AVP Affinity Technology

We are a leading financial services provider committed to making decisions easier and lives better for our customers and colleagues around the world. From our environmental initiatives to our community investments, we lead with values throughout our business. To help us stand out, we help you step up, because when colleagues are healthy, respected and meaningfully challenged, we all thrive. Discover how you can grow your career, make impact and drive real change with our Winning Team today.

Working Arrangement

We are a leading financial services provider committed to making decisions easier and lives better for our customers and colleagues around the world. From our environmental initiatives to our community investments, we lead with values throughout our business. To help us stand out, we help you step up, because when colleagues are healthy, respected and meaningfully challenged, we all thrive. Discover how you can grow your career, make impact and drive real change with our Winning Team today.

Working Arrangement

Job Description

Join our Individual Insurance Technology Leadership Team

Affinity Markets serves 3 million customers through advisors, brokers, sponsors, agents, and direct online. We offer a wide breadth of protection products, including life, living benefits, mortgage creditor, health, dental, and travel insurance. In 2023, we onboarded the largest sponsor group in Company history; we now have the opportunity to reimagine and transform how we enable our customers to interact with us providing strong digital experience and stable technology solutions.

Technology is a critical enabler to get us from where we are today, to where we're going, which involves driving the art of the possible in technology solution delivery. This role reports to the VP, Head of Individual Insurance Technology and will be a member of the Affinity Markets Leadership team. The successful candidate will own the roadmap and day-to-day delivery for digital technology solutions and administration systems that enable our Affinity business. The incumbent will lead a high caliber team of technology professionals and be a champion of technology driving organizational change which is critical to the successful delivery of the overall Affinity Technology strategy. The role will provide direction, oversight & program leadership to the technology teams ensuring timely and efficient deployment of applications, mitigating technical debt, and ensuring systems are safe, sound, and secure. This leadership role is an incredible opportunity to have a significant, strategic impact on our organization, our distribution partners, and our customers.

This role partners closely with the Head of Affinity Operations and the Head of Affinity Product & Platforms to provide digital technology solutions that enable our customers and partners to interact with us 24/7. The role will also serve as a connecting point to Global and Canadian Segment Shared Service Technology teams.

Key Accountabilities:

• Partner with Product Ownership to develop technology roadmaps that deliver on business strategies and market requirements.
• Represent and lead the architecture, development, testing, implementation, and delivery of large-scale technology solutions with adherence to Global Strategy standards and accountable for Key Performance & Key Risk Indicators as well as Outcomes and Results.
• With input from business leaders and Value Stream Partners, lead the prioritization of work efforts within, and across, Value Streams while ensuring technical priorities are given equal focus keeping systems safe, sound, and secure
• Deliver on Technology specific financial and Strategic Cost Management (SCM) targets
• Recruit, retain and empower an impactful technology team that is highly engaged, proactive and business outcome focused.
• Model our Manulife values to drive the ongoing change required to evolve Canadian Technology organization; develop and drive a culture of continuous improvement and innovation.
• Manage talent across the team for development and succession and rotate expertise throughout the team.
• Manage key vendor relationships and contracts.
• Achieve and sustain employee engagement scores.

Job Requirements:

• Minimum of 7-10 years of progressive leadership experience in technology strategy execution for large scale organizations; experience in the Insurance industry preferred
• Demonstrated success in leading transformational changes within an engineering culture; an ability to navigate a complex, highly regulated, marketing focused, growth business.
• Demonstrated ability to develop and implement a technology strategy and tactics to drive business goals, in collaboration with external and internal partners.
• Strong financial and business insight with demonstrated ability to manage large technology budgets.
• Demonstrated success at senior cross-functional project delivery involving multiple technical teams, partners, and business functions, including Risk.
• Strong Portfolio Management Skills, including the ability to manage multiple complex projects at the same time and under tight deadlines, operating in a cross-functional environment.
• Exposure and experience in such areas as agile, digital, emerging technologies, and Legacy (e.g., mainframe systems).
• Exceptional communication skills with a talent for engaging both technical and non-technical collaborators.
• Strong vendor management experience and skills with demonstrated success establishing long-term cost-effective partnerships. Experience in incident management is advantageous.
• Bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, management of information systems or equivalent experience; bilingualism is beneficial.

Technical Leadership:

• Software engineering practices & approaches.
• Agile Methodologies and experience with Delivery processes.
• Solution Focused – focused on results and leads team to deliver solutions that deliver business & technology value.
• Technology Savvy – highly capable and informed on technology, demonstrating innovative ideas to and deliver results with the future in mind.

Leadership Attributes:

• Change Enablement.
• Solution Focused; capable of delivering results, leading a diverse technical team.
• Ability to communicate at all levels to both technical and non-technical partners.
• Leading with Excellence and Drive; Motivated and driven to getting things done to a high standard.
• Influence & Persuasion.
• Collaboration.
• Transparent leadership.

Working Condition:

• Some travel as required.
• Primary staff locations are Waterloo, Toronto (Canada)

What can we offer?

• A competitive salary and benefits packages.
• A growth trajectory that extends upward and outward, encouraging you to follow your passions and learn new skills.
• A focus on growing your career path with us.
• Flexible work policies and strong work-life balance.
• Professional development and leadership opportunities.

Our commitment to you:

Values-first culture
We lead with our Values every day and bring them to life together.

Boundless opportunity
We create opportunities to learn and grow at every stage of your career.

Continuous innovation
We invite you to help redefine the future of financial services.

Delivering the promise of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We foster an inclusive workplace where everyone thrives.

Championing Corporate Citizenship
We build a business that benefits all partners and has a positive social and environmental impact.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Asia, Canada, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2022, we had more than 40,000 employees, over 116,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 34 million customers. At the end of 2022, we had $1.3 trillion (US$1.0 trillion) in assets under management and administration, including total invested assets of $0.4 trillion (US $0.3 trillion), and segregated funds net assets of $0.3 trillion (US$0.3 trillion). We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges, and under '945' in Hong Kong.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife /John Hancock , we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour , ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process . All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies . To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact .

Salary & Benefits

The annual base salary for this role is listed below.

Primary Location

Salary range is expected to be between

If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact for the salary range for your location. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We are a leading financial services provider committed to making decisions easier and lives better for our customers and colleagues around the world. From our environmental initiatives to our community investments, we lead with values throughout our business. To help us stand out, we help you step up, because when colleagues are healthy, respected and meaningfully challenged, we all thrive.

We offer work that challenges and makes a difference within a flexible and supportive environment, so you can help make decisions easier and lives better for our customers.

We're proud of our accomplishments and recognitions. Recent awards include:

• Best Place to Work in Asia-Pacific 2022
• Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality 2022

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Discover how you can grow your career, make impact and drive real change with our Winning Team today at .