Joel Simpson
Financial Services
Carroll,OH
Summary
Servant-leader who places high value on healthy, genuine, professional relationships with associates and creating and maintaining a culture of care, teamwork, diversity, inclusion, trust, and respect. Experience leading successful, diverse teams that are member focused and have demonstrated superior flexibility to meet or exceed expectations during unprecedented times. Reduced unit cost while increasing associate engagement (2021 Gallup Survey = 91st quartile), development, and work-life balance. Collaborated with business partners to drive multiple innovative solutions by leveraging existing and cutting edge technology to meet a rapidly evolving marketplace and operations environment. Passionate about being the best at what I do and helping the organization rise to new heights.
Overview
11
11
years of professional experience
6
6
years of post-secondary education
Work History
Operations Manager
Nationwide Financial Services
Grove City, OH
01.2022 - Current
- I recently participated in a manager rotation and now lead a team of 17 associates with an average tenure of 23 years, whose primary function is to assemble, inspect, and mail life insurance policies, annuity contracts, confirmation of payment activity, and a variety of other correspondence related items
- Annually, we mail approximately 70,000 contracts/policies/correspondence with a quality score that exceeds our 99% benchmark
- The Policy Distribution Team recently merged with a segment of our NY Regulation 60 Team, and we are in the process of cross-functional training. In an effort to manage expense across the department, the Policy Distribution Team loans associates to other business units (New Business, Member Services Support, Billing and Payments, and Policy Administration) as the need arises and demand/capacity warrants
- Despite the challenges the workforce has experienced, the Policy Distribution Team’s Gallup score has increased and is currently above the 75th percentile of the companies that participate in the Gallup Engagement Survey
- This is a “Mission Critical” team, meaning that throughout the pandemic they had to continue physically reporting to the office
Operations Manager
Nationwide Financial Life Insurance
Grandview Yard, OH
06.2016 - 01.2022
- I led a high performing team of 20 associates whose primary function is to process billing related transactions
- Billing is the highest transactional team in the six-team department which results in a large impact on departmental metrics (quality, service level agreement, unit cost, etc.)
- Billing processes approximately 200,000 unique requests annually and has exceeded our quality goal of 99% for three consecutive years
- I have reduced the overtime expense of my team in consecutive years by at least 20% and am on track in 2021 to further reduce by 40-50%
- During my tenure on the billing team, I have implemented or improved the following: a new administration platform (OIPA); a new billing platform (SAP); a new phone and email queue management platform (SalesForce); leveraged automated processing (robotics) for the two highest volume transactions; implemented electronic signatures; reduced, consolidated, and eliminated in some cases, the number of various forms; was a key player and subject matter expert in creating, executing, and maintaining a solution to meet federal and state guidelines that mandated insurance companies provide premium relief to members impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and allow repayment plans for missed premium (in some cases up to eighteen month repayment plans)
- In the first two quarters of 2021, the financial impact of the various lean projects and efficiencies (A3s and quick hits) gained on the billing team is approximately $73,500 with more projects in flight as well as in queue
- The above efforts have led to reduced overtime, improved time-service, and increased associate engagement
- In this role, there is an emphasis on protecting member and partner data, mitigating fraud and anti-money laundering activities, enforcing prohibited forms of payment guidelines, and a heightened attention to irregular or suspicious activity or patterns in regards to financial activity
Sr. Financial Services Team Lead
Nationwide Financial Life Insurance
Grandview Yard, OH
02.2011 - 06.2016
- As the Team Lead, I managed the day to day operations of the Billing and Payments Processing Team
- I facilitated cross functional training and provided coaching and feedback on production and quality metrics
- I created and documented standard operating procedures, work and job aids, and step-by-step procedures
- I gathered various reports and data for my direct leader to ensure that he had the support and materials for business cases, targeted coaching opportunities for the team, and feedback to share with other leaders and business units
- I was the subject matter expert and liaison for Life Billing related projects within my department and the enterprise
- In this role, I condensed 477 manual letters into less than 100 and help stand up our manual correspondence platform (Intuition), increased member retention by improving initial premium processing, introduced and implemented credit card payment capability (from zero in 2011 to over 7,000 in Q1 2021), increased the utilization of pay-by-phone ACH transactions from 17,500 in 2011 to over 88,000 in 2019 (last year prior to automation, which I partnered with Process Improvement to do a proof-of-concept case with one- time ACH requests), among other projects and quick hits
Education
Master of Divinity -
Trinity Baptist College
Jacksonville, FL 01.2021 - Current
Bachelor of Science - Pastoral Theology
Trinity Baptist College
Jacksonville, FL 05.2000 - 05.2005
Skills
- Leadership
Timeline
Operations Manager
Nationwide Financial Services
01.2022 - Current
Master of Divinity -
Trinity Baptist College
01.2021 - Current
Operations Manager
Nationwide Financial Life Insurance
06.2016 - 01.2022
Sr. Financial Services Team Lead
Nationwide Financial Life Insurance
02.2011 - 06.2016
Bachelor of Science - Pastoral Theology
Trinity Baptist College
05.2000 - 05.2005
Volunteering/Community Involvement
I am a strong advocate for serving in the community as a team (and as individuals); for example, Mid-Ohio Food Bank, The Ronald McDonald House, adopting families for Thanksgiving meals, Christmas gifts, etc.
Volunteering/Community Involvement
I am a strong advocate for serving in the community as a team (and as individuals); for example, Mid-Ohio Food Bank, The Ronald McDonald House, adopting families for Thanksgiving meals, Christmas gifts, etc.
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