Are you passionate about being part of a team that delivers extraordinary care to help individuals and businesses prepare for and protect their retirement? If so, then Nationwide Financial could be the place for you! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

The individual filling this role will become the leader of a product line within the Annuity Fixed Portfolio. As so, this individual will be responsible for ensuring the health of the product line, which include risk, profitability, competitive offerings, and appropriate volumes.

Director - Fixed Annuity Product Development

This role will assist in the management of the Fixed Annuity product portfolio with a focus on developing and maintaining a competitive product suite that meets consumer needs and is suitable for our distribution strategy while adding value to the company through a balanced approach to risk, profit, and growth.

The ideal candidate for this position will be a self-starter that has a deep knowledge of annuities or financial products and has experience in product management, creative product development, and an understanding of sales and pricing processes. The individual will possess strong leadership, negotiation, and communication skills and will have a proven ability to influence strategic direction. Additionally, the candidate should have experience developing and nurturing relationships with internal and external parties. This position will report to the Associate Vice President of the Fixed Annuity Product Portfolio.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Understands customer needs and anticipates change, both in product, technology, and distribution within the retirement marketplace; ensuring that Nationwide has the proper fixed annuity products and strategy in place to capitalize on opportunities.
• Manages product line(s) and leads new and innovative initiatives through the product development process, from ideation to business specification, business planning, development, roll out, and on-going maintenance.
• Cultivates a point of view through experience and self-study, leveraging competitive intelligence and analysis of the annuity industry with a focus on fixed annuities
• Steers cross-functional resources in a collaborative way to meet business objectives and develops relationships with internal and external parties to advance the product line(s).
• Creates an effective narrative to generate support for ideas, actions, and strategy in the fixed annuity portfolio; delivered through formal and informal presentations as well as written reports.

This position will need to work out of the Columbus, OH office.

This is an H3 band role.

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Job Description Summary

Our work is essential to helping Nationwide build future capability to serve customer needs. Keeping existing products relevant and marketable and building new products takes research, critical thinking, practicality and collaboration. If you enjoy gathering input and information, working independently and on a team and creating innovative solutions for customers, we want to know more about you!

As a Technical Director, you'll provide expertise to ensure the successful development and maintenance of products and solutions. You'll lead key initiatives to address product strategy and profitability objectives and communicate product/solution strategic direction throughout the organization.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Leads development and maintenance, including crafting and modeling the features/capabilities of products from beginning to end, with direct responsibility for the products managed from a growth, profitability, capital and risk perspective.

• Partners with sales leadership and finance to provide cost impact solutions and/or opportunities related to product design options. Develops business cases that support customer acquisition initiatives. Generates multiple solutions that address client/customer needs based on an assessment of the situation.

• Drives incremental and adjacent innovation to differentiate products and solutions in the market place.

• Proactively identifies new market and business opportunities. Reacts appropriately to competitive landscape and market conditions.

• Provides support and leadership to promote product/solution strategy, design and management.

• Serves as liaison, advising across the organization to implement new products and solutions. Looks for alignments or added value from developments across business areas and multiple fields. Facilitates problem resolution across the business.

• Builds strategic relationships to support product delivery, including vendor and partner alliances.

• Assures performance results and expectations as related to the product/solution implementation and business model.

• Communicates product strategy to the organization. Adapts communication, presentations and influence strategy to match partner and client needs.

• Partners with sales to develop sales strategy for products and services.

• Develops, produces and maintains ad hoc and custom sales report analysis. Consults with leadership regarding product trends, provides recommendations regarding sales analysis opportunities.

• Works closely with Asset Managers and internal teams to evaluate and stand up new investment options within existing products.

• Leads key project initiatives for the business in support of initial product offerings, product re-designs or tangential applications such as commissions, new business processing or policy administration.

• Facilitates client understanding of various product options and helps to prioritize options.

• Maintains a detailed understanding of pricing, client needs, market needs and sales positioning.

May perform other responsibilities as assigned.

Reporting Relationships: Reports to Director, Associate Vice President or Vice President; leads cross-department project teams.

Typical Skills and Experiences:

Education: Undergraduate degree in finance, economics, marketing or related field preferred.

License/Certification/Designation: Insurance licenses or industry designations (i.e. ARM, CLU, FLMI, ChFC, CFP, NASD, etc.) preferred.

Experience: Ten years marketing, underwriting, claims or related experience, with at least four years in a product leadership or management role.

Knowledge, Abilities and Skills: Solid understanding of products, regulatory framework governing such products and organization knowledge. Broad knowledge of marketing techniques and approaches. Solid understanding of service offerings and a high level of knowledge of competitors, customers and regulatory agencies. Exposure to research, analysis and development and standards and practices for the selection, evaluation and pricing of lines risks. Demonstrated responsible decision making. Skilled in the use of analytic tools. Ability to drive for results, deal with ambiguity and to understand strategic objectives. Ability to prioritize and lead long-term projects, as well as quick turnaround assignments. Sophisticated negotiation and interpersonal skills. Excellent verbal and written communication skills. Proven team building and leadership skills. Ability to influence without authority.

Other criteria, including leadership skills, competencies and experiences may take precedence.

Staffing exceptions to the above must be approved by the hiring manager’s leader and Human Resources Business Partner.

Values: Regularly and consistently demonstrates the Nationwide Values.

Job Conditions:

Overtime Eligibility: Not Eligible (Exempt)

Working Conditions: Normal office work environment.

ADA: The above statements cover what are generally believed to be principal and essential functions of this job. Specific circumstances may allow or require some people assigned to the job to perform a somewhat different combination of duties.

Benefits

We have an array of benefits to fit your needs, including: medical/dental/vision, life insurance, short and long term disability coverage, paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date, nine paid holidays, 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off, 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off, 401(k) with company match, company-paid pension plan, business casual attire, and more. To learn more about the benefits we offer, click here.

Nationwide is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive culture where everyone feels challenged, appreciated, respected and engaged. Nationwide prohibits discrimination and harassment and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to any characteristic (or classification) protected by applicable law.