Head of Enterprise Portfolio & Delivery

This is your opportunity to join AXIS Capital – a trusted global provider of specialty lines insurance and reinsurance.  We stand apart for our outstanding client service, intelligent risk taking and superior risk adjusted returns for our shareholders. We also proudly maintain an entrepreneurial, disciplined and ethical corporate culture.  As a member of AXIS, you join a team that is among the best in the industry.

At AXIS, we believe that we are only as strong as our people. We strive to create an inclusive and welcoming culture where employees of all backgrounds and from all walks of life feel comfortable and empowered to be themselves. This means that we bring our whole selves to work. 

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic, including age, color, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, marital status, national origin, pregnancy, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any basis prohibited by the laws that govern its operations.

Job Description: Head of Enterprise Portfolio & Delivery

Role purpose

The Head of Enterprise Portfolio & Delivery is accountable for ensuring AXIS deploys its technology and AI investments against the highest-value enterprise priorities and delivers those investments predictably with measurable business outcomes. The role leads enterprise portfolio planning, prioritization, investment governance and delivery-performance oversight, providing leadership with clear insight and recommendations on value, capacity, risk and execution. The role will also continue to mature AXIS’ Agile business-technology delivery model, strengthening accountabilities, decision rights, ways of working and delivery discipline.

The role leads the divisional Portfolio Leads across North America, Reinsurance & CUO, Global Markets, Claims and Corporate, and reports to the Head of Technology & AI Strategy.

The role goes well beyond portfolio reporting. Building on the foundations AXIS put in place over the past year, the focus now is pace and value: running the portfolio engine behind our enterprise planning and governance cadence, proactively finding and fixing root causes in troubled programs, and coaching Portfolio Leads and delivery teams to build that same capability across the organization.

Job Responsibilities

Strategic Portfolio Governance & Planning

• Planning & Prioritization: Bring a strategic, enterprise lens to the planning cycle, working with Transformation Leads and Value Stream Leads to set the right level of ambition for each division, so that demand is prioritized by business value, capacity is committed to each division’s value stream, and every investment is tied to OKRs and business case benefits.
• Executive Decision Framing: Shape the agenda and recommendations for enterprise portfolio and investment forums. Rather than collating submissions, pressure-test the evidence on value, financials, capacity and dependencies with teams, refine proposals until they are decision-ready, frame the trade-offs leadership needs to make, and follow decisions through to closure.
• Stage Gating & Readiness: Own project readiness and stage gating, proportionate to size and risk, as a real challenge rather than a compliance check. Probe whether the problem, scope, plan, business case and delivery approach are credible, send back proposals that are not ready, and confirm key partners (e.g., vendor management, security, data compliance, finance, architecture, AI governance) have reviewed and signed off before work starts.
• Governance Framework: Set lean, proportionate portfolio governance with clear mandates and decision rights, focused on outcomes over process, and evolve it as the delivery model matures.

Funding, Value & Performance

• Capacity-Based Funding: With FP&A, shape annual capacity allocation across divisions and value streams, and drive quarterly start/scale/pause/stop decisions and in-year moves based on value and delivery evidence.
• Investment Evaluation: Challenge business cases before funding, testing assumptions, alternatives and fully loaded costs and benefits, and hold divisions to one consistent benefit-tracking approach so committed benefits are tracked through to realization.
• AI Investment Portfolio: Manage the portfolio of AI use cases from idea to scaled value, working with AI governance, so that AI investments are prioritized, scaled or stopped based on evidence; and use AI within portfolio management to predict delivery risk and automate portfolio insight.
• OKRs & Reporting: Run the enterprise approach for cascading and tracking OKRs and KPIs, and provide leadership with one view of value and delivery predictability (e.g., features delivered in-quarter, idea-to-release cycle time), automated from ADO and supported by AI where possible.

Problem Projects & Root-Cause Resolution

• Proactive Intervention: Use portfolio data and early-warning signals (e.g., slipping milestones, benefits at risk, rising cost, unresolved dependencies) to identify projects in trouble, and lead the deep-dive on the most critical ones.
• Diagnosis & Resolution: Get beyond symptoms to root causes (e.g., unclear ownership, unrealistic plans, capacity or skills gaps, vendor performance, dependent-team delays). Bring business and technology teams together to agree recovery options (re-plan, re-scope, re-sequence, add capacity, pause or stop) and follow through to resolution.
• Learning Loop: Turn recurring causes into fixes in standards, readiness criteria, planning practices and vendor management so problems do not repeat.

Portfolio Lead Leadership

• Lead & Coach: Lead, coach and develop the divisional Portfolio Leads to one consistent standard. Coach them to act as operating partners to the Transformation Lead and Value Stream Lead rather than reporters: challenging and shaping portfolio direction, diagnosing root causes on troubled projects and influencing course corrections.
• Delivery-Health View: Ensure each Portfolio Lead gives their division a consolidated view of budget, scope, resourcing, risk and schedule, built from the teams’ own tools (e.g., Azure DevOps (ADO)) rather than manual reporting.
• Capability: Run a Portfolio Lead community of practice, deliver role-based training and build a bench of portfolio talent.

Business-Technology Delivery Model

• Delivery Model Maturity: Continue to mature AXIS’ agile business-technology delivery model across structure, governance, ways of working, culture & talent, and tooling & technology, so that delivery becomes faster, more predictable and more clearly tied to business value.
• Ways of Working & Coaching: Own the business-technology delivery playbook and standards, and coach delivery teams hands-on to adopt them, working alongside teams on live work rather than issuing guidance.
• Maturity Measurement: Set leading and lagging metrics against a baseline to track the maturity of the delivery model, and refine the model based on evidence.

What Success Looks Like (18–24 Months)

• Technology and AI spend tied to quantifiable OKRs, with evidence ready for every quarterly review
• Measurable maturity gains in the Agile business-technology delivery model against baseline
• Delivery predictability against annual aspirations; benefits delivered vs. plan
• Troubled projects identified early and recovered, with fewer repeat issues
• A strong, engaged Portfolio Lead team, and positive teammate sentiment on the changes

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, computer science, finance, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Proven experience in portfolio and project management, strategic planning, or a related field, including leading an enterprise portfolio function and a team of portfolio leads.
• Track record of leading an enterprise agile delivery or product operating model transformation, including value stream funding and OKRs, and of turning around troubled programs.
• Experience presenting investment trade-offs and recommendations to an Executive Committee.
• Preferred: Insurance or financial services experience.

Skills & Attributes

• Problem Solving: Structures ambiguous problems, gets to root causes quickly and drives practical solutions through to resolution.
• Influence Without Authority: Builds alignment and drives action across business, technology and vendor leaders outside direct authority, and coaches rather than commands.
• Communication: Clear, concise and compelling, able to turn complex portfolio data into decision-ready insight for the Executive Committee and to have candid conversations when projects are off track.
• Financial & Delivery Acumen: Builds and challenges business cases, understands capex/opex and capacity-based funding, and uses delivery metrics (e.g., predictability, cycle time, benefits realization) to drive decisions.

For this position, we currently expect to offer a base salary in the range of $200,000 to $225,000 (NY). Your salary offer will be based on an assessment of a variety of factors including your specific experience and work location. 

In addition, you will be offered competitive target incentive compensation, with awards based on overall corporate and individual performance. On top of this, you will be eligible for a comprehensive and competitive benefits package which includes medical plans for you and your family, health and wellness programs, retirement plans, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation, and much more.  

Where this role is based in the United States of America, this role is [Exempt/Non-Exempt] for FLSA purposes.

This posting is for an existing vacancy.