Regional Surety Leader St. Charles, IL

BUILD YOUR FUTURE, WHILE PROTECTING THEIRS.

You will be challenged, rewarded, and valued for your unique experience, background and perspective. Join a team where hard work pays off and original thinking is celebrated. As you build your future at Westfield, you will quickly learn that protecting our customers future is at the heart of what we do.

At Westfield, building relationships has been a part of our culture since 1848. In the Surety Department, our vision is to be the premier surety operation providing valuable solutions for our customers. We are professional underwriters engaged in the process of pre-qualifying our customers for the obligations to which they commit. We market our services through professional producers and provide credit to deserving customers while adding value to their organization. We handle claims fairly and provide valuable claim and loss mitigation consulting services to our business partners and customers.

Regional Surety Leader St. Charles, IL Job Summary

Salary Range: $144,000 - $175,000

The Regional Surety Leader represents the company in an assigned field territory or home office region. Lead efforts for the profit, marketing, underwriting, processing, and servicing of surety lines in assigned territory or home office region. Builds and maintains effective agency and customer relationships. Oversees and leads administrative responsibilities for support staff (Sr. Account Managers, Account Managers, Surety Underwriters, Underwriting Assistants Surety, Surety Examiners, and Surety Trainees). Works with Division Surety Leader to create and implement both short and long term growth strategies. Ensures competitive positioning, robust marketing plans, and ongoing continuous improvement efforts.

Essential Functions (primary functions and/or reasons the job exists in order of importance)

1. Responsible for enhancing profit through quality risk selection and exposure control while meeting or exceeding Departmental Service Standards.
2. Responsible for servicing specified service offices or territories and agencies. Leaders in the field are also responsible for the prospecting and development of new agencies within an assigned territory as well as building and maintaining strong agency and customer relationships.
3. Prioritizes workload by making timely and responsible decisions on acceptance or declination of bonds within established authority. Submits for approval all risks in excess of authority.
4. Performs human capital management responsibilities including employee selection, performance management, coaching, and development. Manages priorities and workload distribution, and removes barriers that impede progress. Completes all personnel, salary administration, and reporting duties. Performs operational responsibilities that drive team performance including planning, execution, process improvement and best-practice sharing.
5. Provides coaching and establishes objectives for staff in the areas of underwriting, agency and customer relationships and marketing.
6. Works with Division Surety Leader to establish budgets, insure expense control, and provides relevant marketing and underwriting information to develop a business plan.
7. Communicates effectively in dealing with agents, contractors, other agency clients, support staff, peers and all Field and Home Office personnel.
8. Attends industry functions to develop business contacts and market awareness.
9. Travels as often as needed including regular utilization of assigned fleet vehicle in order to cover assigned territory. This may involve traveling on short notice or other daily driving duties as assigned regardless of location.

Desired Qualifications/Experience/Certification/Education (in order of importance)

1. Minimum 7 years of Surety experience.
2. Experience with financial analysis and risk assessment for profitable underwriting of the most complex accounts.
3. Experience building relationships and collaborating with agents and customers with a focus on marketing new business and servicing existing accounts.
4. Highly effective negotiation skills.
5. Experience training, coaching, and mentoring others.
6. Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
7. Strong written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills.
8. Strong attention to detail.
9. Strong organizational skills gained through previous work experiences.
10. Experience maintaining a high degree of customer service.
11. Bachelors degree from an accredited college OR commensurate work experience.
12. Valid drivers license and a driving record that conforms to company standards.

Physical Requirements (specific to the role)

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.

• Ability to work effectively in an office environment for 40+ hours per week (including sitting, standing and working on a computer for extended periods of time).
• Ability to communicate effectively in a collaborative work environment utilizing various technologies such as: telephone, computer, web, voice, teleconferencing, e-mail, etc.
• Ability to travel as required.
• Ability to operate an automobile within the parameters of the driving policy.
• Ability to drive for extended periods of time, under a variety of conditions, including night driving.

This job description describes the general nature and level of work performed in this role. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, skills, responsibilities, knowledge, etc. These may be subject to change and additional functions may be assigned as needed by management.

We are an equal opportunity employer/minority/female/disability/protected veteran.

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