About the Role
As Head Facultative Japan, you will be the underwriting, portfolio, and commercial leader for Swiss Re's Facultative business in Japan. You will hold full accountability for portfolio performance (P&L), cedant & broker engagement, and market positioning — all while ensuring seamless alignment with APAC and Global Facultative strategies. This is a high-impact, high-visibility leadership role where your decisions will directly influence Swiss Re's market relevance, profitability, and long-term growth trajectory in Japan.
Key Responsibilities
Portfolio Ownership & P&L Accountability
- Own and steer the Facultative Japan portfolio with full responsibility for profitability, growth, and volatility management
- Ensure underwriting discipline, including line size deployment, nat cat exposure management, and accumulation control
- Actively monitor portfolio performance and take swift, decisive corrective actions where needed
Underwriting & Origination Leadership
- Lead origination and execution of complex facultative transactions, including large single risk and fac facility business
- Drive client-centric solutions by understanding cedants' needs and translating them into tailored risk transfer structures
- Maintain and deepen strong engagement with key cedants and brokers across the Japan market
- Strengthen Swiss Re's market positioning in Japan through thought leadership and commercial excellence
Strategy & Market Development
- Define and implement a Japan-specific underwriting and go-to-market strategy, aligned with APAC and Global Facultative priorities
- Identify opportunities for profitable growth, including non-traditional solutions and fac facilities
- Drive innovation in product development to meet evolving market demands
Governance & Operational Excellence
- Ensure adherence to underwriting guidelines, referral frameworks, and governance standards
- Maintain strong controls around peer review principles, referral processes, and contract wording quality and certainty
- Partner with Risk Management and Governance functions to uphold the highest standards of operational integrity
Leadership & Team Development
- Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing underwriting team in Japan, fostering a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous learning
- Inspire collaboration across APAC and global teams, driving technical excellence and knowledge sharing
- Ensure effective resource allocation and team structure aligned with evolving business needs
Regional & Global Collaboration
- Act as a key contributor to the Facultative APAC leadership team, bringing the Japan market perspective to regional strategy discussions
- Collaborate actively with Global Product Centers, Facultative APAC and Global communities, and Treaty teams to deliver integrated solutions
About the Team
The Facultative Japan team sits at the heart of Swiss Re's reinsurance operations in one of Asia's most dynamic and technically complex markets. The team is responsible for originating, underwriting, and managing a diverse portfolio of facultative reinsurance business across property, casualty, and specialty lines — working closely with leading Japanese cedants, brokers, and regional and global colleagues. With a strong culture of underwriting excellence, collaboration, and client focus, the team plays a pivotal role in delivering Swiss Re's value proposition to the Japan market and contributing to the broader APAC and Global Facultative strategy.
About You
You are a confident, credible, and commercially driven reinsurance professional who thrives in complex, fast-paced environments. You bring a rare combination of deep technical underwriting expertise, strong people leadership, and the ability to build lasting relationships with senior stakeholders. You are equally comfortable steering a portfolio through challenging market cycles as you are inspiring and developing a talented team. You lead with integrity, communicate with clarity, and bring a genuine passion for the Japan reinsurance market.
We are looking for candidates who meet these requirements:
- Extensive experience (10+ years) in re/insurance underwriting, with strong and demonstrable exposure to the Japan market
- Proven track record in originating and executing facultative deals, including large and complex risks across multiple lines of business
- Demonstrated experience in portfolio management and P&L ownership, with the ability to balance growth ambitions with underwriting discipline
- Proven people leadership capability, with a track record of developing talent, leading senior underwriters, and building high-performing teams
- Deep expertise in Japan re/insurance market dynamics, nat cat exposure and modelling considerations, and reinsurance structuring and pricing mechanics
- Strong commercial acumen with the ability to identify and capitalise on market opportunities
- Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills, both internally and externally at senior levels
- Fluency in both Japanese and English (written and spoken)
These are additional nice to haves:
- Experience working within a global reinsurance organisation with exposure to regional and global governance frameworks
- Familiarity with non-traditional risk transfer solutions
- Strong network within the Japan cedant and broker community
- Experience collaborating across cross-functional teams including Risk Management, Treaty, and Global Product Centers
Our company has a hybrid work model where the expectation is that you will be in the office at least three days per week.
About Swiss Re
Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. We anticipate and manage a wide variety of risks, from natural catastrophes and climate change to cybercrime. We cover both Property & Casualty and Life & Health. Combining experience with creative thinking and cutting-edge expertise, we create new opportunities and solutions for our clients. This is possible thanks to the collaboration of more than 15,000 employees across the world.
Our success depends on our ability to build an inclusive culture encouraging fresh perspectives and innovative thinking. We embrace a workplace where everyone has equal opportunities to thrive and develop professionally regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, gender identity and/or expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, skillset, thought or other characteristics. In our inclusive and flexible environment everyone can bring their authentic selves to work and their passion for sustainability.
If you are an experienced professional returning to the workforce after a career break, we encourage you to apply for open positions that match your skills and experience.
We may use AI-powered tools to support the review and evaluation of applications for this position. These tools provide additional insights to our recruitment teams, but all hiring decisions are carefully reviewed and made by people. To learn more about how we use AI in recruitment and how we handle your personal data, please review our Data Privacy Statement before applying.
Reference Code: 138196
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