Commercial Trading Manager

Commercial Trading Manager- Darwin

London or Leeds – Hybrid

12 month Secondment / Fixed Term Contract

Darwin is one of the fastest-growing motor insurers in the UK – it is part of Aviva which is one of the UK’s largest and most established general insurers.

Within 4 years from launch we already have over 300,000 customers and growing! We have done so by

• Getting it right for our customers

• Leveraging cloud-native and market leading data and technology

• Machine learning

• Focussing on quants and commercial thinking

We believe our small, very capable team can successfully disrupt the insurance industry. Over the next 3 years our ambition is to become a top 5 motor insurer by taking advantage of a the radically changing industry landscape. We work like a fintech start-up/scale-up and have removed hierarchy across the business to unleash the true potential of our people. Darwin is organised more like a tech company, with multi-functional ‘squads’ that have specific delivery objectives.

At Darwin, we recognise the importance of flexibility. Our mixed model way of working offers a 'best of both worlds' approach combining the best parts of home and office-working, offering flexibility for everyone.

What you'll be doing:

We have an exciting new opportunity to join Darwin as a Commercial Strategy Manager focusing on Commercial Trading, Pricing and initiative Delivery.

In this role, you will be responsible for driving growth & profitability by setting the commercial plan for the business and develop the trading strategies to deliver against the plan. Some specifics the role will include:

• Define and deliver Darwin trading MI, metrics and measures (from a multiple of sources)

• Deliver the business plan and trading KPIs

• Use a range of insight and direct approaches to actively keep track of the PCW market, present analysis and findings

• Develop retail price tests making price adaptations and build products and propositions to improve trading metrics of written premium, volume, loss ratio and risk mix

• Build a deep understanding of the drivers of profitability, especially underlying risk pricing and the uncertainty inherent in the risk price

• Use data and commercial instinct to make big calls in uncertain economic conditions and help CEO /CFO / ExCo members understand these.

• Use multiple sources of insight to help unpack the equity story for our shareholders

• Use insight to actively keep track of the Insurance Market and give direction for pricing / product / customer journey improvement.

Our hybrid model offers a 'best of both worlds' approach. When you'll be in the office depends on your role and team, but there is an expectation to move towards 50% of working time in the office.

What you'll need:

The successful candidate will be a data native who can couple data skills to build credible insight into trading performance and then work with pricing & underwriting, technology and operational teams to deliver initiatives to drive trade.

You will have a passion for driving real change by demonstrating your data and commercial skills and harnessing the full potential of people around you.

Desired experience / skills includes:

• Highly quantitative and with previous experience of budgeting, forecasting & trading

• Previous experience of working with linear and non-linear models, valuation models – ability to instinctively understand 2nd and 3rd order impacts of movements along a distribution curve

• Naturally curious with a constant thirst for new insight to translate into data-driven trading actions

• Ability to set their own agenda and independently deliver against their objectives

• Commercially astute – create new value in all activity and ability to challenge / develop others in commercial thinking.

• High quality data analysis– e.g., excel, tableau, SQL, Python

• Ability to discuss pricing models with insurance pricing and underwriting

• Bias towards practical application in a live trading environment (not research and development)

• Ambition to take Darwin from 250k customers to 500k customers!

Benefits

We recognise we wouldn't be where we are today without our colleagues, that's why we offer excellent benefits designed to suit your lifestyle:

· 9% employer contributed pension

· 50% off home, motor and pet insurance plus free Green Flag breakdown cover

· Additional optional Health and Dental insurance

· EV car scheme

· Generous holidays

· Buy as you earn share scheme

· Employee discounts and cashback

· Plus, many more

We want everyone to get the most out of their time at Direct Line. Which is why we've looked beyond the financial rewards and created an offer that takes your whole life into account. Supporting our people to work at their best – whatever that looks like — and offering real choice, flexibility, and a greater work-life balance that means our people have time to focus on the things that matter most to them. Our benefits are about more than just the money you earn. They're about recognising who you are and the life you live.

Be yourself

Direct Line is an equal opportunity employer, and we think diversity of background and thinking is a big strength in our people. We're delighted to feature as one of the UK's Top 50 Inclusive Employers and are committed to making our business an inclusive place to work, where everyone can be themselves and succeed in their careers.

We know you're more than a CV, and the things that make you, you, are what bring potential to our business. We recognise and embrace people that work in different ways so if you need any adjustments to our recruitment process, please speak to the recruitment team who will be happy to support you.

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