[Hiring] Director, Catastrophe Risk Modeling @Nationwide

Role Description

As a team member in Finance at Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company with nearly $70 billion in annual sales, the opportunities are endless! Let Nationwide help create your career journey! At Nationwide®, “on your side” goes beyond just words. Our customers are at the center of everything we do and we’re looking for associates who are passionate about delivering extraordinary care.

Nationwide’s Enterprise Catastrophe Risk Management team is responsible for quantifying and managing the company’s exposure to natural catastrophe and severe weather events across the enterprise. The Director, Catastrophe Risk Modeling will manage a team, responsible for modeling physical assets and property exposures insured by Nationwide, running them through leading third-party catastrophe models and internal tools to estimate the probability and financial impact of hurricanes, convective storms, wildfires, and other perils on an annual basis.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead a high-performing catastrophe analytics team focused on probability modeling and research, overseeing day-to-day execution of enterprise cat models, workflows, and deliverables while developing and mentoring a team of modelers and analysts.
• Own the end-to-end production and enhancement of catastrophe models, including running RMS/Verisk platforms and related severe event modeling tools, managing model upgrades, and ensuring that outputs are accurate, reproducible, and aligned with enterprise standards.
• Translate complex model results into clear, actionable insights for senior leaders in P&C, Reinsurance, and Enterprise Risk—supporting decisions on risk appetite, capital, reinsurance strategy, and treaty structures.
• Drive innovation in catastrophe risk analytics by incorporating new data sources, advanced statistical and machine learning techniques, and scenario analyses to improve how Nationwide understands and prices catastrophe risk.
• Foster a strong, trust-based team culture and effective change management, empowering team members to run with their work, escalating appropriately, and continuing the positive, stable culture that exists today.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in actuarial science, mathematics, statistics, engineering, or a related quantitative field required.
• ACAS or FCAS designation strongly preferred; candidates with equivalent quantitative credentials and deep catastrophe risk experience will be considered.
• Significant experience in catastrophe risk modeling for P&C insurance (e.g., RMS, Verisk/AIR, or similar platforms); severe event modeling certifications (e.g., SEEM) or equivalent experience are a plus.
• Strong hands-on skills with SQL and advanced Excel, with the ability to manage and interrogate large, complex datasets and model outputs; experience with R and/or Python for statistical modeling and automation preferred.
• Proven experience leading analytics, actuarial, or modeling teams, ideally 5+ associates, including responsibility for performance, coaching, and career development.
• Demonstrated success building, transforming, or stabilizing teams—promoting a healthy, collaborative culture and enabling strong performers to do their best work without heavy-handed performance management.
• Deep understanding of P&C insurance and reinsurance, especially property lines and catastrophe-exposed portfolios, with the ability to connect model outputs to underwriting, portfolio management, and capital decisions.
• Excellent communication and storytelling skills, able to explain complex modeling concepts and uncertainty to non-technical stakeholders, influence decisions, and represent catastrophe risk in cross-functional forums.

Requirements

• Typically, seven or more years of related work experience in financial risk modeling or actuarial functions.
• Demonstrated people leadership capabilities.
• Strong understanding of machine learning, stochastic processes, Monte Carlo simulations, sampling methods and other statistical techniques applicable to specialized risk modeling.
• Confirmed mathematical knowledge of specialized risk models such as those used in hedging, economic scenario generation, catastrophe, credit risk, etc.
• Advanced understanding of risk management operations such as asset-liability management, portfolio risk assessment, hedging, etc.
• Sophisticated written and verbal communication skills.
• Advanced proficiency with Excel and common statistical software such as R, SAS, Python or MATLAB.

Benefits

• Medical/dental/vision.
• Life insurance, short and long term disability coverage.
• Paid time off with newly hired associates receiving a minimum of 18 days paid time off each full calendar year pro-rated quarterly based on hire date.
• Nine paid holidays.
• 8 hours of Lifetime paid time off.
• 8 hours of Unity Day paid time off.
• 401(k) with company match.
• Company-paid pension plan.
• Business casual attire.
• And more.