Head of Operations

Head of Operations & Continuous Improvement – Ardonagh Italia Location: Milano, Italia Role Purpose Drive operational effectiveness and consistency across Ardonagh Italia by mapping current processes, simplifying and standardising them into Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs), building a robust Quality Assurance (QA) model, ensuring SOP currency, embedding structured training for new joiners, fostering a continuous improvement culture, delivering process efficiencies and cost reductions, maintaining visibility of daily workload and allocation, and owning SLAs for internal and external customers. Key Responsibilities 1. Process Discovery & Standardisation (SOPs)- Map all core processes across broking, policy administration, renewals, endorsements, claims handling, finance operations, customer contact, and compliance-linked workflows. - Identify waste, simplify decision points, eliminate unnecessary handoffs, and standardise processes. - Create detailed SOPs with purpose, scope, steps, templates, handoffs, controls, SLAs, RACI, and versioning. - Establish and maintain a central SOP repository. 2. Quality Assurance (QA) Model - Design and implement a formal QA framework (sampling plan, control checklists, scoring). - Conduct sampling across calls, endorsements, quotes, claims files, and critical tasks. - Lead Root Cause Analysis on defects and drive corrective action plans. - Produce monthly QA dashboards and trend reports. 3. SOP Governance & Maintenance - Implement SOP lifecycle governance, including review calendars and approval workflows. - Maintain SOP change logs and ensure alignment with regulatory and carrier requirements. 4. Training & Onboarding - Create a structured training curriculum aligned with SOPs. - Build assessment tools, certification paths, and role-based learning plans. - Ensure new joiners are fully trained and existing staff receive refreshers. - Measure time-to-competence and training effectiveness. 5. Continuous Improvement Culture - Introduce CI methodologies (Lean, Kaizen, RCA, visual management). - Facilitate CI workshops and improvement sprints. - Maintain CI pipeline and track benefits with Finance. - Embed problem-solving capability in teams. 6. Cost, Streamlining & Automation - Identify opportunities for cost reduction, process streamlining, and automation. - Partner with Technology/Data to reduce rekeying, digitise forms, and eliminate bottlenecks. - Build business cases and track financial benefits. 7. Workload Oversight & Allocation - Maintain daily visibility of workloads, queues, SLAs, and resource utilisation. - Create capacity models and ensure balanced allocation. - Implement cross-training to enhance flexibility. 8. SLA Ownership - Define SLAs for key services (call response, endorsement turnaround, claims FNOL, quote times). - Monitor performance with dashboards. - Lead SLA recovery plans and stakeholder communication. Key Deliverables (12 Months)- Full SOP library for all critical processes. - QA framework and monthly dashboards. - End-to-end training curriculum and onboarding path. - CI pipeline with validated benefits. - Workload management dashboards. - SLA catalogue and service monitoring toolkit. - SOP and QA governance playbook. Skills, Experience & Behaviours - 7–10+ years in Operational Excellence, ideally within insurance or insurance broking. - Strong experience in process mapping, SOP design, QA frameworks, SLAs. - Lean/Kaizen and RCA expertise. - Data-driven decision making. - Fluency in Italian and English. - Lean Six Sigma Green/Black Belt is an advantage - Team player - Excellent written and verbal communication skills - Excellent stakeholder management skills - 5+ years as people manager - Strong problem-solving capabilities - Ability to influence without authority and work in a collaborative manner