Director, strategy & business architecture

The Opportunity

We are looking for an expert and highly motivated Director, Strategy & Business Architecture to join Canada segment’s Technology & Operations Strategy team!

We are at the forefront of redefining our business and operating model using the latest artificial intelligence and automation innovations. This role will drive Canada's business and technology transformation to support our Digital Customer Leader (DCL) goals. You will work closely with business leaders to craft business strategies and objectives, and perform architectural assessments to define target operating models. These models will enhance end-to-end customer experiences, improve straight-through processing, and optimize our technology portfolio.

We are at an organization that values diverse and big thinking, rewards both behaviors and delivery, and focuses on growth and continuous improvement - all in support of Manulife’s mission to help clients and one another succeed!

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with business and technology leaders to develop strategies, assess their impact on the operating model, identify innovation opportunities, and achieve business success through customer-focused roadmaps.
• Facilitate outcome-based planning and roadmapping, qualify investment ideas, and create business and technology roadmaps that will streamline transition from strategy to execution, accelerate technology innovation, and optimize technology portfolio.
• Lead complex business transformations, complete capability and value stream assessments to address end-to-end business and technology impacts, and ensure ongoing alignment between strategy and implementation.
• Develop an integrated view of organization’s business architecture to support capability, value stream or customer journey assessments and to define and govern outcome-based transformation roadmaps.
• Keep up to date with the latest technology developments and industry/market trends. Conduct thorough research to find opportunities for technology innovation that can enhance or redefine our business model.
• Drive and facilitate product/vendor direction and integrate new technologies from an architectural perspective within the business environment, while optimizing costs and mitigating risks.
• Contribute to achieving important project achievements and overall project goals on time, within budget, and by following relevant standards.

What motivates you?

• You obsess about customers, listen, engage and act for their benefit.
• You think big, with curiosity to discover ways to use your agile approach and enable business outcomes.
• You thrive in teams and enjoy getting things done together.
• You take ownership and build solutions, focusing on what matters.
• You do what is right, work with integrity and speak up.
• You share your humanity, helping us build a diverse and inclusive work environment for everyone.

What we are looking for

• A broad, enterprise-wide view of the business and varying degrees of appreciation for strategy, processes, and capabilities, enabling technologies, and governance.
• Ability to recognize structural issues within the organization, functional interdependencies, and cross-silo redundancies and work effectively at all levels of an organization to influence others to move toward consensus.
• Ability to act as liaison conveying information needs of the business to IT and data constraints to the business, while applying equal conveyance regarding business strategy and IT strategy, business processes and workflow automation, business initiatives and IT initiatives, and benefit realization and service delivery.
• Ability to understand contexts, identify patterns and trends, and analyze impact of different change factors. Strong situational analysis and decision-making abilities.
• Extensive experience in strategizing and aligning business and technology plans, adopting new technologies, evaluating and coordinating technology investments, and optimizing application portfolios.
• Experience with capability, value stream and customer experience assessments, SWOT analysis, definition, and governance of outcome-based transformation roadmaps.
• Experience using model-based representations and business architecture blueprints, that can be adjusted as required to collect, aggregate, or disaggregate complex and conflicting information about the business.
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to communicate appropriately at all levels of the organization; this includes written and verbal communications as well as visualizations.
• Previous experience in management consulting with focus on strategy and transformation is a must.
• A degree in business management, marketing, finance or technology plus minimum of 10 years' experience in progressing strategy roles in business and technology domains.
• Comprehensive familiarity and proficiency in EA frameworks (Zachman, TOGAF) and Business Architecture Guild standard methodologies.

What can we offer you?

• 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.