As AVP, GTO Strategy & Transformation, you will lead GTO's strategy, transformation agenda, and multi-year roadmap, while also overseeing the GTO global AI platform roadmap. Your focus will be on shaping where GTO is going and ensuring its transformation delivers measurable business value. You will lead multi-year strategy development, operating model transformation, AI enablement, value realization, workforce modernization, and enterprise-scale transformation initiatives. Working closely with Technology, Operations, Finance, People Partners, and business leaders, you will identify opportunities to redesign how work gets done, convert productivity gains into measurable business outcomes, and help build an AI-enabled growth engine that supports growth while maintaining expense discipline. This is an AI-native team - the team uses AI tools, agentic workflows, and LLM-connected platforms as its primary way of working, not as an occasional add-on.
Position Responsibilities:
- GTO Strategy & Strategic Planning: Lead development of multi-year GTO strategy, transformation roadmaps, investment priorities, and strategic planning processes. Translate enterprise objectives into executable plans across Technology and Operations, ensuring strategic intent is reflected in investment and delivery decisions before resources are committed.
- AI-Native Operating Model Transformation: Design and evolve future-state operating models that combine AI, automation, workforce transformation, and technology productivity to sustainably improve capacity, customer outcomes, and efficiency across Technology and Operations - including delivery models, product operating models, workforce structures, and technology ways of working.
- Technology Productivity Realization: Partner with CIOs, COOs, and segment leaders to identify, quantify, and realize value from technology productivity improvements - including product operating models, engineering productivity, and delivery modernization - ensuring productivity gains translate into measurable operational and business outcomes rather than remaining theoretical.
- Operational Transformation & Value Realization: Lead enterprise operational transformation initiatives across customer service, operations, digital channels, workforce productivity, and support functions. Current focus areas may include contact centre transformation, containment optimization, service modernization, and AI-enabled efficiency programs - with the underlying methodology (diagnostic rigor, cross-source data reconciliation, quantified business cases) designed to generalize to future transformation priorities as GTO's agenda evolves.
- Workforce Transformation & Future Skills: Define workforce transition strategies, future-skill requirements, role redesign opportunities, and redeployment approaches required to support AI-enabled operating models. Partner with People Partners, L&D, and segment leaders to drive execution - setting direction, tracking progress, and identifying opportunities to accelerate adoption in partnership with segment leaders.
- Enterprise Value Realization: Own benefit targets and KPI commitments across the GTO transformation portfolio. Establish and govern enterprise value realization methodologies, validate assumptions, reconcile benefit calculations across data sources, create defensible performance baselines, and ensure reported outcomes remain transparent and defensible to senior leadership and ELT - explicitly separating transformation-driven impact from organic or external trends.
- Product & Portfolio Leadership Strengthened: Own and evolve the GTO AI product roadmap, defining priorities and sequencing releases across initiatives and reusable capabilities. Ensure product investments align with GTO strategic priorities and target-state operating model objectives, rather than being pursued independently of the broader transformation agenda.
- Executive & Board-Level Narrative Ownership: Own the preparation of ELT and Board/Technology Committee-ready materials - portfolio checkpoints, anticipated-Q&A briefs, and strategic narratives - translating complex, multi-segment operational and financial data into clear, decision-ready formats. Anticipate scrutiny across every segment and function represented, not just the primary owner's area, and ensure diplomatic, precise, and defensible framing throughout.
- GTO Global AI Platform Roadmap Ownership: Own and oversee the GTO global AI platform roadmap - set the AI direction and transformation agenda for GTO across 14 countries, translate enterprise AI vision into operational priorities, and ensure the platform roadmap is directly sequenced against GTO's broader multi-year strategy and transformation agenda rather than developed in isolation. Apply strategic rigour to problem framing and solution design, ensuring the right problems are prioritized before delivery resources are committed, and assess strategic AI hypotheses through structured pilots prior to scaling investment.
- Outcome Measurement: Establish clear success measures - adoption, operational impact, cycle-time improvements, reliability - and report progress to senior leadership.
- Delivery Execution: Lead end-to-end delivery planning and execution for approved transformation and AI initiatives, ensuring predictable release rhythms and timely removal of blockers.
- Competitive Intelligence: Maintain ongoing awareness of AI and transformation developments across financial services and the broader enterprise landscape. Translate external signals - competitor moves, emerging capabilities, regulatory shifts - into strategic implications for the GTO agenda.
- Production Readiness: Drive readiness reviews with Technology, Enterprise AI, and Risk partners to confirm controls, documentation, and deployment plans are in place prior to release.
- Cross-functional Escalation: Act as escalation point for delivery throughput issues, coordinating cross-functional resolution and trade-off decisions.
- Platform Reuse & Scaling: Lead the shift from project-by-project delivery to a reusable capability model - shared components, templates, evaluation patterns, and connectors.
- Governance Alignment: Ensure solutions align with Responsible AI and model risk expectations, including appropriate documentation and monitoring plans.
- Opportunity Identification & Prioritization: Identify, quantify, and prioritize AI and operational-transformation opportunities across GTO using structured analysis and operational input - including digital-capability heatmapping, deflection/containment sizing, and repeat-contact root-cause analysis. Build data-driven business cases with Finance and Operations leaders, using the same rigor applied to product investment decisions.
- Transformation Investment Prioritization: Evaluate strategic initiatives, validate business cases, recommend investment priorities, and support trade-off decisions across the GTO portfolio.
- Executive Decision Support & Strategic Communications:Serve as a primary architect of executive decision support across GTO - ELT materials, Board and Technology Committee narratives, investor-facing content, anticipated-Q&A preparation, and strategic storyline development. Treat this as a defining capability of the function, not a byproduct of other work: the quality of this synthesis directly shapes how senior leadership and the Board understand GTO's transformation progress.
- AI-First Operating Model: Lead by example in how the team works. Personally use LLM-connected agents, enterprise agentic AI platforms, and AI-augmented workflows to reimagine how portfolio reporting, strategy synthesis, operational diagnostics, and executive communications are produced - including live querying of enterprise data platforms to validate findings in real time. Set the standard for the team and demonstrate that AI-first ways of working are operational - not aspirational.
- People Leadership: Build and lead a high-performing team focused on operational discipline, delivery excellence, and continuous improvement.
Required Qualifications:
- Experience leading enterprise strategy, operating model redesign, or large-scale transformation efforts across Technology, Operations, or shared services environments.
- 10+ years of experience in strategy, transformation leadership, product leadership, technology delivery, platform programs, and/or AI-enabled transformation, preferably in regulated industries.
- Proven track record delivering complex products, transformation programs, or platforms into production with measurable outcomes, including release planning and dependency management.
- Experience operating at enterprise scale across multiple geographies or business units, including setting targets and holding accountability for benefit realization.
- Demonstrated experience in operational analytics - diagnosing performance issues from raw operational data, reconciling discrepancies across data sources, and translating findings into funded business cases.
- Strong ability to lead cross-functionally in matrixed environments and communicate clearly with senior stakeholders.
- Strong experience in quantitative modeling, scenario analysis, and business case development.
- Working knowledge of modern AI solution patterns (e.g., LLM-enabled assistants, intelligent document processing, agent-based workflows) and production readiness considerations.
- Hands-on orientation with AI productivity tools and agentic workflows; personally comfortable using LLM-connected enterprise tools - including direct querying of enterprise data platforms - to accelerate strategy, reporting, and synthesis work.
- Experience working with executive leadership teams, Boards, Technology Committees, or governance forums to support strategic decision-making.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience evolving operating models from project-based to product/platform delivery.
- Familiarity with MLOps/LLMOps concepts, evaluation approaches, monitoring, and model governance practices.
- Experience influencing people strategy, workforce transformation, or AI reskilling programs in a tech/operations context.
- Demonstrated ability to validate strategic hypotheses through pilots and translate early wins into enterprise momentum.
- Experience with contact centre or operations analytics - IVR/self-service containment, FCR/repeat-contact analysis, workforce management metrics - in a multi-country or multi-segment environment.
- Advanced degree or equivalent experience in engineering, computer science, data science, or business.
When you join our team:
- We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want.
- We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.
- As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.
The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.
About Manulife and John Hancock
Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.
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 hr@manulife.com.
Referenced Salary Location
Toronto, Ontario
Working Arrangement
Hybrid
Salary range is expected to be between
$129,800.00 CAD - $241,200.00 CAD
Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. 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. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact hr@manulife.com for the salary range for your location.
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 hr@manulife.com for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.
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