MetLife

The Team You Will Join

Retirement and Income Solutions (RIS) is a part of MetLife’s U.S. Business and issues products for transferred pension liabilities, stable value, institutional income annuities, structured settlements, and a range of risk solutions that include benefits funding, corporate- and bank-owned life insurance and other specialty products. It is one of the largest U.S. segments in MetLife and is driven through a relentless belief in MetLife’s purpose, “Always With You, Building a More Confident Future”.

The RIS Customer Solutions and Strategic Operations (CSSO) team has responsibility for guiding multiple initiatives that help to power and improve the daily operations of the business, including improving customer experience, optimizing critical processes, hardening of the control environment, the developing and filing of contracts, and various operational and administrative projects needed to support the range of RIS products.

The Role: 

The Director will be responsible for managing and optimizing the overall RIS portfolio to effectively prioritize, resource and deliver the most impactful work for the business. This requires managing the project portfolio strategy, aligning projects with business objectives, and ensuring the delivery of defined business value. Focus is needed to help frame the strategic problems to be solved, scope new initiatives, and manage a team of Agile Project Managers, who through the application of Agile practices, will guide  cross-functional business, operations, and service teams to success. In addition, they will also facilitate teams to make tradeoffs and shift initiative priorities as new insights are gained along the development process. This role is charged with driving change in how RIS identifies and delivers innovative projects that improve the RIS top and bottom line.

To succeed in the role, the candidate must demonstrate intellectual curiosity, an experimentation mindset, and the ability to bring clarity to complex and/or ambiguous challenges. This role also requires strong partnership and collaboration with cross-functional partners, e.g., business, operations and service, technology, contracts, finance, legal, risk, and compliance.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement Agile portfolio management strategies—this includes intake, definition and scoping of new initiatives, prioritizing the highest value work within a consistent framework, and defining and measuring success metrics and outcomes
• Facilitate development of problem statements and hypotheses to improve processes, controls, and business outcomes based on key insights
• Oversee end-to-end execution and performance of portfolio of work
• Manage and develop a team of agile project managers, including hiring and performance management processes
• Act as Agile Project Manager for specific projects
• Engage stakeholders and leadership on prioritization, resourcing, key results, etc. Communicate regular updates about portfolio and progress of work to leadership
• Develop deep relationships with RIS business, operations, legal, and IT stakeholders as well as external partners and vendors as required. Builds a solid understanding of RIS products, customers, and operational processes

Essential Business Experience and Technical Skills:

What You Need to Succeed (Required Qualifications):

• Undergraduate degree 
• Experience in portfolio management with a strong understanding of Agile methodologies and principles, including agile project delivery frameworks such as the dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
• Approach opportunities with a strategic mindset and emphasis on how to drive value while balancing costs and risks. Ability to deconstruct problems into specific action plans based on first principles
• Strong stakeholder management skills and ability to navigate gaining buy-in from cross-functional teams, such as business, technology, and operations
• Ability to lead an initiative from scoping through execution and evaluation of success
• Critical thinking, analytical and problem-solving skills used to identify opportunities / issues from insights

What Will Give You an Edge (Preferred Qualifications):

• Graduate level degree
• Project Management Certification (e.g. Certified Project Management Professional (PMP)), ideally with a PMI Portfolio Management Professional (PfMP) certification
• Experience establishing and managing complex project portfolios across multiple business lines
• Prior experience with annuities and life insurance businesses, management consulting, or operations
• Prior people management experience

At MetLife, we’re leading the global transformation of an industry we’ve long defined. United in purpose, diverse in perspective, we’re dedicated to making a difference in the lives of our customers.