[Hiring] National Real Estate Practice Leader @IMA Financial Group

Role Description

The National Real Estate Practice Leader is responsible for advancing IMA’s national presence, growth, and expertise across the real estate industry. This leader brings deep knowledge of real estate risks, sophisticated carrier and market relationships, and a strategic mindset oriented around complex property portfolios, development activity, and evolving economic and regulatory conditions. The leader serves as a highly visible resource across geographies and builds a durable practice capability that markets, producers, service teams, and clients can use across IMA.

Essential Responsibilities:

• Growth, Production & Market Impact:
  • Drive national new business growth across priority real estate sectors, which may include multifamily, affordable housing, commercial office, industrial and logistics, retail, mixed-use, hospitality, development, and property management.
  • Actively support producers on complex real estate opportunities, including strategy, program structure, property and catastrophe risk, valuation, builder’s risk, casualty, environmental risk, cyber, management liability, claims, and alternative risk considerations.
  • Provide direct involvement on high-value pursuits, including complex portfolios, catastrophe-exposed assets, development projects, and organizations with sophisticated risk financing needs.
  • Participate in internal business reviews, prospect meetings, client presentations, and RFP responses, representing IMA’s national real estate expertise.
  • Bring forward timely insights on real estate, capital markets, insurance conditions, regulatory developments, climate risk, construction costs, and economic trends, and apply them to client and growth strategy.
• Real Estate Specialty Strategy & National Alignment:
  • Develop and execute the national strategic plan for the Real Estate Practice, ensuring alignment with IMA’s enterprise growth priorities.
  • Establish a clear point of view on priority client segments, geographic opportunities, differentiation, investment needs, and where the practice can win.
  • Partner with market and sales leaders to translate opportunity into focused plans with outcomes, owners, milestones, talent needs, service needs, and resource requirements.
  • Align service standards, technical expectations, and client delivery models across participating IMA markets to support a consistent client experience.
  • Assess the current state of the practice and recommend where to scale, strengthen, incubate, maintain, partner, or stop.
• Carrier, Market & Industry Relationships:
  • Build and maintain deep relationships with property and casualty carriers, wholesale and program partners, alternative risk providers, and other markets relevant to real estate clients.
  • Strengthen market access and carrier alignment for complex portfolios, catastrophe-exposed assets, development projects, and difficult or specialized risks.
  • Build trusted relationships with real estate associations, centers of influence, lenders, capital partners, and other industry stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with carrier and external partners to bring useful market intelligence, benchmarking, risk insights, and new solutions to IMA’s clients and internal teams.
  • Represent IMA in relevant real estate forums and bring emerging client needs, market changes, and partnership opportunities back into the organization.
• Talent Development & Capability Building:
  • Define the production, service, technical, analytics, claims, risk control, and leadership capabilities required for the practice to succeed.
  • Actively support specialty recruiting by identifying talent pools, target organizations, role profiles, and high-potential candidates, and by participating in interviews and selection.
  • Partner with Market Presidents and business leaders on onboarding, deployment, development, promotion, and retention of real estate talent.
  • Mentor and develop real estate-specialized talent across production, account management, technical placement, analytics, claims, and risk control.
  • Build a sustainable national bench of real estate experts and future leaders, with deliberate development and succession planning.
  • Reduce reliance on any one individual or market by converting expertise into repeatable solutions, playbooks, tools, training, service standards, and delivery models.
• Collaboration, Growth Enablement & Internal Integration:
  • Serve as a consultative growth partner to Market Presidents, Commercial Lines leaders, sales leaders, producers, and client teams.
  • Engage early in strategic prospects, complex client needs, and major opportunities to pressure-test assumptions, shape pursuit strategy, and connect the right expertise and resources.
  • Increase producer confidence and effectiveness through real estate insight, practical coaching, relationship support, and clear access to practice resources.
  • Lead national practice calls and cross-market collaboration, promoting knowledge sharing and the transfer of proven approaches across IMA.
  • Partner with Marketing on focused thought leadership, events, association involvement, and market-facing content aligned with practice strategy.
  • Help markets replicate proven growth plays while adapting them to local asset classes, relationships, talent, and execution realities.
• Performance, Accountability & Enterprise Leadership:
  • Establish meaningful goals and expectations for growth, talent, capability, client value, activity, and execution.
  • Maintain a regular review cadence with market and enterprise stakeholders, surface risks and barriers early, and recommend adjustments based on evidence.
  • Create shared accountability across specialty, market, sales, and service leadership by clarifying ownership, milestones, resource needs, and decision points.
  • Represent the practice in enterprise planning and provide an objective view of opportunity, capacity, performance, and investment needs.
  • Measure success through the capability and results of the practice, not simply the individual activity of the Practice Leader.

Qualifications

• Extensive real estate-related brokerage, underwriting, risk management, consulting, or adjacent experience, with strong technical knowledge of real estate exposures and insurance solutions.
• Demonstrated credibility across relevant real estate sectors, client operating models, risk exposures, insurance markets, and competitive dynamics.
• Experience supporting complex real estate portfolios, sophisticated placements, development projects, strategic pursuits, or industry-specific solutions.
• Strong knowledge of property and catastrophe risk, valuation, builder’s risk, complex casualty, contractual risk transfer, claims, and alternative risk considerations.
• Demonstrated ability to build senior-level relationships with real estate executives, clients, carrier leaders, associations, centers of influence, and strategic partners.
• Proven ability to lead through influence across markets, functions, and reporting lines.
• Experience recruiting, developing, mentoring, or deploying specialized talent.
• Ability to convert technical knowledge into practical solutions, clear communication, scalable tools, and measurable growth or client value.

Competencies

• Real Estate Industry and Business Acumen
• Strategic Leadership and Commercial Judgment
• Capability Building and Talent Development
• Market Partnership and Growth Enablement
• Relationship Building with Real Estate Executives, Carriers, and Industry Partners
• Complex Client and Pursuit Leadership
• Enterprise Collaboration and Shared Accountability
• Effective Communication and Executive Presence
• Execution Discipline and Follow-Through

Salary Range

$250,000 - $350,000 USD

Compensation & Benefits

Being a part of IMA has its benefits. When you become part of the IMA family, you become eligible to take part in our valuable benefits and rewards package designed to benefit you, your family, and your life. Our plans are cost-effective, convenient and provide progressive ways for staying healthy, protecting loved ones, pursuing financial security and living a full and balanced life. This role is eligible for the following:

• Annual Performance Bonus
• Stock Purchase
• Medical Plans
• Prescription Drugs
• Dental
• Vision
• Family Assistance Program
• FSA
• HSA
• Pre-Tax Parking Plan
• 401(k)
• Life/AD&D
• Accident
• Critical Illness
• Hospital Indemnity
• Long Term Care
• Short-term Disability
• Long-term Disability
• Business Travel Accident
• Identity Theft
• Paid Time Off
• Flexible Work Options
• Paid Holidays
• Sabbatical
• Gift Matching
• Well-Being Stipend
• Personal and Professional Development

Why Join IMA?

• We’ve built a reputation for putting our associates first.
• What if we told you that you could be an integral part of an entrepreneurial, expanding company, develop lasting relationships, earn competitive benefits, plus claim part ownership? It’s this unique ownership business model that makes working at IMA so appealing.
• We work in teams. We sell in teams. We win and prosper as a team.
• We provide support systems and resources that enable each of our associates to focus on what they do best. And as an independent company based in the Midwest, we’re big enough to write business all over the world and small enough to implement your ideas quickly.
• We are recognized nationally as a leader in our industry.

This Job Description is not a complete statement of all duties and responsibilities comprising this position.

The IMA Financial Group, Inc. provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, The IMA Financial Group, Inc. complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities.