Product Owner - Contact Centre and Management & Review

The Product Owner, Contact Centre and Management & Review is accountable for translating the Asia servicing transformation ambition into a clear, prioritised and executable roadmap for Contact Centre and Management & Review capabilities.

Working in close partnership with the Head of Servicing and Contact Centre Transformation, the role will define and implement the Asia Target Operating Model across diverse markets. This includes shaping the strategy and roadmap, building stakeholder consensus, defining the capability roadmap, assessing operational impacts, developing business cases and supporting implementation and value realisation.

The role acts as the bridge between Operations, Technology, Data, AI, Risk, Compliance and delivery partners. It owns the business problem, intended outcomes, priorities and acceptance of delivered capabilities, while technology teams retain ownership of architecture, engineering and technical design.

This is a regional, hands-on product leadership role requiring strong knowledge of contact centre operations and servicing processes, disciplined prioritisation, practical change leadership and the ability to convert complex operating-model needs into implementable increments.

Position Responsibilities:

Strategy and Target Operating Model

• Partner with the Head of Servicing and Contact Centre Transformation to define the Asia vision, strategic principles and multi-year roadmap for Contact Centre and Management & Review.
• Define the future-state Target Operating Model, covering customer and intermediary journeys, channels, work intake, routing, case ownership, management controls, review activities, workforce, data, governance and performance management.
• Translate regional strategy, market priorities, regulatory obligations and customer insight into practical design choices and a sequenced implementation path.
• Maintain a clear articulation of the case for change, target outcomes, dependencies, assumptions and non-negotiable design principles.

Product and Capability Roadmap

• Own and continuously refine the product roadmap and backlog for Contact Centre and Management & Review capabilities across Asia.
• Define capability maturity, target-state requirements and market adoption waves, distinguishing common regional capabilities from justified local variations.
• Convert business outcomes into epics, features, user stories, acceptance criteria and measurable success indicators in partnership with process, change and technology teams.
• Prioritise work using customer value, operational benefit, risk reduction, feasibility, dependency, cost and time-to-value.
• Ensure roadmap items address end-to-end journeys rather than isolated technology or channel changes.

Stakeholder Alignment and Governance

• Build consensus across Country COOs, market Contact Centre and Servicing leaders, Management & Review teams, regional functions and global partners.
• Facilitate design workshops and decision forums, making trade-offs, points of disagreement and required executive decisions transparent.
• Establish product governance, decision rights, design authority, roadmap cadence, market engagement and escalation pathways.
• Communicate the “what, why, when and impact” of the roadmap in language suited to executives, delivery teams and frontline Operations.

• Operational Impact and Business Analysis

• Lead current-state assessment and gap analysis across processes, organisation, skills, controls, data, technology enablement and performance measures.
• Assess operational impacts including role changes, workload shifts, spans of control, capacity, training, procedures, quality assurance, risk controls and service continuity.
• Use operational data, customer feedback, process evidence, and frontline insight to size problems and validate priorities.
• Define operational readiness and acceptance requirements before capabilities are deployed to markets.

Business Cases and Value Realisation

• Build robust business cases covering customer, employee, financial, productivity, risk and strategic benefits, together with cost, capacity and implementation assumptions.
• Define baselines, target measures and benefit owners for each roadmap initiative.
• Partner with Finance, Operations and delivery teams to validate assumptions and establish credible benefit-tracking plans.
• Monitor adoption and realised outcomes after implementation, escalating gaps and driving corrective action where expected value is not achieved.
  

Delivery and Implementation Support

• Act as the Operations Product Owner through discovery, design, build, testing, pilot, rollout and post-implementation stabilisation.
• Provide timely product decisions, clarify requirements, manage backlog changes and accept delivered capabilities against agreed business criteria.
• Support market implementation planning, including change impacts, communications, training, procedures, controls, data readiness and cutover preparation.
• Identify cross-market dependencies, implementation risks and barriers early, and coordinate resolution with accountable owners.
• Use pilots and phased releases to test assumptions, capture evidence, and improve the operating model before broader scale-up.

Contact Centre and Management & Review Capability Development

• Define and advance capabilities such as omnichannel engagement, intelligent routing, digital self-service, knowledge management, interaction summarisation, quality management, workforce optimisation, case management, workflow, automation, analytics and AI-assisted servicing.
• Define the future Management & Review model, including where review is required, how work is risk-segmented, how exceptions are managed, how quality is evidenced and how duplicated or low-value review activity is removed.
• Ensure new capabilities simplify colleague experience and are designed with appropriate customer, conduct, privacy, security and operational controls.
• Build reusable standards, playbooks, templates and capability guidance that enable consistent adoption across Asia.

Risk, Controls and Responsible Change

• Embed operational risk, conduct, compliance, privacy, information security, model risk and business continuity considerations into product design and release decisions.

• Ensure control changes are explicitly documented, tested and approved by accountable functions before implementation.

• Maintain traceability from strategic outcomes through requirements, delivery, operational readiness and realised benefits.

• Promote responsible use of automation and AI, with appropriate human oversight, monitoring and exception management.

Problems / Challenges

• Balancing the need for a common Asia model with material differences in regulation, customer expectations, language, scale, maturity and existing technology across markets.
• Creating consensus where regional, global and market priorities compete for limited funding and delivery capacity.
• Maintaining end-to-end outcome ownership across organisational boundaries and multiple delivery teams.
• Replacing fragmented, manual and control-heavy practices without weakening service continuity, customer protection and experience or regulatory compliance.
• Establishing reliable baselines and benefit evidence where operational data definitions and measurement maturity differ by market.
• Driving adoption so that delivered capabilities change day-to-day behaviours and produce measurable value rather than becoming unused technology.

Required Qualifications:

• At least 8 - 10 years of experience in product ownership, operations transformation, contact centre, customer servicing or Management & Review within insurance or another regulated financial-services environment.

• Demonstrated experience defining and implementing target operating models and multi-year transformation roadmaps across multiple business units or markets.

• Strong product-management capability, including discovery, prioritisation, backlog management, user stories, acceptance criteria, roadmap governance and value realisation.

• Practical understanding of contact centre operating models, customer journeys, quality and performance management, workforce planning, case management and digital servicing.

• Experience redesigning review, quality assurance, exception management or operational control activities using risk-based and data-led approaches.

• Proven ability to develop business cases and quantify customer, productivity, capacity, financial and risk benefits.

• Experience supporting complex implementation, testing, pilot, rollout, operational readiness and post-launch stabilisation.

• Working knowledge of cloud contact centre, customer relationship management, workflow, analytics, automation and AI-enabled servicing platforms. Experience with solutions such as Genesys, Amazon Connect, Salesforce or equivalent is advantageous.

• Excellent facilitation, influencing and written communication skills, with the ability to facilitate decisions in a complex matrix without relying on direct authority.

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Operations, Technology, Engineering or a related field. Product, Agile, Lean or change-management qualifications 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].

Hybrid