Senior Consultant, Corporate Strategy & Enablement

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

The Corporate Strategy & Enablement Team’s focus is to support Sun Life in achieving and maintaining a position of sustainable strategic advantage and growth in the long term. It has a broad focus on enterprise topics (e.g. Client for Life strategy) that span all Business Groups (BG) and geographic markets where Sun Life operates. In addition, it provides targeted support to high priority strategic issues / topics in Business Unit (BU) and functions.

The Corporate Strategy & Enablement team works in a dynamic, collaborative and collegial team-based environment, providing team members stretch opportunities to work on the most challenging and interesting problems, exposure to senior executives and ability to diversify knowledge of Sun Life’s businesses.

The Senior Consultant, Corporate Strategy & Enablement supports ongoing delivery of internal strategy and the annual strategic planning cycle. The successful candidate will work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment with a focus on supporting strategy and enablement project delivery, engaging senior leaders in the businesses and functions to solve key strategic questions / issues and staying in the forefront of competitor actions / market developments.

What will you do?

• Shape strategy design and support advancement of strategy execution

• Run annual strategic planning

• Support facilitation and planning of strategic Board and Executive Team discussions

• Monitor external trends and draw linkages to Sun Life’s businesses

Strategy design and development (for enterprise and BU specific strategic projects):

• Decompose problem statements into a set of hypotheses and perform both quantitative (e.g. financial analysis, market sizing) and qualitative analyses (e.g. competitor benchmarking) to validate them

• Challenge conventional thinking and possess ability to make conclusions / hypotheses by triangulating information from various sources

• Define research and analysis plan, and source relevant data and information from both internal (e.g. Finance, BUs) and external sources (e.g. industry research reports, news articles, competitor data) for analyses

• Bring new perspectives and creative ideas to develop innovative and practical approaches and solutions to problems and issues

• Synthesize qualitative and quantitative analytical results to inform development of relevant recommendations and inform strategic decision making

• Capture findings and recommendations succinctly in a logical and coherent storyline that facilitates productive discussion and decision making among senior executives

Strategy and enablement project delivery:

• Work independently to drive analysis and deliverables forward and proactively engage with other team members (both within and outside of Corporate Strategy & Enablement team) to gather data and feedback

• Manage coordination of project delivery across team members (from Corporate Strategy & Enablement team and from BUs)

• Prepare and present both formal and informal updates on analysis / recommendations for senior management

• Work in a team-based collaborative environment where roles can vary from project to project

Annual strategic planning:

• Contribute to development of Enterprise Strategic Plan by owning analysis and content development of specific components

• Support analysis, research and development of content for priority Enterprise themes and issues

• Provide project management support throughout the planning cycle and coordinate with Business Groups (BG) and functions (e.g. Risk, Finance, Enterprise Services) to deliver business specific strategic plans

Competitive and market awareness and intelligence:

• Actively build and maintain awareness of key market and competitive trends and developments through various sources (e.g. secondary research, competitor actions, industry developments)

• Curate external market information by leveraging internal tools, translate into relevant insights and surface patterns / themes that are relevant for Sun Life

• Identify implications for Sun Life and proactively communicate / share with appropriate stakeholders (as appropriate)

Communication and relationship management:

• Effectively communicate key insights, ideas and strategies, to an executive level audience in a clear, compelling and concise manner

• Proactively stay in touch with junior to mid-level team members from BGs, BUs and functions to maintain an understanding of new developments in their areas and linkage back to Corporate Strategy & Enablement

• Tailor both written and verbal communication based on audience and situation to maximize buy-in and establish productive working relationships

What do you need to succeed?

• Minimum 5-7 years' experience in financial services, consulting, or other Fortune 500

• In-house or external consulting or strategy experience is an asset

• University degree in business or related discipline; MBA is an asset

• Possess deep understanding of at least one of Sun Life’s key businesses (i.e. Life insurance, group benefits / retirement solutions, wealth management, asset management) and geographic markets (i.e. Canada, US, Asia)

• Resourceful in learning and ramping up content knowledge in new domains rapidly

• Excellent oral and written communication, presentation skills, and strong interpersonal skills

• Strong Excel and PPT acumen to drive analysis and prepare materials for executive audience

• Strong, analytically-anchored problem solving skills, with a solid background working with data, conducting analysis, interpreting results, and writing reports/presentations

• Strong results-oriented project management skills; well organized, with a high attention to details

• Able to work independently on assignments with appropriate judgment

• Able to work with other team members outside of Corporate Strategy & Enablement team to gather data and information from the Businesses and Functions

• Experience analyzing and solving complex business problems

• Experience in financial analytics, including using modelling tools and techniques, would be an asset

• Experience in conducting in-depth secondary research, including collection and synthesis

What’s in it for you?

• A friendly, collaborative and inclusive culture

• An environment of continuous learning and improvement

• Wellness programs that support the three pillars of your health - mental, physical and financial

• We’re proud to be a Best Workplace for Hybrid Work by Great Place to Work® Canada

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

At Sun Life we strive to create a flexible work environment where our employees are empowered to do their best work. Several flexible work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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