Head of Product Travel and Innovation

Overview

Reporting directly to the Global Head of Product Management and Innovation, the Head of Product Strategy and Innovation plays a pivotal role in shaping the strategic product vision & innovation agenda to drive profitable growth across global markets and business segments. Responsible for developing comprehensive growth strategies, and innovation pipelines that enable the Travel LoB to achieve sustainable competitive advantage and growth targets (top- and bottom-line). Partners with senior leadership and cross-functional account success teams to translate market insights into actionable strategic initiatives and innovation investments.

What You Do

• Strategic Leadership
  • Develops and owns comprehensive growth strategies across target markets, segments, products, and channels to achieve TBV and operational profit objectives.
  • Defines strategic direction for market prioritization frameworks and conducts high-level attractiveness assessments and competitive positioning analysis.
  • Creates target segment strategies within priority markets and designs tailored product/channel approaches for optimal market penetration.
  • Presents strategic recommendations and innovation proposals to senior leadership and board-level stakeholders.
  • Builds and maintains strategic partnerships with external research organizations, technology providers, and innovation ecosystems.
  • Leads strategic discussions with cross-functional leadership (Product Lifecycle Management, Go-to-Market Excellence, PM/I global leadership) to ensure integrated execution.
• Organizational Transformation and Change Management
  • Design and implement a new organizational structure and operating model to enhance efficiency, employee engagement, and business impact.
  • Lead change management initiatives to align teams, processes, and culture with strategic objectives, ensuring smooth adoption of transformative practices.
  • Empower teams through transformative leadership and by embedding a client-centric, innovation-driven mindset.
  • Foster a culture of innovation and collaboration, encouraging cross-functional teams to challenge the status quo and deliver superior client solutions.
• Innovation portfolio management
  • Drive innovation by identifying emerging trends, client & B-Partners needs, VoC momentum and market opportunities to create competitive and forward-thinking solutions.
  • Manages innovation pipeline portfolio strategy and alignment with growth objectives, while directing team execution of individual innovation projects.
  • Establishes stage-gate governance frameworks with decision criteria and approval processes, while overseeing team implementation of project reviews.
  • Leads team in innovation project management using agile methodologies and MVP testing frameworks to accelerate time-to-market.
  • Develops annual innovation investment plans with budget allocation and ROI projections, while directing team tracking of performance metrics.
  • Partner closely with product and underwriting teams to design and deliver sustainable, high-quality, and profitable products, balancing market competitiveness with long-term financial objectives.
  • Collaborate with the technical platform Allyz, the company’s go-to digital solution for clients, to enhance coverage and product offerings, ensuring seamless alignment between platform capabilities and client needs.
• Collaboration and Stakeholder Management
  • Work closely with the Senior Leadership Team for Travel, ensuring cross-functional alignment with strategic objectives.
  • Partner with key stakeholders across product, underwriting, operations, technical platforms, and other functions to drive innovation, product plan and product excellence; working as one team to ensuring proper prioritization (short and long term impact) of backlog, product enhancement and new solutions/products.
  • Act as a champion for collaboration and best practices, ensuring consistent delivery of high-impact solutions that align with the company’s mission and client expectations.
  • Represent the function at senior executive levels, including regular reporting to and collaboration with the Board Member for the Travel line of business.

What You Bring

• Minimum of 10 years of experience in business strategy, Product, strategic marketing or global sales
• Proven track record of leadership in product management, innovation, and organizational transformation in a global scope within the insurance, travel, or related services industries
• Extensive experience in driving change management initiatives, with the ability to align diverse teams and inspire high levels of engagement and performance
• You demonstrate outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and inspire at all organizational levels
• Demonstrated success in partnering with digital and technical platforms to deliver integrated, client-focused solutions.
• Advanced degree in Business Administration, Innovation Management, or a related field is preferred

What We Offer

Our employees play an integral part in our success as a business.

We appreciate that each of our employees are unique and have unique needs, ambitions and we enjoy being a part of their journey. We are there to empower and encourage you with your personal and professional development ensuring that you take control by offering a large variety of courses and targeted development programs. All that in a global environment where international mobility and career progression are encouraged. Caring for your health and wellbeing is key priority for us. This is why we build Work Well programs to providing you with peace of mind and give the flexibility in planning and arranging for a better work-life balance.

81899 | Product Management | Professional | Allianz Executive | Allianz Partners | Full-Time | Permanent

Allianz Group is one of the most trusted insurance and asset management companies in the world. Caring for our employees, their ambitions, dreams and challenges, is what makes us a unique employer. Together we can build an environment where everyone feels empowered and has the confidence to explore, to grow and to shape a better future for our customers and the world around us.

We at Allianz believe in a diverse and inclusive workforce and are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We encourage you to bring your whole self to work, no matter where you are from, what you look like, who you love or what you believe in.

We therefore welcome applications regardless of ethnicity or cultural background, age, gender, nationality, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

Join us. Let\\\’s care for tomorrow.

Note: Diversity of minds is an integral part of Allianz’ company culture. One means to achieve diverse teams is a regular rotation of Allianz Executive employees across functions, Allianz entities and geographies. Therefore, the company encourages its employees to have motivation in gaining varied skills from different positions and to collect experiences from across Allianz Group.

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