Director, Operational Excellence - Winnipeg, Toronto

IG Wealth Management; Toronto, Winnipeg; Hybrid; CAD 109,000 - 157,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid & flex work arrangements

Competitive compensation

Health and dental coverage

Education and career support

Job summary

IG Wealth Management in Canada seeks a Director, Operational Excellence, to lead process excellence, business analysis, testing, and continuous improvement across the mortgage and lending business. The role translates strategic priorities into clear requirements and sustainable changes that improve efficiency, quality, and advisor and client experiences.

You'll collaborate with leaders, manage readiness, testing, and implementation assurance, and champion automation and AI-enabled tools, guiding

Qualifications

• 10+ years in operational excellence or business transformation in financial services.
• Experience in process redesign, requirements development, testing, and UAT.
• Strong stakeholder facilitation and executive communication.
• Ability to drive organizational change and cross-functional alignment.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end process reviews and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Translate business needs into clear requirements and specifications.
• Develop test strategies and lead UAT execution.
• Support strategic initiatives with measurable outcomes.

Skills

Operational excellence

Business analysis

Stakeholder facilitation

UAT testing

Change management

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor/BA or engineering or related field

MBA or relevant master’s degree preferred

Lean Six Sigma / CBAP / PMP or Agile certification

Job description

Division: IG Insurance Mortgage & Banking

Location: Toronto, Winnipeg

IGM Financial Inc. is a leading wealth and asset management company in Canada, managing approximately $310 billion in assets as of December 31, 2025. It offers financial planning and investment services to over two million Canadians through IG Wealth Management and Mackenzie Investments. Founded in 1926, IG Wealth Management is a key part of IGM's business model, providing comprehensive wealth management services to Canadian financial advisors and their clients. With a vision to inspire financial confidence, IG Wealth Management is recognized as one of Manitoba’s Top Employers, Canada’s Top 100 Employers, and Best Diversity Employers, aiming to innovate the industry and support Canadians in achieving their financial goals. Join our team to engage in continuous learning and skill development in a supportive environment. Experience the best of both worlds with our hybrid work environment, where you spend three days a week in the office, connecting, collaborating, and enjoying quality time with your amazing colleagues! Our Values: Be better; we strive for improvement in everything we do. Be accountable; we foster clarity and are empowered to act responsibly. Be a team; we are united to drive collective impact to achieve our goals.

The Role

The Director, Operational Excellence, leads process excellence, business analysis, testing, implementation assurance, and continuous improvement across the mortgage and lending business. The role translates strategic priorities into clear business requirements, practical operating solutions, and sustainable changes that improve efficiency, quality, scalability, and advisor and client experiences. The role collaborates closely with leaders accountable for delivery, partnership management, governance, controls, and service-level performance, providing process expertise, business analysis, testing, readiness, implementation assurance, and continuous-improvement support. The role enables successful business and technology change by improving processes, clarifying requirements, assessing operational impacts, supporting business readiness, and providing assurance that delivered solutions meet agreed business and operational needs.

Key Responsibilities

Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement:

• Lead end-to-end process reviews, process redesign, workflow optimization, and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Identify root causes, inefficiencies, manual effort, process gaps, and friction affecting advisors, clients, employees, or partners.
• Develop practical, scalable recommendations that improve service quality, efficiency, consistency, and operational capacity.
• Establish process measures and improvement tracking to demonstrate outcomes and sustain gains.
• Champion appropriate use of automation and AI-enabled tools to simplify work and strengthen consistency.

Business Analysis & Requirements

• Lead business analysis, requirements gathering, process mapping, and solution-validation activities.
• Translate business needs into clear business requirements, functional specifications, process documentation, acceptance criteria, and decision materials.
• Assess operational impacts, dependencies, risks, and readiness considerations associated with proposed business and technology changes.
• Facilitate alignment among business, technology, operations, risk, compliance, product, pricing, delivery, and partnership-management stakeholders.

Testing & Implementation Assurance

• Develop test strategies, test plans, business scenarios, test scripts, acceptance criteria, and requirements-to-test traceability.
• Lead business UAT activities, including test execution, defect triage, business acceptance, and sign-off support.
• Conduct production-readiness reviews, implementation validation, and post-implementation assessments.
• Provide implementation assurance that delivered solutions meet agreed business requirements and operational needs.

Strategic Initiative, Delivery & Change Support

• Support strategic initiatives by defining operational requirements, process changes, readiness needs, and measurable outcomes.
• Provide accountable delivery leaders with business analysis, process design, testing, implementation-assurance, and decision-support expertise.
• Identify operational risks and dependencies and support issue resolution and business readiness for implementation.
• Support organizational readiness, communications, training, adoption, stabilization, and transition to business-as-usual operations.

Cross-Functional & Partnership Support

• Provide process analysis, root-cause assessment, requirements, and improvement recommendations to teams accountable for partnership management, governance, controls, and SLA performance.
• Contribute operational insights and supporting analysis to service reviews, issue resolution, remediation planning, and continuous improvement activities led by the accountable function.
• Collaborate across business functions and with external partners as needed to understand operational issues and support implementation of agreed improvements.
• Support partner relationships, governance activities, controls, and service-level management without holding primary ownership of those functions.

Required Qualifications

• University degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Operations Management, Technology, or a related discipline; an MBA or relevant master’s degree is preferred.
• Experience within financial services, wealth management, lending, mortgages, or banking environments.
• 10+ years of experience in operational excellence, business transformation, process improvement, business analysis, project or program support, or business operations, including work on complex cross-functional initiatives.
• Demonstrated expertise in process redesign, business analysis, requirements development, testing, UAT, implementation assurance, continuous improvement, stakeholder facilitation, and executive communications.
• Advanced analytical, problem-solving, facilitation, influencing, and change-readiness skills.
• Understanding Agile, waterfall, and hybrid project delivery methodologies.
• Experience developing business requirements, process maps, testing strategies, test plans, business test scenarios, and acceptance criteria, as well as leading UAT execution.
• Strong executive presentation and stakeholder engagement capabilities.
• Ability to influence functional boundaries, drive alignment, lead through ambiguity, and support organizational change.
• Experience supporting technology implementations, business transformations, and operating model redesign.
• Experience leading a team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Lean Six Sigma, CBAP, PMP, Agile, or similar certification.
• Knowledge of financial services regulations and experience in mortgage and lending, enterprise transformation, process automation, and AI enablement.
• Ability to manage multiple strategic priorities in a dynamic, deadline-driven environment; occasional travel may be required.

The expected annual base salary range for this role is $109,000 - $157,000 which is determined based on skills, knowledge and experience and geographic location. In addition to base salary, this role is eligible for annual short-term incentive, health and well-being benefits, retirement and savings plan, paid time off and career development.

Benefits

• COMPETITIVE COMPENSATION & RECOGNITION: competitive base salary, performance-weighted bonus, education/career support, option to join Employee Share Purchase Plan with employer matching component.
• EMPLOYEE BENEFITS & INSURANCE: competitive health and dental coverage, flexible plan for you and your family and short‑term…
• RETIREMENT SAVINGS PROGRAMS: voluntary Defined Contribution Pension Plan
• WORK LIFE BALANCE: paid volunteer days, competitive time off, including 10 wellness days off, WorkPerks discount program, hybrid & flex work arrangements.
• INCLUSIVE CULTURE AND DIVERSITY: living our core values: Be a Team, Be Accountable, Be Better, engaging with community through Business Resource Groups (BRG communities are volunteer employee‑led groups formed around a common interest, identity, or background).

IGM is a diverse workplace committed to doing business inclusively - this starts with having a representative workforce! We encourage applications from all qualified candidates that represent the diversity present across Canada – including racialized persons, women, Indigenous persons, persons with disabilities, 2SLGBTQIA+ community, gender diverse and neurodiverse individuals, as well as all who may contribute to the further diversification of ideas. IG is an accessible employer committed to providing a barrier‑free recruitment experience. If you require an accommodation or this information in an alternate format at any stage of the recruitment process, please reach out to the Talent Acquisition team who will work with you to meet your needs. Artificial Intelligence in Recruitment: As part of our Talent Acquisition process, we may use artificial intelligence and automated tools to support activities such as candidate sourcing, application review, and interview scheduling. These tools support the recruitment process; all hiring decisions are made by people. We thank all applicants for their interest in IG Wealth Management; however, only those candidates selected for an interview will be contacted. Please apply before September 25 2026.