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.

Job Description

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 strengthens the overall capability of the organization

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Asia, Canada, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2022, we had more than 40,000 employees, over 116,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 34 million customers. At the end of 2022, we had $1.3 trillion (US$1.0 trillion) in assets under management and administration, including total invested assets of $0.4 trillion (US $0.3 trillion), and segregated funds net assets of $0.3 trillion (US$0.3 trillion). We trade as ‘MFC’ on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges, and under ‘945’ in Hong Kong.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact recruitment@manulife.com.

The annual base salary for this role is listed below.

Salary range is expected to be between

If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact recruitment@manulife.com for the salary range for your location. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact recruitment@manulife.com for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.