Director, Change Enablement & Business Readiness

The Director, Change Enablement & Business Readiness will lead the people and business-readiness dimensions of significant transformation initiatives. This role will partner closely with business and functional leaders to understand how changes to processes, technology, roles and ways of working affect the organization and ensure teams are prepared to successfully adopt and sustain those changes.

Success in this role requires more than traditional change-management expertise. The successful candidate will bring strong process-improvement and transformation-execution experience, with the ability to connect strategy, process design and technology change to the practical realities of implementation and adoption.

Position Responsibilities

Lead change strategy and business readiness

• Develop integrated change and readiness strategies that translate transformation plans into clear impacts, interventions and actions for the business.

• Assess impacts to people, processes, roles and capabilities and identify readiness, adoption and organizational risks.

• Establish readiness criteria and provide leaders with a clear view of gaps, risks and interventions required for implementation.

• Ensure change and readiness activities remain aligned with transformation milestones and intended business outcomes.

Connect transformation to execution

• Partner across Operations, Technology, Product, Risk and transformation teams translate future-state designs into executable business change.

• Apply a process-improvement mindset to understand current-state challenges, future-state outcomes and the practical implications of change.

• Facilitate decisions and challenge designs where operational, people or readiness implications have not been sufficiently addressed.

• Support transformation through implementation and stabilization, maintaining focus on adoption and sustainable outcomes.

• This keeps the process-improvement dimension that is important in your organization. Your broader transformation model explicitly connects opportunity identification, prioritization and delivery rather than treating them as separate disciplines.

Drive leadership alignment and adoption

• Advise and engage leaders on the change vision, key decisions, accountabilities and actions required from their teams.

• Develop targeted stakeholders, communications, learning and engagement approaches based on documented impacts.

• Define and monitor readiness and adoption measures, using feedback and evidence to identify where intervention is required.

• Help embed new processes, capabilities and ways of working beyond implementation.

Build change capability

• Strengthen change capability through coaching, facilitation, tools and practical guidance. 

• Leverage enterprise change-management approaches while adapting them pragmatically to individual initiatives.

• Enable business leaders to increasingly lead change within their own teams.

• Build reusable practices and learned lessons that improve transformation delivery across the organization.

• That last point remains important because the change-enablement direction you've established is advisory and capability-building rather than having a central team permanently execute changes on behalf of the business.

Required Qualifications

• Significant experience leading change management, business readiness, continuous improvement or transformation delivery in complex organizations.

• Demonstrated experience translating process, technology or operating-model transformation into practical business impacts, readiness plans and adoption outcomes.

• Strong knowledge of change disciplines including impact assessment, stakeholder engagement, leadership alignment, communications, learning and adoption.

• Strong process-improvement and analytical capability, with the ability to move from current-state challenges through future-state design and implementation.

• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders, facilitate complex decisions and create structure in ambiguous environments.

• Excellent executive communication, facilitation and people-leadership capabilities.

• Experience with Lean, continuous improvement, process re-engineering, automation or AI-enabled transformation is an asset.

• Experience in financial services, insurance or another complex regulated environment is an asset.

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.  

#LI-Hybrid

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 [email protected].

Referenced Salary Location

Toronto, OntarioHybrid

Salary range is expected to be between

$145,130.00 CAD - $195,130.00 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 [email protected] 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 [email protected] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.