What you will be doing

The Head of Strategic Portfolio & Planning at Tower is a pivotal leadership role, instrumental in shaping the future of the company and its Transformation Office.

Reporting to the Head of Process Excellence & Transformation, this position is responsible for overseeing the prioritization, alignment, and governance of Tower’s project portfolio. The role ensures that all initiatives are strategically aligned with Tower’s vision and strategy. It involves close collaboration with senior leadership and various teams to drive strategic outcomes and optimize the portfolio for maximum value.

Dive into the Heart of Your Responsibilities:

• Own and maintain Tower’s strategic delivery portfolio, ensuring alignment with vision and strategy.
• Drive best practice portfolio management across Tower and support continuous improvement activities.
• Actively participate in and coordinate strategic planning discussions, collaborating with senior leadership to define portfolio priorities and align outputs with overarching strategic goals.
• Lead and coordinate ongoing portfolio prioritisation activities, including annual portfolio planning, quarterly planning and ongoing out-of-cycle approvals and changes to prioritisation.
• Lead, facilitate, and drive Tower’s Quarterly Planning, including preparation activities and post-planning follow-ups.
• Oversee portfolio performance, highlighting risks, issues, and opportunities in portfolio composition and performance, and supporting portfolio, programme, and project governance.
• ensuring adequate resolution with designed and executed mitigation strategies.
• Lead and manage the Portfolio team members, supporting their professional development.
• Advise initiative owners and executive sponsors, ensuring ongoing alignment with planning and prioritisation processes and frameworks, and maintaining consistency across the wider Tower portfolio.
• Monitor and evaluate portfolio effectiveness, implementing continuous improvement processes to enhance portfolio outcomes.
• Establish and maintain portfolio governance structures, including processes and procedures to ensure consistency and accountability.

What You’ll Need

To be successful in this role, you will also demonstrate the following:

• 10+ years of experience in strategic planning, portfolio management, programme management, or similar roles, preferably within the financial services industry.
• Extensive experience in developing, executing, and tracking strategic plans and initiatives.
• Deep knowledge of portfolio management frameworks (e.g., P3M), with relevant certifications.
• Experience using Project Portfolio Management tooling (e.g., Planview, Jira Align) to inform portfolio performance and planning discussions.
• Proven ability to use data analytics and performance metrics (including financial data) to drive strategic decisions.
• Exceptional leadership capabilities, with a history of leading high-performing teams, developing talent, and influencing stakeholders at all levels.
• In-depth knowledge of the software delivery lifecycle and Agile methodologies, with the ability to integrate portfolio management practices seamlessly into these frameworks.

Our Commitment

We pride ourselves on encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work, embracing diverse opinions, experiences, and backgrounds. Our commitment is to create an inclusive workplace where our people come first, feel valued, safe, and respected. If you feel comfortable doing so, please let us know early in the process.

Why You’ll Love Working with Tower

At Tower, our values are the heartbeat of every interaction. We prioritize our people, fostering a diverse and inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. We encourage you to bring your whole self to work, representing the vibrant communities we serve. We celebrate all ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, religions, and everything else that makes our culture unique. Proud holders of the Rainbow and DV Free Ticks, we are committed to inclusivity and safety.

What we’ll bring to the table

In addition to a competitive salary, we offer a range of perks and benefits to celebrate and look after our Tower employees.

Highlights include:

• Our people come first as we offer 16 weeks of paid leave for the primary carer and 4 weeks of paid leave partner`s leave.
• A paid day off on your birthday, as well as two extra annual leave days every year and the option to buy an additional eight days of leave. So up to six weeks off!
• Annual Performance Review where you get to showcase your progression.
• Wellness leave instead of sick leave so you can proactively look after your health and wellbeing
• Career growth – we promote internal capability; we also have programmes that recognise star performers.
• Flexible workplace opportunities at our beautiful 6 Green Star Fanshawe St office packed with modern technologies, stand-up desks, open space and coffee machines in two large modern kitchens with cafe-inspired dining areas.
• Discounts on Tower insurance products of up to 50%
• Free Life Insurance of up to four times your annual base salary
• Paid parental leave top up for 16 weeks.
• Retail deals and discounts with Les Mills, JB Hi-Fi, PB Tech, The Coffee Club,
• Warehouse Stationery and more

Apply now: Ready to embark on a journey where your experience truly matters in the heart of New Zealand and the Pacific`s insurance industry? If you are excited about defining a new era of insurance, submit your resume and a detailed cover letter highlighting your impactful career.

Please note: We’re eager to get the right person on board as soon as possible. We don’t have set closing dates, so we’ll start reviewing applications as they come in. Don’t wait—apply now to make sure you’re considered.