Vice President, Distribution Finance

Singlife is a leading homegrown financial services company, offering consumers a better way to financial freedom. Through innovative, technology-enabled solutions and a wide range of products and services, Singlife provides consumers control over their financial wellbeing at every stage of their lives.

In addition to a comprehensive suite of insurance plans, employee benefits, partnerships with financial adviser channels and bancassurance, Singlife offers investment and advisory solutions through its GROW with Singlife platform. It also offers the Singlife Account, a mobile-first insurance savings plan.

Singlife is the exclusive insurance provider for the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs and Public Officers Group Insurance Scheme. Singlife is also an official signatory of the United Nations Principles for Sustainable Insurance and the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, affirming its commitment to finding a better way to sustainability.

The merger of Aviva Singapore and Singlife was announced in September 2020 and created one of the largest homegrown financial services companies in Singapore in a deal valued at S$3.2 billion. It was the largest insurance deal in Singapore at the time.

Singlife was subsequently acquired by Sumitomo Life in March 2024, one of Japan's leading life insurers, which valued Singlife at S$4.6 billion, making the transaction one of the largest insurance deals in Southeast Asia.

Key appointments:

The Distribution Finance AVP is responsible for providing financial insight and commercial analytics across the Distribution channels. This role partners closely with Sales, Distribution Leadership, CDO, and Finance to evaluate incentive effectiveness, safeguard adherence to financial guardrails, manage distribution expense forecasting, and deliver actionable insights that support sales strategy, incentive design, and business decision-making.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess incentive effectiveness against targeted outcomes and strategic objectives, financial guardrails and affordability thresholds. Conduct pre- and post-implementation assessments of incentive programs to drive iterative alignment with sales channel objectives and planned budgets.
• Evaluate business cases and commercial proposals to support strategic decision-making. Drive collaboration and partnership with finance functions for finance approvals and periodic reviews.
• Support monthly budgeting and tracking of distribution-related expenses. Identify financial risks arising from sales mix shifts and changes to channel business factors. In-depth analysis to identify reasons for deviations.
• Business partnering skills and ability to work with channel sales teams to align sales objectives to areas of expense allocation, and identify key drivers behind deviations.
• Develop management reports, and financial insights to support Distribution leadership and CDO.
• Finance forecasting to understand commercial priorities and translate/ align with financial implications and recommendations for future spend prioritization and budget reviews/ realignment.

Requirements

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, or a related discipline
• 6-10 years of relevant experience in distribution commercial strategy or sales finance functions. Prior experience in FP&A or business finance in insurance companies is also valuable.
• Experience within insurance companies or bancassurance would be an advantage

Technical Skills

• Strong financial modelling, forecasting, and analytical capabilities.
• Experience working with large datasets and translating analysis into management insights. Strong problem-solving and analytical thinking.
• Good stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Effective presentation skills for senior management audiences.