Active Jobs at Discovery Limited

Key Purpose

• This role will be focused on developing, selling and reporting back on our investments value proposition within the Discovery Retirement Fund. Investments and funds are critical components of a retirement fund – the candidate for the role must become the go-to expert on our funds and their performance, and also drive changes within the offering.
• You’ll report to the deputy head of R&D and will be considered a high calibre, outstanding member of our management team – a confident speaker who can quickly grasp and communicate new concepts and develop new concepts and ideas.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to:

• Sales and support
• Presenting at prospective employer clients
• Presenting at product launches and client pitches
• Providing ongoing sales support to the Discovery distribution teams
• Presenting to intermediaries and other investment specialists on technical product information.
• Handling ongoing technical investment queries
• Compiling material (including Discoverers and articles) that can be rolled out through PR campaigns and to intermediaries and liaising with media to manage the rollout.
• Training internal and external staff and brokers on products and technical details
• Reporting back on performance at client manco meetings on product, admin and investments
• Building new sales material including brochures, presentations on short videos
• Market dominance
• Deeply understanding the corporate market and competitors, researching competitor products, and working that knowledge and insight into product development and distribution support materials.
• Developing research material that can be used to position Discovery as a thought leader in the market.
• Developing actuarial white papers to drive thought leadership in the investment space
• Product development & Investments
• Developing new ideas around our retirement fund investment proposition, including new funds from multi manager to passive, and refining our retirement fund value proposition over time.
• Performing technical calculations including IRR runs, data analysis and pricing on our retirement fund
• Working with product development on the broader group risk and healthy company propositions to help position new solutions for clients and tools for intermediaries.
• Building calculators and tools that help advisers and clients understand our purpose and products.
• Designing a framework to measure the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns.
• Relationship building with:
• Discovery sales consultants and intermediaries
• Back-office operations
• Training teams
• Marketing services
• Product development
• Distribution heads
• Discovery management and executives.

Personal Attributes

• Demonstrate keen business acumen.
• Interact positively with difficult people.
• Manage various projects effectively.
• Plan, organize and deliver on individual deliverables.
• Deal with pressure, tight deadlines and setbacks.
• Present and communicate information effectively.
• Understand and work with big data sets in order to achieve desired outcome
• Show initiative and drive projects to completion with guidance.

Education and Experience

• Nearly qualified actuary, CFA, or financial manager
• 1 - 2 years’ investment experience
• Top achiever
• Excellent English and presentation skills
• Excellent Excel skills

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Job Purpose
The Group Tax Department is responsible for the Tax Strategy of Discovery. This encompasses the following functions:

• Responsible for tax planning, compliance, reporting throughout the group
• Provides technical advice to business to ensure compliance with existing and new legislation
• Responsible for tax calculations, tax return submissions, tax accounting and reporting
• Engaging with and managing relationships with South African Revenue Services (SAR

Key Outputs may include but are not limited to:

The jobholder’s responsibilities will be to support the deliverables of the team, which include:

• Preparation/review of various tax reporting requirements for the International Tax Function.
• Assist in the preparation of the various transfer pricing documents e.g. Master File, local file, CBC reporting as required across the group
• Assist in the preparation/review of various section 9D CFC controlled foreign company calculations
• Maintain excellent relationships with the international subsidiaries in order to understand the impact of taxes in their jurisdictions and enable appropriate reporting thereof
• Assist in researching and advising business of tax implications for cross border transactions including implications of double tax treaties and consideration of transfer pricing principles.
• Assist in the preparation of Pillar 2 computations and reporting
• Keep up to date with relevant Income Tax Act and Tax Administration Act and OECD guidelines
• Provide training on technical corporate or international tax matters to business units as required.
• Corporate Tax- preparation of the income tax computations to assist with interim and year end reporting requirements of the Group
• Liasing directly with auditors (internal and external) reviewing the relevant subsidiary tax computations and ensuring the correct tax treatment is applied to mitigate any income tax compliance risks.
• Liase directly with external legal advisors on technical matters as appropriate.

Job / Role Requirements

Work Experience

Required

• 3-5 years experience in a tax department within a large corporate, (financial services is preferable) dealing primarily with local corporate income tax and international tax related matters

Education / Qualifications / Accreditations with Professional Body

• Discovery Limited is the licensed controlling company of the designated Discovery Insurance Group. Registration number: 1999/007789/06. Companies in the Group are licensed insurers and authorised financial services providers.

Required

• CA(SA)

Preferred (would be advantageous)

• Advanced postgraduate qualifications in tax (preferable)

Technical Skills or Knowledge

Required

• Excellent Excel knowledge
• Detailed knowledge, understanding and application of South African tax legislation, particularly international tax related concepts.
• Knowledge and understanding of IFRS

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Key Purpose of the role

• The position is responsible for managing a smaller team, responsible to load and process all Umbrella new business applications, scheme installations, invest contributions and set up participating employer renewals, within the Retirement Funds business unit.
• This is a core administration team leader function and the incumbent would be required to holistically manage, control and understand a portfolio of different Retirement Fund disciplines, for example monthly contribution, claim, investment option, individual transfer in, section 14, section 28 Liquidation, deregistration processes.
• The incumbent must ensure that the processes and procedures are implemented, maintained and improved, in order to ensure that the team managed are able to conduct the operational activity within regulatory frameworks, accurately, effectively and efficiently. Align processes with the company strategy.
• The incumbent must ensure that the team has the knowledge, skills, tools and competencies required to perform the required job within service level agreements.
• Create an environment that support individual performance and a culture of continuous improvement.
• The incumbent must have an appetite to be part of a growing new business unit, able to adapt to change easily and drive change management within the team, challenge the status quo, motivate and inspire the team.
• The incumbent will continually review existing processes and procedures in order to ensure the delivery of committed services to the Umbrella Funds.

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Manage adherence to Service Level Agreement. Implement processes and procedures and ensure all services in respect of the operations of Umbrella Funds are conducted timeously and efficiently.
• Dealing with the full Human Resources function for staff managed. Ensure others are trained on the processes and systems. Provides staff with clear direction. Sets appropriate standards of behaviour and outputs.  Delegates work appropriately and fairly. Motivates and empowers others.
• Ensure that new client installations, installations changes and scheme renewals are accurate, compliant and abreast with regulatory frameworks such as, Pension Funds Act, Tax Act, Rules of the Discovery Life Umbrella Pension and Provident Funds, Participating employer special rules. Ensures delivery of key operational attributes such as data completeness and data quality.
• Responsible to maintain and update SOP’s in line with business process developments and system enhancements. Assist with audits and appropriate responses to audit queries.
• Ensure regular, comprehensive and appropriate management reports are generated for submission to line manager and the broader business.
• Ensure productivity levels are optimised.
• Dealing with escalated calls or queries from internal stakeholders, communicate effectively with clients to resolve queries and escalations, ensure client expectations are met.
• Develop and maintain excellent business relations with internal and external brokers.
• Managing projects.
• The incumbent is the Subject Matter Expert in Retirement Fund areas under management. Produces new ideas, approaches or insights. Produces range of solutions to problems and do root cause analysis. Effective decision-making by “out of the box” thinking and weighing up risks involved.

Personal Attributes and Skills     
The successful candidate must demonstrate the following competencies:

• Communication Skills: able to communicate clearly both verbally and in writing.
• Reporting Skills: ability to consolidate information and compile reports reflecting the necessary relevant information
•  Ability to communicate logically and objectively is essential components of this role.
• Attention to detail
• Very organised
• Conflict Management
• Expresses opinions, information and key points of an argument clearly.
• Probes for further information or greater understanding of a problem.
• Relates well to people at all levels.

Education and Experience

• NQF level 5 equivalent qualification. 
• 3 – 5 years operational leadership and management experience – Essential
• 3 -  5 years retirement funds, umbrella Installation, Section 14 and Termination process experience – Essential
• NQF level 6 or B Com degree or similar is advantageous
• Relevant Industry Qualifications – Wealth Management, Introduction to Retirement Funds - Advantageous
• MS Office - Advanced Excel skills, Accounting, Investments, People management, operational processes and process mapping. Retirement Fund and Umbrella Fund operations.
• Full compliance and legislative universe relating to employee benefits, FAIS and Umbrella Funds.
•  3 - 5 years’ experience in the employee benefits and 5 years in a senior role.