Avp - Innovation

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**

Hybrid

**Position Summary**

Manulife’s bold ambition is to become the most digital, customer-centric global company in the Insurance industry, and to help our customer live longer, healthier and better lives. The AVP Innovation plays a critical role in realizing this ambition, by rethinking the traditional role of Manulife as an insurer and wealth manager and creating new ways for us to engage customers and enable advisors.

We’re looking for someone who seeks an opportunity to change the way insurance is delivered and has the drive and talent to make it happen.

We are currently transforming our organization to one that puts the customer at the center of everything we do. Our ability to complete that goal also depends on our ability to significantly impact our internal culture to be more customer centric. This role will be expected to contribute to that effort.

This role reports to the Chief Customer Centricity and Innovation Officer, and works closely with all our Segment Chief Marketing Officers and Global Marketing leadership, as well as functional and Business Unit senior executives.

**The AVP Innovation will;**
- Lead innovation initiatives to support our ambition of becoming the customer and digital leader, with a primary focus on our North American business units while also providing health expertise globally
- Stay abreast of emerging trends and opportunities and serve as a leader with vision with the senior leadership team to identify new opportunities to drive growth, transform the customer experience and leverage digital capabilities to reduce costs
- Enable the company to capitalize on and expand external partnerships, manage current early-staged initiatives; strong focus on strategic partnering, including scouting for and completing strategic startup partnership opportunities
- Drive the company’s capability in terms of testing, learning and scaling innovations across North America

**Responsibilities**
- Work with function and segment leaders to find opportunities for innovation to accelerate our customer and digital transformation, drive growth, and reduce costs. Initial focus is designing and launching health beneficial services to deepen engagement with customers
- Work side-by-side with Segment teams to build the company’s capability in running innovation sprints, including designing, testing/iterating and scaling innovations across the enterprise.
- Perform ongoing market scans of the innovation developments among insurance and wealth management competitors, technology players, startups/incubators, and adjacent industries.
- Scout potential external innovation partners relevant to our business; Establish and manage a broad range of external partnerships to further our innovation strategy.
- Perform due diligence on potential partners, including complimentary service providers and emerging technology-based innovators, ranging from startups to established players.

**Experience & Expertise**
- Successful track record of driving innovation and digital transformation within a large, complex corporate environment
- Proven experience in health or health-tech, ideally combined with experience in insurance or financial services
- Tech-savvy and future focused. Able to assess new concepts and technologies and determine which would be applicable and transformative for the organization
- Deep understanding of digital trends and emerging technology solutions
- A track record of progressing new ideas/products from early conception to pilot and launch
- Strong strategically, but with an execution focus and results orientation

**Leadership Capabilities**
- Put Customers First
- Puts serving customers at the heart of everything they do. Understands their needs and develops propositions that create distinctive value
- Relationship Builder - Collaborative and diplomatic; Able to have impact and achieve results through influence rather than direct control
- Drive for Results - Enables the organization to implement innovation sprints at pace, by drawing on past experience and expertise
- Collaborative - Builds trusted relationships and works effectively across the organization at all levels
- Learning
- Seeks out, absorbs, and brings to bear new learning and insight both about the external environment and about our internal business.
- Build Talent & Teams - Helps build and develop very hardworking, diverse teams. Coaches and develops others, understands team dynamics, and strengthe