About the client
A global reinsurance business operating across multiple jurisdictions, each led by its own regional executive, and part of a wider group that had set a direction toward AI. This was the first hire into the function, so there was no data infrastructure in place and no Head of Data before it. The business ran on spreadsheets, with data sources scattered across the organisation and models built and held locally rather than on any shared foundation.
The challenge
The brief meant building a function from nothing, inside a business that was still running on spreadsheets as its actual source of truth. Operating across multiple jurisdictions meant working within several different regulatory regimes governing what could be done with the data at all, which narrowed the field to people who could operate inside real constraint and still make progress.
The role also sat inside a tension that only became clear as the search went on. The group had set a direction on AI transformation, and each jurisdiction had its own regional executive running its own business, so whoever took the role needed enough influence to drive change locally while staying aligned to a group strategy they hadn’t set themselves.
How it played out
We were engaged to hire the business’s first Head of Data, with the role originally scoped to report two levels away from the CEO. As the interview process went on, conversations with the client made it clear that this reporting line wouldn’t give the role the influence the mandate needed, so we worked through the change together and moved the position to report directly to the CEO. The candidate was identified and hired within around six weeks of engagement, helped along by a short notice period.
The candidate
The person placed could operate credibly across two audiences at once: building infrastructure and influence across jurisdictions each with their own leadership internally, while working at group level within an AI transformation strategy they hadn’t set but had to deliver against. Regulatory fluency across multiple jurisdictions was something the role demanded from day one rather than something to grow into.
What made this work
Raising the reporting line as a problem, rather than filling the role as originally scoped, gave this hire the standing it needed to actually succeed once in post.
This was as much a search for someone who understood the group dynamic as the local one. It needed someone who could hold a group mandate and a local relationship with each regional executive at the same time, which took real sector understanding rather than a strong CV match on its own.
Even with the reporting line changing partway through, the search kept moving. The short notice period helped, but the work of redesigning the role happened without slowing anything down.