Director of Finance - Accounting and Reporting

The Director of Finance, Accounting and Reporting provides strategic, technical, and operational leadership for global accounting and reporting services, with a span of responsibility covering roughly 70+ Finance professionals operating within a Global Finance Shared Services organization. The role is accountable for the integrity, accuracy, timeliness, and control of financial results across the assigned businesses, legal entities, or regions, while ensuring effective delivery through a Global Finance shared services operating model.

This position combines deep accounting and financial control expertise with Director-level service delivery leadership. The Director leads complex Record-to-Report activities, period-end close, financial reporting, accounting advisory, controls, audit readiness, transition execution, process modernization, and stakeholder governance. The role serves as a trusted partner to Finance leaders, in-market teams, Controllership, FP&A, Internal and External Audit, Technology, and other Global Functions.
The Director also plays a key leadership role in Finance Transformation by driving process standardization, scalable service delivery, automation, responsible AI adoption, talent development, and sustainable transformation across Accounting and Reporting.

Position Responsibilities:

1. Accounting and Reporting Leadership

• Provide overall leadership and accountability for Accounting and Reporting services across the assigned business units, legal entities, regions, or global processes.
• Ensure complete, accurate, timely, and compliant financial records and reporting in accordance with applicable accounting standards, regulatory requirements, corporate policies, and internal controls.
• Deliver statutory, regulatory, and management reporting that is accurate, complete, and audit-ready.
• Oversee specialized accounting for insurance, reinsurance, and investments — premiums, claims and benefits, policy and actuarial reserves, treaty and ceded balances, investment income, and asset valuation.
• Act as senior escalation point for complex accounting judgments, unusual or non-standard transactions, and new or updated standards — including IFRS 17 and IFRS 9.
• Provide accounting advisory for new insurance and investment products, transactions, and regulatory change — turning technical complexity into clear decisions.

2. Period-End Close and Financial Control

• Direct month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close activities across integrated and non-integrated systems, ensuring disciplined execution against the close calendar.
• Govern general ledger accounts, accounting structures, chart of accounts integrity, and related master data within scope.
• Oversee the review, challenge, approval, and release of journal entries and account reconciliations in accordance with established controls and approval authorities.
• Ensure balances, movements, trends, and variances are understood, substantiated, and appropriately challenged before financial results are finalized.
• Monitor close performance through relevant service, quality, control, and timeliness measures, including right-first-time delivery and aged-item remediation.
• Identify recurring close issues and drive sustainable corrective actions in partnership with process owners, business units, and technology teams.
• Maintain clear accountability for the accuracy and completeness of Accounting and Reporting deliverables.

3. Financial Reporting and Accounting Advisory

• Oversee the preparation and review of statutory, regulatory, management, and internal financial reports within scope.
• Ensure reporting outputs are accurate, complete, relevant, and supported by clearly documented data lineage and control evidence.
• Lead the implementation of new or updated accounting and reporting standards within the assigned organization.
• Provide accounting advisory support for new products, business models, transactions, programs, regulatory changes, and other business initiatives.
• Assess financial and reporting impacts, develop technically supported positions, and escalate enterprise accounting policy interpretations through the appropriate governance channels.
• Translate complex accounting matters into clear, decision-useful information for senior stakeholders.
• Build technical accounting capability through targeted coaching, training, guidance, and risk-based quality reviews.

4. Controls, Compliance, Risk, and Audit Readiness

• Maintain a strong financial control environment across Accounting and Reporting operations.
• Ensure compliance with SOX requirements, accounting policies, regulatory obligations, governance standards, and established operating procedures.
• Act as a senior line of defense for the quality of financial analysis, reconciliations, accounting positions, reporting narratives, and supporting documentation.
• Identify financial, process, operational, and compliance risks; establish mitigation plans and ensure timely remediation.
• Lead audit readiness and coordinate responses to Internal Audit, External Audit, Controllers, Risk, Compliance, and other assurance functions.
• Ensure audit and control findings are addressed through effective root-cause analysis, accountable action plans, and sustained closure.
• Embed controls into transition, automation, system, and process modernization initiatives from design through implementation.

5. Service Delivery and Global Shared Services Leadership

• Lead Accounting and Reporting services within a global shared services environment, aligning operational delivery with enterprise Finance priorities, business needs, and global process standards.
• Establish and maintain effective service delivery governance, including service expectations, performance measures, escalation protocols, operational reviews, stakeholder forums, and clear decision rights.
• Translate strategy into operating plans, service commitments, team objectives, performance measures, and execution priorities.
• Ensure services consistently meet agreed standards for quality, accuracy, timeliness, compliance, responsiveness, productivity, cost effectiveness, and stakeholder experience.
• Define clear ownership and accountability across processes, teams, regions, business units, and partner functions.
• Monitor service performance, capacity, risks, dependencies, resilience, and competing priorities across recurring operations, period-end cycles, transitions, remediation, projects, and transformation initiatives.
• Allocate resources and make informed trade-off decisions while protecting financial integrity, controls, regulatory commitments, and critical business outcomes.
• Anticipate workforce and capability requirements and implement appropriate capacity, cross-training, succession, contingency, and business continuity plans.
• Lead regular business and service reviews, providing transparent reporting on performance, risks, issues, remediation, transformation progress, and decisions required.
• Resolve significant service delivery issues and ensure systemic concerns are addressed through sustainable solutions.
• Manage complex dependencies across global hubs, regions, businesses, systems, and functional teams.
• Strengthen end-to-end collaboration among Shared Services, business-unit Finance teams, Controllership, FP&A, Technology, and other partner functions.
• Drive operational resilience, scalable service delivery, continuous improvement, and strong stakeholder value across the global Accounting and Reporting organization.

6. Finance Transition Management

• Provide leadership for Finance Transformation initiatives affecting Accounting and Reporting, supporting a standardized, scalable, controlled, and insight-focused Finance operating model.
• Lead the transition of new or expanded Accounting and Reporting activities into the shared services organization.
• Oversee transition planning, process discovery, knowledge transfer, documentation, readiness assessment, resourcing, access, controls, parallel runs, go-live, and post-transition stabilization.
• Ensure transitions protect business continuity and do not compromise period-end close, reporting, regulatory, audit, or control requirements.
• Establish clear transition success measures, decision authorities, governance routines, escalation paths, and remediation tracking.
• Partner with sending and receiving teams to validate process completeness, technical knowledge transfer, control ownership, and operational readiness.
• Manage stabilization plans and ensure unresolved gaps are documented, owned, prioritized, and closed.
• Capture lessons learned and embed improvements into future Finance Transformation waves and runbooks.

7. Process Standardization and Continuous Improvement

• Lead the standardization and simplification of Accounting and Reporting processes across businesses, regions, and teams where appropriate.
• Identify opportunities to eliminate non-value-added work, reduce manual activity, improve control effectiveness, accelerate close, and enhance financial insights.
• Promote consistent process definitions, operating procedures, templates, controls, performance metrics, and documentation standards.
• Use root-cause analysis, operational data, stakeholder feedback, and risk assessments to prioritize improvement opportunities.
• Sponsor improvement initiatives and ensure expected benefits, control impacts, adoption requirements, and ownership are clearly defined.
• Balance global standardization with legitimate business, legal-entity, regulatory, and regional requirements.
• Establish a culture of disciplined execution, continuous improvement, learning, and shared accountability.

8. Systems, Automation, Analytics, and Responsible AI

• Provide business leadership for accounting technology, ERP, reporting, workflow, analytics, and system initiatives affecting Accounting and Reporting.
• Maintain appropriate oversight of system interfaces, feeder systems, data flows, postings, master data, accounting structures, and reconciliations.
• Partner with Technology and process owners on requirements, functional design, testing, user acceptance, cutover, adoption, and post-implementation support.
• Identify and sponsor automation opportunities that improve efficiency, scalability, quality, controls, and employee experience.
• Advance analytics and visualization tools to strengthen service performance management, financial analysis, risk identification, and decision support.
• Promote responsible adoption of generative AI and other AI-enabled capabilities for appropriate Finance use cases.
• Ensure automation and AI solutions comply with applicable data, privacy, security, risk, compliance, model governance, and human-review requirements.
• Maintain appropriate segregation of duties, approval controls, evidence, validation, and accountability when implementing technology-enabled changes.
• Build digital capability through practical training, use-case identification, adoption support, and knowledge sharing.

9. Stakeholder and Business Partnership

• Build trusted relationships with senior Finance leaders, business-unit stakeholders, process owners, Controllers, FP&A, HR, Payroll, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Audit partners.
• Understand business priorities and ensure Accounting and Reporting services support required financial and operational outcomes.
• Present financial, operational, control, and transformation matters clearly to senior leadership and governance forums.
• Provide actionable insights on financial results, service performance, risks, capacity, process maturity, and improvement opportunities.
• Influence decisions through technical credibility, commercial awareness, transparent communication, and evidence-based recommendations.
• Manage sensitive escalations professionally and ensure timely follow-through on decisions and commitments.
• Negotiate priorities and trade-offs where stakeholder requirements, operational capacity, timelines, or control considerations conflict.

10. People Leadership and Capability Development

• Lead, coach, and develop a high-performing organization of roughly 70 Finance professionals, including people leaders, technical specialists, and process experts, within a Global Finance Shared Services environment.
• Establish clear roles, decision rights, performance expectations, and individual accountability.
• Build deep technical capability in accounting, reporting, financial control, systems, data, and process management.
• Strengthen leadership capability in stakeholder management, business partnership, judgment, communication, change leadership, and problem-solving.
• Develop succession plans and a sustainable leadership and technical talent pipeline.
• Promote cross-training and knowledge resilience to reduce key-person dependencies and support changing business requirements.
• Foster an inclusive culture of trust, openness, respect, collaboration, accountability, and continuous learning.
• Recognize strong performance and address performance or capability gaps through timely feedback, coaching, development, and structured improvement plans.

11. Strategic Planning and Transformation Leadership

• Develop Accounting and Reporting strategies and operating plans aligned with enterprise Finance and business priorities.
• Translate strategic objectives into measurable outcomes, roadmaps, accountabilities, and sustainable operating practices.
• Lead multiple interdependent initiatives while managing scope, resources, risks, benefits, dependencies, and stakeholder expectations.
• Develop or challenge business cases for transformation, technology, workforce, and process investments.
• Ensure transformation benefits are supported by credible baselines, financial analysis, control assessments, adoption plans, and accountable benefit owners.
• Anticipate emerging accounting, regulatory, technology, talent, and operating-model developments and assess their impact on the organization.
• Champion change by building understanding, engagement, capability, and ownership across affected teams and stakeholders.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or a related discipline.
• At least 10 years of progressive experience in financial control, accounting operations, and financial reporting, including significant and progressively responsible leadership experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading managers, professionals, technical specialists, and multi-workstream Finance operations.
• Strong experience in Record-to-Report and period-end close, with working knowledge of upstream and downstream Finance processes such as Procure-to-Pay and Order-to-Cash.
• Proven experience in financial reporting, accounting advisory, controls, audit, cost and expense management, and complex accounting transactions.
• Experience leading services in a global shared services, captive services, or multi-location Finance environment.
• Demonstrated success in service delivery governance, stakeholder management, transition execution, stabilization, and process transformation.
• Experience sponsoring automation, system enhancements, analytics, or Finance modernization initiatives.
• Experience working across businesses, legal entities, regions, and global functional teams.
• Advanced knowledge of applicable accounting frameworks, including IFRS and/or US GAAP, and related financial reporting and regulatory requirements.
• Deep expertise in general ledger accounting, financial statement preparation, period-end close, reconciliations, journal entries, accruals, allocations, estimates, and financial controls.
• Strong understanding of SOX, audit requirements, risk management, evidence standards, and control design and operation.
• Strong knowledge of cost and expense accounting, budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and management reporting.
• Ability to evaluate complex or unusual transactions and develop clear, technically supported accounting conclusions.
• Strong command of ERP and accounting platforms such as Infor, SAP, Oracle, or comparable systems.
• Understanding of feeder-system integration, accounting interfaces, master data governance, user acceptance testing, cutover, and data lineage.
• Proficiency in reporting, analytics, visualization, workflow, and collaboration tools, including Excel, Power BI, PowerPoint, Teams, Word, and SharePoint.
• Working knowledge of automation, generative AI, and emerging Finance technologies, including the controls and responsible-use considerations associated with implementation.
• Strong project, transition, change, service management, and operational governance capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Insurance, reinsurance, wealth and asset management, or investment accounting experience is an advantage.
• CPA, Chartered Accountant, or equivalent professional accounting qualification an advantage.
• Advanced qualifications such as CMA, CFA, MBA, or a relevant transformation, risk, project, data, or technology certification are advantageous.

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.

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].

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