Business Architect

Summary

This pivotal role combines the responsibilities of an experienced Insurance SME / Lead Analyst with the strategic oversight of a Business Architect. Based in Australia (Hybrid/Flexible working options available) and reporting to the Head of Business Consulting / Business Architecture, this full-time, permanent position is central to bridging the gap between business needs and technology solutions within the general insurance industry.
The successful candidate will be instrumental in shaping insurance propositions, defining high-value business use cases, and collaborating with Product Management/Owners, development teams, and architectural staff to drive innovation, optimize processes, and deliver significant business outcomes. A key focus will be on leveraging Guidewire applications to meet customer business objectives, prioritizing out-of-the-box functionalities to maximize value and reduce implementation costs.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities:

• Subject Matter Expertise & Thought Leadership: Act as a key subject matter expert for general insurance products (e.g., Property, SME Business Pack, Motor, Liability) and market trends. Develop insightful content and provide guidance on insurance regulations, compliance, and best practices.

• Business Analysis & Use Case Definition: Support the Product Owner in translating complex business problems into clear, actionable use cases. Conduct in-depth analysis of business processes to identify areas for improvement and ensure project scope aligns with business value. Champion data and analytics for decision-making and ensure end-to-end traceability of requirements using tools like JIRA and Confluence.

• Strategic Business Architecture & Guidewire Alignment: Assume a lead role in educating customer teams about Guidewire application capabilities, identifying specific customer requirements, and determining how best to meet those requirements using Guidewire applications. Understand the true business need behind requirements and redefine/align them to Guidewire application capabilities, ensuring customers derive maximum value from out-of-the-box systems. Provide guidance on leveraging Guidewire applications and technology to achieve business goals.

• Team Leadership & Mentoring: Embed best practice methodologies for business analysis, requirements gathering, and documentation. Act as an escalation point for the BA team and lead, mentor, and coach a small team of business analysts.

• Client & Stakeholder Engagement: Support Product Owners in leading and facilitating workshops with clients and internal stakeholders to gather requirements, define scope, and validate solutions. Build and maintain strong relationships with key internal stakeholders and external partner solution stakeholders. Effectively communicate complex concepts and solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences, managing expectations and ensuring alignment on project goals.

• Project Implementation & Review: Oversee the business analysis stream of work for key projects, ensuring timely and high-quality deliverables. Support User Acceptance Testing (UAT), and lead Post-Implementation Reviews (PIRs) to assess project success and identify lessons learned. Support planning of user acceptance testing of customer solutions and advise on key trade-offs between scope, schedule, and objectives.

Essential Skills & Experience:

• 10+ years of experience, with 5+ years experience in ANZ, in the General Insurance industry, with deep knowledge of P&C (Property & Casualty) insurance products and lifecycle (underwriting, policy administration, claims).

• 7+ years of experience as a Business Analyst, with a proven track record of leading the analysis on complex projects or programs of work.

• 5+ years of experience in the P&C insurance industry out of which 3+ years should be on the IT / software implementation side.

• Leveraging AI -  demonstrated capability of leveraging AI in analysis and information synthesis work 

• Demonstrated experience in leading and mentoring a team of business analysts.

• Expertise in defining business use cases, creating business cases, and aligning project scope with strategic business value.

• Exceptional communication, presentation, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at all levels of an organisation.

• Experience with both Agile and Waterfall project management methodologies, and proficiency in agile implementation methodologies and enterprise scale implementations.

Desired Skills & Experience:

• Relevant industry certifications, such as ANZIIF (Senior Associate or Fellow) or CIP (Certified Insurance Professional).

• Professional certification in Business Analysis, such as Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP).

• Experience with core insurance platforms (e.g., Guidewire, Duck Creek, TIA).

• Experience with data analysis and visualisation tools (e.g., SQL, Tableau, Power BI).

• Outstanding documentation skills, and the ability to facilitate discussions with both technical and business partners.

About Guidewire

Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 540+ insurers in 40 countries, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.

As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record with 1600+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our Marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.

For more information, please visit www.guidewire.com and follow us on Twitter: @Guidewire_PandC.

Guidewire Software, Inc. is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We are committed to an inclusive workplace, and believe that a diversity of perspectives, abilities, and cultures is a key to our success. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, veteran status, or disability. All offers are contingent upon passing a criminal history and other background checks where it's applicable to the position.