Director, Data and Analytics

Established in 2021, Independence Pet Holdings is a corporate holding company that manages a diverse and broad portfolio of modern pet health brands and services, including insurance, pet education, lost recovery services, and more throughout North America.

We believe pet insurance is more than a financial product and build solutions to simplify the pet parenting journey and help improve the well-being of pets. As a leading authority in the pet category, we operate with a full stack of resources, capital, and services to support pet parents. Our multi-brand and omni-channel approach include our own insurance carrier, insurance brands and partner brands. 

Pets Best, a subsidiary of IPH, offers pet insurance and wellness plans for dogs and cats in every state. Founded in 2005 with a mission to provide access to comprehensive animal healthcare at an affordable price, Pets Best delivers flexible coverage, an easy claims process, and excellent customer service.

Job Summary:
Pets Best is seeking a Director of Data and Analytics to serve as a member of the Pets Best leadership team. This leader will be responsible for developing new capabilities and insights to facilitate rapid decisioning and outcomes for critical strategic and operational priorities across all functional departments. This role will report to the Vice President, Pricing & Data Analytics and will partner with the Pets Best Senior Leadership team to drive results for business unit strategic initiatives and align to the enterprise data strategy. This executive leader should have experience building analytic models and using system thinking and analytical skills to set strategic direction and enable transformation.

A key element of the role will be evaluating, recommending and implementing enhancements to our current Smart Pricing framework which will result in the ability to present product options (i.e., combination of co-insurance, deductible, and limit) to new and renewing policyholder segments to optimize for conversion, retention, and economic value. Our goal is to lead the industry in this capability, leveraging AI to support test / learn and agile methods as an input to the ongoing evolution of our digital selling capabilities and digital experience design.

It is our view that virtually all aspects of the organization may be improved by the effective sharing of insights. This leader will manage a group of data & analytics experts who will serve as the authority for important business insights (e.g., sales conversion dashboards, sales effectiveness metrics) and work in partnership with functional leaders to deploy these skilled resources to the highest problem-solving priorities in support of the Pets Best strategy.

Job Location: Remote (excluding MA, CA, WA, HI, AK, CO, CT, MT, NY, NJ)

• In collaboration with Senior Leadership, designs, develops, and implements focused strategies.
• Leads the development of programs that are critical to the organization and ensures execution of the function.
• Provides advice and consultation to senior and executive management related to operational and/or strategic decisions and resolves critical issues.
• Actively participates in the budget and goal setting process for the department.
• Provides guidance, counseling, and continuing education opportunities to staff.  Selects, develops, coaches, mentors, and assesses performance of staff.
• Provides guidance to consistently improve the processes of the area(s) of focus.
• Develops, implements, and maintains administrative policies and procedures.
• Provides leadership through influencing and directing the work of others to execute plans to meet strategic and operational objectives.
• Performs other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Manage team of 2 data & analytics resources at Pets Best
• Hands-on model building and translating analytic insights into recommended business actions; strong modeling AND communication abilities
• Expansion of Smart Pricing capability; optimizing sales conversion, retention and economic value
• Lead the prioritization of data and AI/ML investments for Pets Best; collaborate with peers to create a cohesive strategy for managing data, analytics, and AI/ML at Pets Best
• Lead the development of Pets Best automation / digitization roadmap and identify quick wins for those areas where automation will occur later on the roadmap (e.g., self-service)
• Collaborate on claims automation task force to i