Corporate Vice President, Business Discovery & Solution Strategy

Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per week 

Technology, Data, AI and Ventures:

Within the Tech, Data, AI, Ventures (TDAV) organization, our work is guided by a shared vision: deploying the power of technology, data, AI and ventures to accelerate sustainable competitive advantage for New York Life's businesses. We build solutions that power how we serve policy owners, agents, advisors and employees while delivering measurable business outcomes.

Across technology, data, AI, cyber, product, digital experience, architecture and infrastructure, TDAV combines the scale and investment of an industry leader, access to leading-edge technologies and the opportunity to help shape how a world-class financial services company competes in the AI era - all backed by the stability and purpose of a mutual company built to last.

Business Overview

New York Life is advancing strategic transformations designed to fundamentally reimagine critical enterprise capabilities through business process redesign, technology, data, analytics, automation, and AI. Business Discovery & Solution Strategy is an enduring leadership capability within the technology organization, responsible for turning complex and ambiguous business opportunities into future-state workflows, solution strategies, prioritized roadmaps, and measurable outcomes.

The initial focus for this role will be Enterprise Plan to Perform (EPP), a strategic transformation focused on reimagining how New York Life plans, forecasts, manages performance, evaluates scenarios and supports enterprise decision-making. The role will work across priority EPP capabilities and workstreams, partnering with Finance, business and Technology leaders to define how AI, data, analytics and modern technology can fundamentally improve workflows, experiences and decisions.

Role Overview

The Corporate Vice President, Business Discovery & Solution Strategy – AI Reimagination provides senior leadership at the intersection of business strategy, product thinking, technology, data, analytics, and AI. The role is accountable for taking complex and often ambiguous enterprise business problems and translating them into clearly defined outcomes, future-state workflows, user journeys, solution strategies, capability roadmaps, and prioritized investments that can be executed by business and technology teams.

This is not a traditional business-analysis, requirements-management, or program-management role. The leader is expected to bring a strong product mindset: start with users, decisions, and outcomes; challenge stated requirements where appropriate; develop and test hypotheses; make explicit prioritization choices; define capability and solution boundaries; and maintain accountability for the integrity of the solution strategy from discovery into delivery.

A critical aspect of the role is identifying where AI and agentic capabilities can do more than automate existing processes. The leader will help reimagine workflows around what machines can increasingly understand, analyze, generate, recommend, and execute while preserving appropriate human judgment, governance, security, and controls. The role operates with autonomy and executive influence across organizational boundaries and is expected to shape consequential transformation choices and investments.

What You'll Do

Business Discovery & Problem Framing

· Lead discovery across complex enterprise domains, working directly with senior executives, business leaders, practitioners, and technology stakeholders.

· Start with the decisions, users, business outcomes, and underlying problems that matter rather than accepting current processes, systems, reports, or stated requirements as the definition of the solution.

· Structure ambiguous business problems, develop hypotheses, identify critical assumptions, and determine what evidence is required before committing significant technology investment.

· Develop a deep understanding of user personas, decision journeys, workflows, pain points, information needs, and desired outcomes.

· Distinguish requested features from underlying business needs and constructively challenge senior stakeholders when a different approach may create greater value.

Future-State & Agentic Reimagination

· Define future-state business workflows and experiences that materially improve how work is performed and decisions are made.

· Identify where AI, agentic capabilities, analytics, automation, and modern technology can fundamentally change a workflow rather than simply digitize or accelerate the current state.

· Determine which activities should remain human-led, which should be augmented by technology, and which can increasingly be performed autonomously with appropriate governance and controls.

· Bring external perspectives and emerging practices into discovery to challenge internal assumptions and identify new possibilities.

· Use prototypes, experiments, and working solutions to validate hypotheses with users and refine the future state.

Product & Solution Strategy

· Translate business discovery into clear product and solution strategies, capability definitions, boundaries, roadmaps, and prioritized outcomes.

· Make deliberate tradeoffs across business value, user needs, complexity, feasibility, dependencies, reuse, and speed to learning.

· Establish clear value hypotheses and success measures for major capabilities and investments.

· Ensure MVPs test meaningful business and product hypotheses rather than simply deliver smaller versions of predetermined solutions.

· Define a coherent evolution path from MVP through subsequent increments and broader enterprise adoption.

Discovery to Delivery Continuity

· Translate future-state strategy into prioritized roadmaps, requirements, hypotheses, backlogs, and delivery increments.

· Partner closely with Integrated Delivery, Workstream Technology Leads, Product Owners, Solution Engineering & Architecture, Data Architecture, Data Engineering, and strategic partners.

· Maintain continuity between the original business outcome and what ultimately gets engineered and deployed.

· Participate throughout delivery to validate whether working solutions continue to solve the intended problem and recommend changes as new evidence emerges.

· Ensure solution decisions account for enterprise architecture, data, controls, security, operational requirements, and reuse without allowing current technology constraints to unnecessarily define the future state.

Executive Leadership & Capability Building

· Develop trusted relationships with senior business, Finance and Technology leaders and serve as a strategic thought partner on transformation opportunities.

· Facilitate complex discussions involving competing stakeholder perspectives and drive groups toward clear choices and decisions.

· Communicate complex business and technology concepts through clear executive narratives, recommendations, and visual artifacts.

· Influence senior stakeholders without relying solely on formal authority and constructively challenge established assumptions where necessary.

· Help establish and mature Business Discovery & Solution Strategy as an enduring leadership capability across New York Life strategic transformations.

EPP Assignment Focus

· Lead business discovery and solution strategy across priority Enterprise Planning & Performance capabilities and workstreams.

· Partner with Finance, business and Technology stakeholders to understand critical decisions, user needs, workflows and outcomes and translate them into future-state capabilities and experiences.

· Reimagine workflows using AI, agentic capabilities, data, analytics and automation, focusing on materially different ways of working rather than simply digitizing current processes.

· Shape future-state capabilities, solution boundaries, value hypotheses, priorities and roadmaps, using prototypes and other evidence to validate key assumptions.

· Work across EPP workstreams to identify common capabilities, patterns and opportunities for reuse while preserving the domain context required for individual Finance processes.

Leadership & Influence

· Lead through influence across complex, matrixed Business and Technology organizations.

· Facilitate cross-functional teams and create alignment across diverse stakeholder perspectives.

· Mentor colleagues and help strengthen discovery, solution strategy and AI-reimagination capabilities.

· Establish and evolve repeatable discovery and reimagination practices that can be applied across transformation initiatives.

What You'll Bring

Required Experience

· 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in business or technology strategy, product strategy, digital transformation, management consulting, technology, data and AI, or related disciplines, including demonstrated leadership in complex enterprise environments.

· Demonstrated experience framing ambiguous business problems and translating them into clear strategies, future-state capabilities, roadmaps, and executable initiatives.

· Strong experience working directly with senior business and technology executives and influencing consequential decisions across organizational boundaries.

· Proven ability to lead cross-functional initiatives involving business, technology, engineering, data, architecture, operations, and risk and control stakeholders.

· Experience translating customer, user, or business needs into future-state workflows, capabilities, and technology-enabled solutions.

· Demonstrated ability to prioritize among competing opportunities and make explicit choices based on business value, user outcomes, evidence, feasibility, dependencies, and speed to learning.

· Strong understanding of modern technology, data, analytics, automation, generative AI, and agentic capabilities and their potential to transform business workflows and decision-making.

· Experience moving initiatives from early-stage ambiguity and discovery through solution definition, roadmap development, delivery, and value realization.

· Experience operating within large federated or matrixed enterprises and navigating complex stakeholder environments.

· Strong analytical, facilitation, communication, and executive-presentation capabilities, with demonstrated learning agility and ability to rapidly develop domain depth.

Required Skills

· Product Mindset - Starts with users, problems, decisions, and outcomes rather than features, current systems, or predetermined solutions.

· Strategic Problem Framing - Structures ambiguity, identifies underlying problems, develops hypotheses, and separates symptoms from root causes.

· Business Discovery - Uses stakeholder engagement, data, observation, research, and experimentation to develop an evidence-based understanding of the problem and opportunity.

· Future-State Reimagination - Challenges current-state assumptions and defines materially different ways of working rather than incremental digitization.

· AI & Agentic Transformation - Understands how AI changes what is possible within workflows and can distinguish meaningful transformation from superficial application of AI.

· Product & Solution Strategy - Defines capability and solution boundaries, roadmaps, MVPs, prioritization choices, value hypotheses, and measures of success.

· Executive Influence - Constructively challenges senior stakeholders, synthesizes competing perspectives, and creates alignment around difficult choices.

· Business & Technology Fluency - Connects business strategy to data, architecture, engineering, analytics, AI, controls, and enterprise constraints without defaulting to technology-first solutions.

· Systems Thinking - Understands how process, organization, data, technology, controls, and user behavior interact as an integrated system.

· Value Orientation - Maintains focus on measurable business outcomes and value realization rather than activity, features, or project completion.

· Learning Agility - Rapidly develops domain understanding and adapts hypotheses and recommendations as evidence changes.

Preferred Experience

· Experience working in one or more complex business domains such as Finance/FP&A, enterprise performance management, insurance, asset management/investments, financial planning, banking, or other financial-services environments.

· Experience in business discovery, solution strategy, design thinking, service design, digital transformation, management consulting or related disciplines.

· Experience shaping AI-enabled, data-driven or agentic transformation within complex or highly regulated environments.

· Experience working with multidisciplinary business and Technology teams using rapid prototyping, iterative validation and outcome-based roadmaps.

· Demonstrated ability to rapidly develop domain depth and apply transferable discovery and transformation methods across different business contexts.

Why This Role

· Shape strategic enterprise transformations. Influence what gets built and why by framing the highest-value problems, defining future-state capabilities, and making explicit prioritization choices.

· Reimagine work, not just technology. Challenge current workflows and identify where data, analytics, AI, and agentic capabilities can fundamentally improve decisions and outcomes.

· Operate at enterprise scale. Work directly with senior leaders across business, Finance, Technology, Data, Architecture, Risk, and strategic partners.

· Create continuity from strategy to execution. Maintain the integrity of the business outcome from discovery and solution strategy through delivery and value realization.

· Build an enduring capability. Help establish Business Discovery & Solution Strategy as a repeatable leadership discipline that can be deployed across New York Life strategic transformations.

Job Level: LEVELPF6

Pay Transparency

Salary Range: $185,000-$264,500 

Overtime eligible: Exempt 

Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes 

Sales bonus eligible: No 

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual’s experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.

Company Overview 

At New York Life, our 180-year legacy of purpose and integrity fuels our future. As we evolve into a more technology-, data-, and AI-enabled organization, we remain grounded in the values that drive lasting impact. 

Our diverse business portfolio creates opportunities to make a difference across industries and communities—inviting bold thinking, collaborative problem-solving, and purpose-driven innovation. Here, you’ll find the rare balance of long-standing stability and forward momentum, supported by an inclusive team that honors tradition while embracing progress. 

As a Fortune 100 mutual company, we offer a place to grow your skills, contribute to meaningful work, and deliver solutions that matter. Your ideas drive what’s next, and your growth powers it. 

Our Benefits

We provide a full package of benefits for employees – and have unique offerings for a modern workforce, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from our employees, we continue to refine and add benefits to our offering, so that you can flourish both inside and outside of work. Click here to discover more about our comprehensive benefit options or visit our NYL Benefits Site. 

Our Commitment to Inclusion

At New York Life, fostering an inclusive workplace is fundamental to who we are and how we serve our communities. We have a longstanding commitment to creating an environment where individuals can contribute their best and succeed together. This foundation is rooted in our core values of humanity and integrity, ensuring that every employee feels valued and supported. By embracing a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we achieve greater success and fulfill our promise of providing financial security and peace of mind to families across all communities. Click here to learn more about New York Life’s leadership in this space.​

Recognized as one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies, New York Life is committed to improving local communities through a culture of employee giving and volunteerism, supported by the Foundation. We're proud that due to our mutuality, we operate in the best interests of our policy owners. To learn more about career opportunities at New York Life, please visit the Careers page of www.NewYorkLife.com.

Job Requisition ID: 95172