Director, Digital Employee Experience, India

Talent500 is hiring for one of its clients.

Who are we:

Core Insurance Platforms (CIP) is Zurich's global capability responsible for building, running, and evolving core insurance technology. We set a unified, scalable operating model—covering governance, standards, architecture, service delivery, and reuse—so our business units can deliver at speed and scale.

CIP is the strategic steward of Zurich's Guidewire ecosystem, aligning platform roadmaps to business strategy while driving stability, modernization, reduced supplier dependency, and long term cost efficiency.

India delivery center is one of our global delivery and capability hub. We bring together experts in AI, engineering, analysis, quality, and architecture to deliver product & process solutions, application run services, change and transformation initiatives, and centralized platform services across both on prem and Guidewire Cloud environments. Our teams operate from multiple global delivery centers, supporting Zurich's business units worldwide.

Role Overview:

Role: Director - Digital Employee Experience

The DEX India Location Leader is a seasoned leader responsible for guiding a location-based team of approximately 20 to 30 professionals within the Digital Employee Experience organization. This role combines strong organizational and practical management accountability with the credibility and judgment needed to lead highly capable engineers and technical specialists. The role is expected to be a visible point of reference for the whole team: a leader who sets direction, creates clarity, removes obstacles, strengthens culture and drives outcomes, rather than acting as an administrative body only.

Value Proposition:

Join a leadership role with broad influence over how Digital Employee Experience is delivered and evolved at scale. As DEX India Location Leader, you will shape a high-performing engineering environment, support deeply technical teams, and ensure the local organization operates effectively, sustainably and with strong engagement. You will work across delivery, people leadership, stakeholder alignment and operational management, helping translate strategy into execution while fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement. This is an opportunity to lead a substantial team and make a visible difference through both human leadership and operational excellence.

Our Mission Statement:

To build and sustain a trusted, high-performing Digital Employee Experience organization that delivers reliable, efficient and people-centered services. We aim to enable engineers and specialists to do their best work, align delivery with stakeholder expectations, and create an environment where technical excellence, teamwork and pragmatic execution come together.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead a location-based team of approximately 20 to 30 employees, creating clarity of purpose, a strong team identity and a culture of accountability, trust and collaboration, building solid bridge with the Global DEX Leadership.
• Act as the leadership anchor for the local organization, serving as a beacon for the team through visible presence, sound judgment, coaching and direction.
• Manage the practical and organizational aspects of the function, including team structure, workload balancing, prioritization support, staffing coordination, performance management and employee development.
• Lead engineers and technical specialists effectively by understanding their mindset, respecting technical depth and creating the conditions for strong delivery without needing to be the primary technical decision-maker in every topic.
• Partner closely with technical leads, service managers and peer leaders to ensure local execution is aligned with broader Digital Employee Experience priorities and standards.
• Translate strategic objectives into actionable local plans, ensuring that the team understands goals, delivery expectations and how their work contributes to business outcomes.
• Drive a disciplined operating rhythm across the team, including regular reviews, planning checkpoints, issue escalation, communications and follow-through on actions.
• Support hiring, onboarding, retention and succession planning to maintain a strong and sustainable organization.
• Create an environment where high standards, constructive challenge and continuous improvement are expected and supported.
• Address organizational friction, unblock teams, resolve conflicts when needed and ensure practical decisions are taken in a timely and balanced way.
• Represent the local team in stakeholder and leadership discussions, providing transparency on delivery health, team capacity, risks and improvement opportunities.
• Ensure people processes are handled effectively, but with leadership centered on coaching, direction and operational enablement rather than administrative approval alone.

Leadership Expectations:

This role requires a mature people leader who can command respect from strong-willed and highly skilled engineers through credibility, consistency and practical support. The successful candidate will be comfortable operating in an environment where technical excellence matters deeply, and where leadership is earned by enabling outcomes, making balanced decisions and maintaining high standards. The role is not intended to be a passive line-management position focused only on approvals or process administration; it is a highly engaged leadership role with strong day-to-day influence on team effectiveness, morale and execution.

Your Skills and Experience:

The ideal candidate is an experienced organizational leader with a strong ability to lead technical populations, manage complex team dynamics and create a healthy delivery environment. They combine people leadership, operational discipline and stakeholder management with enough technical affinity to connect meaningfully with engineers and guide teams pragmatically.

Specific Requirements:

• Significant leadership experience in digital, infrastructure, workplace technology or engineering-led environments.
• Proven experience leading teams of meaningful scale, ideally in the range of 20 to 30 employees or comparable organizational scope.
• Strong people leadership capability, including coaching, performance management, development conversations, team design and conflict resolution.
• Demonstrated ability to work effectively with engineers and technically strong individuals, building trust while maintaining organizational discipline and clear expectations.
• Strong organizational and practical management skills, with the ability to coordinate day-to-day execution across a multi-person team.
• Experience working across stakeholders, peers and leadership forums, with the ability to align expectations and communicate clearly.
• Good judgment under pressure, with the ability to make pragmatic decisions and provide stability during change or ambiguity.
• Strong written and spoken English.
• University degree or equivalent relevant professional experience.

Beneficial Skills:

• Experience within Digital Employee Experience, End-User Workplace, IT operations or enterprise service delivery organizations.
• Understanding of how engineering teams operate, including agile or product-aligned ways of working.
• Experience leading through organizational transformation, service evolution or operating model change.
• Familiarity with regulated enterprise environments and matrix organizations.
• Additional European languages would be an advantage but are not essential.

Nature of Work:

The DEX India Location Leader operates at the intersection of people leadership, operational management and organizational execution. The role requires regular engagement with employees, peers and stakeholders to ensure that delivery remains effective, the team remains motivated and practical issues are addressed early. Success in this role depends on establishing trust, creating structure, setting the tone for the local organization and ensuring that strong technical professionals can thrive within a well-led environment. The leader is expected to be visible, balanced and decisive, with a clear focus on enabling the team to perform at its best.