Agency & Commissions Director

At EMC, we’re all about working together to make an impact. As part of our team, you’ll have the opportunity to grow, contribute, and gain experience that matters. We strive to be caring leaders, close partners, and responsive experts—always supporting each other to do our best work. Join us, and let’s improve lives together.

**This position is eligible to work from home anywhere in the United States, preferred candidate will be located in Iowa.**

Essential functions:

• Serves as the business unit authority and subject matter expert on producer licensing, carrier appointments, and contracting processes across all distribution channels.

• Designs and executes a scalable licensing and onboarding strategy to support rapid partner expansion and independent agent growth.

• Builds streamlined, end-to-end producer onboarding experiences (contracting, appointment, and readiness) to reduce time-to-sell.

• Partners closely with distribution partners to ensure alignment on contracting requirements, licensing visibility, and compliance expectations.

• Leads onboarding/offboarding readiness efforts for new distribution relationships, including state approvals, appointment readiness and offboarding/termination processes.

• Drives continuous improvement in onboarding cycle times, processing accuracy, and producer experience.

• Monitor agents and distribution within systems to regularly offboard/inactivate non-performing agencies to manage agent counts and platforms expenses.

• Responds to alerts from the Compliance team to adapt licensing strategy as regulatory environments and business priorities evolve to ensure compliance with state insurance departments, NAIC guidance and internal policies.

• Leads the agent appeal review team including representatives from various departments/teams and communicates outcomes. Resolves escalations and disputes with urgency and professionalism to preserve partner trust.

• Serves as the steward of all commission operations, ensuring accuracy, transparency, and alignment with company growth strategy and partner expectations.

• Oversees complex producer hierarchy management, including uplines, downlines, splits, and overrides.

• Leads the design and build-out of licensing, contracting, and commission operations, establishing foundational processes, controls, and scalable infrastructure in collaboration with operations leadership.

• Works with data governance to define data standards and governance to ensure accuracy of producer records, hierarchies, licensing status, and compensation structures.

• Acts as a key operational leader interfacing directly with distribution partners, building strong relationships and serving as an escalation point.

• Collaborates with Distribution, Compliance, Legal, Finance, IT, and Product teams to ensure end-to-end alignment.

• Builds and leads a lean, high-performing team capable of scaling with company growth.

• Fosters a culture of accountability, responsiveness, and continuous improvement in a startup environment.

• Establishes clear performance goals tied to speed, accuracy, compliance, and partner satisfaction.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent relevant experience

• Ten years of experience in insurance operations, licensing, commissions, or distribution support

• Prior experience with annuity products required

• Proven experience building or scaling licensing and/or commission operations in a startup or high-growth environment strongly preferred

• Experience with producer onboarding (contracting, licensing, appointments) and complex hierarchy structures, including implementing or optimizing licensing and commissions platforms

• Industry designations (e.g., FLMI, LOMA) preferred

Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities:

• Advanced knowledge of multi-state licensing, appointments, and regulatory requirements

• Strong understanding of producer distribution models, hierarchies, and compensation design

• Strong knowledge of onboarding and commission platforms (e.g., SureLC, SuranceBay, Vertafore, Agent Sync or similar)

• Ability to build operational processes from the ground up and scale effectively

• Strong operational mindset balancing speed, control, and partner experience

• Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills with strong attention to detail and ability to make decisions

• Excellent relationship management skills with external distribution partners

• Strong communication and influencing skills across all levels

• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, and collaboration tools

• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a high-growth, fast-paced environment

The hiring salary range for this position will vary based on geographic location, falling within either of the following:

A hiring range represents a subset of the full salary range. The actual salary will depend on several factors, including relevant education, skills, and experience of an applicant, geographic location, and business needs.

For information relating to the benefits EMC Team Members receive as part of a comprehensive rewards package, please visit www.emcins.com/careers.

Our employment practices are in accordance with the laws that prohibit discrimination due to race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, religion, age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, veteran status, active military status, citizenship status, marital status or any other consideration made unlawful by federal, state, or local laws.

All of our locations are tobacco free including in company vehicles.