Director, design - global design system

The Opportunity

As Director, Design - Global Design System at Manulife, you will play a key leadership role in a Global Design System team responsible for shaping, scaling, and driving adoption of an enterprise-wide design system that serves multiple business units across Canada, Asia, and the US. This system will enable consistency, efficiency, accessibility, and innovation across Manulife’s public, secure, and mobile digital experiences. You will partner closely with design, engineering, and product teams across regions to define the visual language, interaction patterns, and usability guidelines that ensure a seamless, high-quality experience for millions of users.

This is a pivotal leadership role within Manulife’s Global Design System team, requiring deep expertise in enterprise design systems, accessibility, and design operations. You will champion human centered design, visual and interaction standards, and design governance, driving system adoption and enabling teams to work more efficiently and creatively. The ideal candidate has successfully led enterprise-wide design systems and understands the organizational, technical and cultural complexities of embedding a design system into the fabric of a global enterprise.

Responsibilities:

Global Design System Strategy & Leadership

1. Define and implement a scalable, enterprise-grade design system that supports Manulife’s digital transformation across all regions, advocating for design excellence, accessibility, and usability.
2. Define the visual language, interaction patterns, and usability guidelines that ensure a high-quality experience for millions of users.
3. Balance global standardization with regional flexibility, ensuring usability across diverse markets and regulatory landscapes.
4. Partner with executive leadership, product, and engineering teams to align the design system with business priorities.

Governance, Adoption & Enablement

1. Establish governance models, contribution frameworks, and adoption strategies to ensure system sustainability.
2. Lead cross-functional alignment, ensuring the design system is embedded into product design workflows across global teams.
3. Define design principles, usage guidelines, and best practices to ensure consistency and scalability.
4. Optimize for multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-regulatory challenges, ensuring designs can be localized and adapted without breaking system integrity.
5. Facilitate design reviews, audits, and contribution models, ensuring high-quality system evolution and usage.
6. Establish and oversee training, onboarding, and community engagement initiatives to drive system adoption across Manulife’s digital teams.
7. Develop and track KPIs that measure adoption, efficiency gains, and business impact.

Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Influence

1. Serve as a primary design system advocate, navigating organizational complexity to influence decision-making at all levels.
2. Partner with regional design leads to ensure the system meets regional needs while maintaining overall consistency.
3. Cultivate collaboration between design, engineering, and product management teams, ensuring smooth integration into digital workflows.
4. Build and cultivate a global design system community, mentoring teams on best practices and fostering a culture of design system ownership.

Technical & Operational Execution

1. Own the evolution of design tooling, documentation, and workflows, ensuring flawless integration with enterprise platforms (Figma, Storybook, React, Angular, etc).
2. Work closely with engineering leadership to ensure design-to-code consistency, accessibility compliance (WCAG), and performance optimization.
3. Maintain a structured backlog of design system updates, prioritizing enhancements based on business needs and user feedback.
4. Identify and handle external partnerships and vendors as needed to support system expansion.

What motivates you?

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

What we are looking for:

1. 10+ years of experience in UX leadership, design systems, or enterprise product design, preferably within a global enterprise or multi-jurisdictional organization.
2. Consistent track record of building and scaling enterprise design systems within large, global organizations, balancing standardization with regional/local adaptation.
3. Deep expertise in UI/UX best practices, accessibility (WCAG), design systems, and design-to-development collaboration.
4. Experience with governance models, adoption strategies, and design system operations.
5. Experience working in complex matrixed organizations with multiple business units and partners.
6. Exceptional collaboration management, influence, and communication skills - able to influence senior collaborators, drive alignment, and advocate for design at an executive level.
7. Hands-on experience with enterprise design tools and frameworks (Figma, Storybook, React, Angular, JIRA, Confluence, etc.).
8. Familiarity with Agile, Lean UX, and enterprise digital delivery models.
9. Experience navigating multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and regulatory complexities in global design and content.

What can we offer you?

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

Our commitment to you:

1. Values-first culture: We lead with our Values every day and bring them to life together.
2. Boundless opportunity: We create opportunities to learn and grow at every stage of your career.
3. Continuous innovation: We invite you to help redefine the future of financial services.
4. Delivering the promise of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: We foster an inclusive workplace where everyone thrives.
5. Championing Corporate Citizenship: We build a business that benefits all collaborators and has a positive social and environmental impact.

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