Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per week
Vice President, Field Compensation
The Vice President, Field Compensation is responsible for defining and evolving New York Life's Field Compensation strategy, operating model, and supporting capabilities to support the company's long-term business strategy and the success of the field distribution organization.
Reporting to the head of Field Experience leadership, this executive leads the strategy, governance, and evolution of compensation and recognition programs for Agents and Field Leaders. The role serves as the enterprise leader responsible for the Field Compensation strategy, balancing business priorities, user experience, innovation, regulatory requirements, and financial stewardship.
Success in this role requires a strategic leader who embraces digital innovation, uses data to inform decisions, and recognizes opportunities to apply technology and AI to improve the field compensation experience, simplify complex processes, and deliver stronger business outcomes.
The Vice President partners closely with Field Leadership, Human Resources, Technology, Finance, Legal, Compliance, and Operations to ensure compensation programs remain competitive, sustainable, enabled through modern capabilities, and aligned with the evolving needs of the business.
Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Strategy & Leadership
• Define the long-term strategy and vision for New York Life's Field Compensation.
• Own the enterprise roadmap for compensation and recognition programs, ensuring alignment with business priorities and future business priorities.
• Translate evolving business needs into scalable compensation solutions that improve the experience for agents, field leaders, and key stakeholders.
• Continuously evaluate market trends, competitive practices, and emerging capabilities and technologies to evolve the capability.
Business Transformation & Innovation
• Champion the evolution of the field compensation by advancing simpler processes, modern ways of working, and enabled through modern capabilities solutions.
• Partner with enterprise partners to prioritize and deliver enhancements across compensation systems and capabilities.
• Identify opportunities to apply digital capabilities, advanced analytics, and AI to simplify work, strengthen decision-making, enhance user experiences, and improve organizational effectiveness.
• Lead continuous improvement efforts that simplify processes, reduce complexity, and enhance service delivery.
• Champion investments that strengthen the field compensation and improve the experience of agents and field leaders.
Compensation Strategy & Governance
• Lead the evolution of field compensation, incentive, commission, and recognition strategies that support business performance.
• Ensure compensation programs remain competitive, financially sustainable, and aligned with New York Life's compensation philosophy.
• Establish governance frameworks that promote consistency, transparency, compliance, and effective decision-making.
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Finance, and Risk to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements and enterprise governance standards.
Data, Analytics & Business Insights
• Leverage data and analytics to evaluate compensation effectiveness, field performance, productivity, and business outcomes.
• Define meaningful performance metrics and dashboards to measure program effectiveness, adoption, field productivity, financial performance, and business outcomes.
• Apply data-driven insights to identify opportunities for innovation, improve decision-making, and optimize program effectiveness.
• Promote data-informed decision-making, experimentation, and continuous learning across the function.
Executive Partnership & Enterprise Leadership
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior executives on compensation strategy, capability evolution, and organizational effectiveness.
• Influence enterprise decisions through strong business acumen, executive presence, and collaborative leadership.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives that require alignment across multiple stakeholders and business functions.
• Lead enterprise change by building stakeholder commitment, communicating a compelling vision, and ensuring successful adoption of new strategies, capabilities and ways of working.
Operational Excellence
• Ensure compensation operations deliver accurate, timely, compliant and scalable execution.
• Drive operational excellence through effective governance, standardized processes, and continuous improvement.
• Manage compensation budgets, forecasting, financial modeling, and vendor partnerships supporting the capability.
• Ensure operational processes scale effectively to meet the evolving needs of the business.
Talent Leadership
• Build and inspire a high-performing team that embraces innovation, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Foster an inclusive culture that encourages collaboration, learning, and the development of future leaders.
• Develop future leaders while building organizational capability in compensation strategy, analytics, business enablement and business consulting.
What You'll Bring
Experience
• 10+ years of progressive leadership experience in compensation, incentive strategy, business transformation, operations, HR, business capability management, or related business functions, with experience using technology and data to improve business outcomes.
• Demonstrated success leading enterprise transformation and modernization initiatives.
• Experience partnering across HR, Technology, Finance, Legal, Operations, and executive leadership to deliver enterprise-wide solutions.
• Experience leading large-scale cross-functional initiatives requiring influence, collaboration, and change leadership.
• Experience within financial services, insurance, wealth management, or another highly regulated industry preferred.
• Master's degree or MBA preferred.
• Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) or related certification preferred.
Executive Leadership Competencies
Transformational Leadership
• Creates a compelling vision for the future and successfully leads organizational transformation.
• Challenges conventional thinking and drives innovation while balancing execution, risk, and business outcomes.
• Leads effectively through ambiguity and organizational change.
Talent Leadership
• Builds inclusive, high-performing teams through coaching, development, and succession planning.
• Creates an environment where people thrive through accountability, collaboration, and continuous learning.
Innovation & Digital Mindset
• Embraces innovation, data, digital capabilities, and AI to improve decision-making, simplify work, and deliver stronger business outcomes for employees and the field.
• Recognizes opportunities to apply technology, data, and AI to improve employee experiences, operational effectiveness, and business outcomes.
• Champions innovation and encourages adoption of new capabilities and ways of working across the organization.
Strategic & Business Acumen
• Uses market intelligence, financial insight, and data-driven insights to shape strategy and guide enterprise decisions.
• Balances customer experience, operational excellence, governance, and business value when establishing priorities.
Executive Influence
• Builds trusted partnerships across senior leadership and effectively navigates complex stakeholder environments.
• Communicates with clarity, inspires confidence, and influences decisions across the enterprise.
Strategic & Business Acumen
• Uses market intelligence, financial insight, and data-driven insights to shape strategy and guide enterprise decisions.
• Balances customer experience, operational excellence, governance, and business value when establishing priorities.
Executive Influence
• Builds trusted partnerships across senior leadership and effectively navigates complex stakeholder environments.
• Communicates with clarity, inspires confidence, and influences decisions across the enterprise.
Job Level: LEVEL VP
Pay Transparency
Salary Range: $250,000 - $300,000
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.
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: 94079