Head of CEO office South Africa at Swiss Re

Role Responsibilities

• Oversee the South African corporate strategy from inception to conclusion.
• Use a data-driven approach to deliver objective, analytical insights that support and enable strategy and execution planning. You will analyse data, build dashboards, produce reports with data insights, identify patterns and trends and generate ideas.
• Obtain and evaluate information about industry and market trends, competitive threats, and possible business opportunities.
• Advise the CEO on challenging and strategic issues, being his representative across key initiatives across the company internally and externally.
• Working with the EXCO/leadership team to evaluate opportunities in our strategic roadmap to drive the CEO's vision through the organisation and meet business objectives.
• Leadership Strategy Planning: Defining and driving agendas for the leadership team that balance strategy, business and culture topics. Lead periodic strategic planning sessions, retreats and culture building activitues.
• Attending and being the CEO's representative at high-level meetings with our executive team and and market from which you will develop and track actions, strategies and deliverables on behalf of the CEO.
• Acting as liaison between staff, executives, senior leaders regarding company climate, employee well-being and engagement, project updates and planning, cultivating a top-to-bottom consensus
• Managing board level communications by preparing and creating meeting materials, reports, memos using a storytelling approach. Ability to create strategic messaging through data and storytelling - creating a business story behind the numbers.
• Identifying and taking on ad-hoc strategic projects defining and researching new ideas and business opportunities, providing decision support through data gathering and analysis and presenting recommendations to stakeholders
• Tracking high priority initiatives for CEO and identifying any obstacles, pulling in other executives or team members as necessary, connecting teams that are working on similar initiatives, pulling together and managing project teams that require input from multiple areas within the company
• Relationship management
• Compiling documents, memos, presentations and speech writing.
• Support CEO overseeing diversity and culture initiatives including internal employee engagement activities.
• Working with marketing to identify and coordinate speaking opportunities in external forums (Analyst/Advisor/Investor Day meets) and media/press/interview requests.

Candidate Qualifications

• B.Com ( Accounting/Finance) Preferred, Bachelors in Actuarial
• MBA preferred
• 5+ years experience,
• Preferred if the work in a management consulting firm
• Master skills in powerpoint and excel/ Power BI etc

Candidate Attributes

• Has professional gravitas able to command buy- in from internal and industry executives
• Results orientated, resourceful, and determined with outstanding follow through
• Work independently, simultaneously managing diverse and complex assignments, while remaining organized and productive in a complex and highly matrixed environment
• Capable of synthesizing and abstracting complex information into clear messages and impactful presentations for internal/external audiences at all levels
• Technical experience, disciplined process orientation, problem solving skills, multitasking ability with attention to quality and detail
• Exceptional written and verbal communications skills
• Intrinsically motivated and persistent with a high tolerance of ambiguity
• Strong leadership skills; resourceful and trustworthy with highly sensitive information
• Conceptual thinking skills with the ability to gather, analyze and interpret industry trends, create, and drive strategies
• Discretion, executive presence, strong verbal and written communication skills. Ability to communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization.
• Advanced problem-solving, conflict resolution, active listening, and time management skills.
• Active listening skills to ensure feedback drives new initiatives and identifies areas of improvement.
• Ability to learn quickly and pick up tools, systems, and processes in a short amount of time.
• Experience working in a fast-paced, team environment.
• Proven, strong team player - able to work strategically and in a hands-on fashion.
• Atypically versatile - able to dive into many roles and do them well.
• Occasional need to work outside of normal business hours as required and/or travel
• Contribute to a culture that adheres to Swiss Res values of focusing on our vision, using good judgment, applying a growth mindset, and rejecting mediocrity.
• Independent self-starter who operates well in ambiguity, and does not require heavy direction to successfully achieve their day-to-day goals.
• Experience partnering well with executives, especially managing up to senior internal or external stakeholders.