Senior Director, Talent Management and Development

Summary

The Global People & Operations Team at Guidewire scales, shapes, and strengthens the company by building the capabilities, culture, and clarity needed for our future.
We focus on technology-enabled, globally scalable people practices that elevate employee experience, accelerate growth, and embed AI and automation into how we work.
As a team, we prize accountability, transparency, and impact, guided by values of courage, curiosity, and commitment.
This Senior Director role leads the architecture of Guidewire’s enterprise talent system so our workforce can execute today and as we scale and increase complexity. You will design and integrate the core systems that define performance, grow leaders, plan future workforce needs, and build readiness for critical roles. You’ll be a key strategic partner in an AI-first, cloud-based insurance technology company, ensuring talent is a differentiator in how we transform the P&C insurance industry for our customers worldwide.
The role will lead a team of talent development specialists and experts globally.

Job Description

What you’ll do

• Architect and own Guidewire’s enterprise talent strategy, integrating performance management, leadership development, succession, assessment, and workforce planning into a coherent, data-informed system that scales globally.

• Define and continuously refine clear, role-specific performance expectations and success profiles that align to Guidewire’s strategy, AI-first operating model, and Global People FY26 priorities around capability, readiness, and scale.

• Establish and embed disciplined performance management practices, including calibration, performance differentiation, and defined talent strategy, in close partnership with Senior People Business Partners and People leaders globally.

• Lead enterprise talent management, including building visibility into leadership bench strength, defining readiness and potential against future business needs, and surfacing talent and leadership risks early through robust assessment and succession approaches.

• Design and scale leadership and critical capabilities development (for example, business acumen, P&C industry depth, AI fluency) that are tightly connected to performance, succession, hiring standards, and the Global People skills framework.

• Partner with Talent Acquisition, People Operations, and regional People leaders to build scalable talent engines in growth markets, improve quality of hire, and reduce downstream performance and readiness risk.

• Use workforce, engagement, and readiness data as leading indicators to support VPMOM methods, guide talent investments, and ensure the talent system remains a business enabler as Guidewire advances its AI-powered cloud platform for P&C insurers.

• At Guidewire, we foster a culture of curiosity, innovation, and responsible use of AI—empowering our teams to continuously leverage emerging technologies and data-driven insights to enhance productivity and outcomes in service of our values - integrity, collegiality and rationality. 

• Strong leadership and organizational skills to manage a global team of people. This role requires clear communication across time zones, setting priorities, and ensuring work stays aligned with team and company goals. The leader will provide guidance, regular feedback, and support to help team members succeed while maintaining accountability and collaboration. Success in this role requires good communication, problem-solving, cultural awareness, and the ability to keep a remote team engaged and productive.

What you’ll bringRequired

Demonstrated ability to embrace AI and apply it to your current role as well as data-driven insights to drive innovation, productivity, and continuous improvement.

• Extensive experience (typically 12+ years) in talent management, leadership development, and/or organizational development, with significant time spent leading enterprise talent strategies in complex, global organizations.

• Proven track record designing and operationalizing integrated talent systems (performance, succession, leadership development, assessment) that measurably improve capability, leader effectiveness, and business outcomes.

• Deep expertise in modern performance management, including calibration, differentiation, and enabling leaders to hold clear, fair, and growth-oriented performance and accountability conversations at scale.

• Experience building succession and readiness strategies for critical roles, including use of robust assessment tools, potential frameworks, and data to identify risk and inform decisions.

• Demonstrated ability to design and scale leadership development and capability-building programs that drive observable behavior change, with emphasis on business acumen, industry fluency, and comfort with AI-powered tools.

• Strong, pragmatic stakeholder management skills with senior executives; able to translate strategy into clear talent implications, influence decisions, and drive cross-functional execution across Global People, business leaders, and Talent Attraction.

• Comfort working in a high-change, growth-oriented, technology-driven environment, balancing structure with agility and continuously improving practices based on feedback and data.

Preferred

• Experience in a global technology, SaaS, or enterprise software company, ideally with exposure to the insurance or financial services sectors.

• Prior leadership of talent or leadership development functions that support AI and automation adoption or large-scale digital and operating model transformations.

• Advanced degree in Organizational Psychology, HR, Business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

• Familiarity with skills frameworks, job architecture, and career pathways, and how they connect to performance, development, workforce planning, and employee experience.

Your Impact

We believe in clarity and setting you up for success. In your first six months, you will assess our current talent practices end-to-end, define a unified enterprise talent blueprint, and launch near-term improvements to performance expectations, calibration, and succession visibility for critical roles. You’ll partner closely with Global People leaders to embed AI fluency, capability building, and readiness into how we hire, develop, and deploy talent, contributing directly to the Global People vision of scaling, shaping, and strengthening Guidewire for its next stage of growth.

Over time, your work will inform strategic decisions about where and how we invest in our people, help ensure every team is equipped to deliver on our mission of transforming how the world’s P&C insurers do business, and keep our talent systems as enablers—not constraints—as Guidewire’s AI-powered cloud platform and customer base continue to expand.

What’s in it for you

The people we employ give their all, and in return, we offer flexibility wherever we can, such as:

• Flexible work environment

• Health and wellness benefits

• Paid time off programs including volunteer time off

• Market-competitive pay and incentive programs

• Continual development and internal career growth opportunities

We also offer a structured in-person orientation experience for all new hires, giving you the chance to build strong relationships, understand our culture of determination, collaboration, continuous improvement, and bravery, and see firsthand how we combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to serve P&C insurers around the world. 

The US base salary range for this full-time position is $205,000 - $307,000 . Your base pay will depend on your experience, skills, education, training, and location among other factors. All full-time positions or part-time roles working 30 hours or more a week at Guidewire are eligible for benefits that support their health and well-being including health, dental, and vision insurance, paid time off, and a company sponsored retirement plan. In addition, some roles may be eligible for the annual company bonus plan, commissions, and/or long term incentive awards which are contingent on a variety of factors including, but not limited to, company and employee performance.

Disability Accommodations and Guidewire’s Appeals Process. Guidewire provides accommodations to the hiring process to create a fair opportunity for candidates with disabilities to contend for open positions. Accommodation requests should be directed to [email protected]. If things do not go as hoped, we invite you to use our appeals process. Guidewire promises to independently review any denied accommodation and any decision not to offer you the position. The appeals process is the same in either case. Within five business days of receiving a notice of denial of an accommodation, or receiving a notice of your non-selection for a vacancy, e-mail [email protected] to make an appeal. Guidewire will assign a new decision-maker to review the request and/or hiring decision, who will then notify you in writing of a decision within 10 business days.

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.