Head of Business Readiness North America

About the RoleAs Head of Business Readiness, North America, you will lead the strategic function responsible for preparing financial operations teams to effectively absorb and sustain change across Canadian and U.S. markets. Immediate expertise in Canadian financial operations and regulatory environments is highly valued, as this role plays a critical part in ensuring readiness across both Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions.This role sits at the intersection of client delivery, operations, and product/platform transformation. You’ll oversee readiness efforts across a broad range of initiatives, from evolving client propositions to full platform implementation and enhanced service outsourcing, while also driving readiness tied to platform modernization, operational transformation, and regulatory preparedness to ensure seamless adoption and sustained resilience.Leading a growing team of specialists, you'll be accountable for designing the readiness strategy, embedding scalable processes, aligning cross-functional stakeholders, and championing a culture of proactive, people-centered change across North American financial operations. Your leadership will be instrumental in delivering a best-in-class experience for our clients and their customers, while enabling operational teams to thrive in a dynamic and evolving environment.Key ResponsibilitiesLead the Business Readiness Function: Define and own the strategy for business readiness across all North American transformation programs, ensuring integration with delivery roadmaps and operational needs.Client Centric: Actively engage with clients throughout the change lifecycle to understand their needs, communicate impacts, and co-create solutions that support seamless adoption and long-term success.Team Leadership: Manage, coach, and develop a high-performing global team.Stakeholder Alignment: Serve as the primary liaison between Operations, Program Management, Client Delivery, Product, Compliance, and Technology teams to ensure readiness activities are aligned with business objectives and client expectations.Operational Impact & Change Planning: Oversee impact assessments, business process reviews, and readiness risk mitigation plans for all initiatives.Process Design & Documentation: Ensure that updated workflows, training, and procedures are created, validated, and adopted in a timely and compliant manner.Testing & Go-Live Readiness: Partner with delivery teams to ensure operational requirements are factored into UAT plans, go-live strategies, and post-launch stabilization activities.Change Governance: Establish reporting and governance frameworks for readiness execution, including escalation protocols, readiness gates, and executive reporting.Cross-Border Compliance Awareness: Ensure change initiatives account for relevant regulatory requirements across jurisdictions (e.g., SEC, CSA, IIROC, FINRA).Culture Building: Promote a culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement, and change ownership across the organization.Qualifications10–15+ years of experience in financial operations, change management, or program delivery within fintech, banking, capital markets, or a similar environment.Proven success in leading large-scale readiness and transformation programs, ideally across multiple jurisdictions (Canada and U.S.).Proven experience navigating Canadian financial services environments, including regulatory frameworks and client servicing models, is highly valued.Deep understanding of North American financial operations, including post-trade processes, regulatory frameworks (e.g., T+1, IIROC, CSA, SEC), and client servicing models.Strong experience translating client, regulatory, and business requirements into operational processes and tooling.Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional teams, navigate complex stakeholder environments, and drive outcomes in matrixed organizations.Excellent strategic, analytical, and communication skills, with comfort presenting to executive stakeholders.Experience working in or with agile/hybrid delivery environments and enterprise change frameworks.Prior leadership in fintech or technology-enabled financial services is a strong asset.What FNZ offers:A competitive base salary, bonus, and paid time off. FNZ will match pension plan contributions at 150%, up to 4% total Employee Contribution. Employer-paid medical, dental and vision insurance, and more. We are mission-led - work at the heart of a purpose-led organization where you can be proud of the impact you make, every day. Where you’ll transform the way over 20 million people invest, making wealth management more accessible, sustainable and transparent to more people.Learning & development – Placing emphasis on a willingness to learn, to think differently, to be creative and to help drive innovation.Be part of a highly successful, rapidly growing, Pre-IPO global business that is leading the delivery of financial services via cloud computing and partners with some of the world’s largest companies;#LI-BE1