teams/SharePoint and PPM or RAID tooling.
Languages
- Dutch, professional working proficiency, CEFR level not specified.
- French, professional working proficiency, CEFR level not specified.
- English, professional working proficiency, CEFR level not specified.