Director, strategy & business architecture

Société Financière Manuvie; Toronto; Hybrid; CAD 110,000 - 206,000; Full time

Job summary

A financial services leader in Toronto is seeking a Director, Strategy & Business Architecture. This role focuses on driving business and technology transformations to improve customer experiences and innovate business models. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in strategy alignment and management consulting, with strong leadership and communication skills. The position offers a hybrid work arrangement and a competitive compensation package.

Benefits

Opportunities for learning and career growth

Flexible, inclusive environment

Support for shaping your future

Qualifications

• 10+ years Director or Manager experience in Strategy & Business Architecture.
• Ability to influence and align a diverse workforce.
• Experience in management consulting with a focus on strategy and transformation.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with leaders to develop business-focused roadmaps.
• Lead complex business transformations and ensure alignment.
• Assess impacts of change factors and optimize technology portfolio.

Skills

Strategic alignment

Business architecture

Communication skills

Stakeholder management

Situational analysis

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

EA frameworks (Zachman, TOGAF)

Job description

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!

Position Responsibilities:

1. 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.
2. Facilitate outcome-based planning and road-mapping, qualify investment ideas, and build business and technology roadmaps that will streamline transition from strategy to execution, accelerate technology innovation, and optimize technology portfolio.
3. 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.
4. Develop a coordinated view of organization’s business architecture to support capability, value stream or customer journey assessments and to define and govern outcome-based transformation roadmaps.
5. Keep up to date with the latest technology developments and industry/market trends. Conduct detailed research to find opportunities for technology innovation that can improve or redefine our business model.
6. Drive and facilitate product/vendor direction and integrate new technologies from an architectural perspective within the business environment, while optimizing costs and mitigating risks.
7. Contribute to achieving important project achievements and overall project goals on time, within budget, and by following relevant standards.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years Director or Manager Strategy & Business Architecture
• 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.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent in business, marketing, finance, or technology, along with a minimum of 10 years in strategic business and tech roles.
• Proficiency in EA frameworks (Zachman, TOGAF) and Business Architecture Guild standard methodologies.

What We Offer:

• Opportunities for learning and career growth.
• A flexible, inclusive environment supporting well-being.
• Support for shaping your future within our distributed team.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife is a global leader in financial services, helping people make decisions easier and live better. More info at www.manuvie.com.

We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, ensuring fair recruitment, retention, promotion, and compensation practices without discrimination based on protected characteristics.

We prioritize removing barriers to equal employment access. For accommodations during recruitment, contact [e-mail].

Salary Range & Work Arrangement

Location: Toronto, Ontario

Work Mode: Hybrid

Salary Range: $110,530 - $205,270 CAD

For remote candidates outside the main region, contact [e-mail] for regional salary info. Compensation varies based on market, location, skills, and experience.

Benefits include medical, dental, mental health, vision, disability, life insurance, and retirement plans, among others. Details available upon application.