Head of Strategy and Architecture

**Why you'll love working with Tower**

At Tower, we live and breathe our values - they are at the heart of every interaction. **Our people come first, **we pride ourselves on creating a diverse and inclusive space that allows our people to thrive. Encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work, we aim to represent the diverse communities we work in and with. We celebrate all ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, religions, and everything else that helps to make our culture special. We are proud holders of the Rainbow and DV Free Ticks which are important to us.

**Our customers are our compass. **We also have a plan to lead our industry forward into a more customer-centric future with innovation and disruptive thinking, as a unique Kiwi and Pacific insurance provider operating for over 150 years, with roots all the way back to Dunedin.

**What will you be doing?**

At Tower, we are **progressing boldly **to provide forward-thinking solutions for our customers, and you will be a key leader in helping us shape the future of Tower and its technology capability**.**

**Our focus on innovation and investment in large-scale** digital transformation over the last four years has enabled Tower to rapidly evolve in line with the latest technology and customer expectations.** The result is customer-focused, digital-first insurance solutions that allow us to create products to suit the modern lifestyles of our customers, unencumbered by the limitations of legacy platforms.

Reporting to our Chief Digital and Data Officer, you will be responsible for Tower's IT strategy, architecture, and design processes and standards. Overall responsibility for ensuring that the business and IT are in alignment and linking the IT strategy to the Tower business strategy.

In this role, you will be responsible for bringing to life Tower IT's technology strategy that clearly defines the value proposition to the market across communications, CX, data, governance, analytics, and digital product disciplines. Measuring success and iterating based on data-driven insights is critical to this role.

You will work in partnership with the digital leadership team and other business unit heads on planning cycles inclusive of ideation, discovery, business case development, team capacity planning, and strategic coordination of business needs.

**What you'll need**

You will possess a strategic vision aligned with business goals, innovative thinking for adaptive solutions, and strong leadership skills to guide collaborative teams. This role requires analytical acumen for informed decision-making, effective communication to bridge technical and non-technical aspects, and a commitment to ethical leadership, ensuring alignment with legal standards and customer needs. A focus on results, change management proficiency, and a continuous learning mindset further characterize a successful leader in this position.

You will also be able to showcase the following:

- Tertiary level qualification in Computer Science, Business, or an associated discipline
- 10+ years of experience in one or more of the following areas: Information Technology, Enterprise Architecture, Software Design & Development, Application Development and Maintenance, Infrastructure Management
- 5 years of experience leading a department in a related field.
- Cloud platform and scaled Application Design & Engineering, Cyber Security, Domain Driven Design, Microservices \ API at scale, Agile methods, Lean Product, Human-centred design, Data & Event Streaming

We pride ourselves on encouraging everyone to bring their whole selves to work, and we embrace diverse opinions, experience and backgrounds. Making sure we **are doing what's right**.

**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