Program Director, Finance Elevate

Join Our Finance Elevate Program Team at Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS)

Empowering Financial Excellence Globally

Manulife Business Processing Services (MBPS), registered as Manulife Data Services, Inc., is a leading Global Shared Services Center supporting Manulife's worldwide operations. With over 8,000 employees across Manila, Cebu, and Chengdu (China), MBPS delivers high-quality services in Finance, Investments, Operations, Contact Center, Claims, Underwriting, Legal & Compliance, and Digital Information Services.

Our Finance Shared Services Center, based in Manila and Cebu, is home to 600+ finance professionals dedicated to supporting Manulife's global Finance organization. Key areas of expertise include Period-End Close & Financial Reporting, Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), Controllership & Treasury Operations, Strategic Financial Analysis, Finance Process Modernization in partnership with Group Finance Technology, Credit Analysis and Investment Evaluation.

At MBPS, we champion innovation, collaboration, and excellence. Join us and be part of a global team driving the future of finance.

The Program Director, Finance Elevate drives the strategy, standards, and execution of the global Finance Elevate transformation portfolioensuring every colleague knows and owns their role in change. The Director empowers teams with the learning, tools, resources, and community needed to adapt to everyday change and to roll out and sustain impactful transformation. Operating within Manulife's Outcome Delivery Framework (ODF) and governance standards, the role partners with Finance senior leadership and Finance Elevate Workstream Leads to align sequencing and prioritization, ensure financial integrity (project expenses and benefits realization), drive adoption, identify and escalate delivery risks and roadblocks, drive consistency and best practices across project reporting standards, and deliver clear, decision-oriented insights for executive forums.

This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for enabling change initiatives across Financeleading and coaching project teams in structured methodologies, conducting impact and readiness assessments, and developing comprehensive change enablement strategies (communications, learning, sponsor activation, resistance management, sustainment). The Director role is highly visible at the leadership level and demands outstanding leadership skills, including high emotional intelligence, stakeholder management, and the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across global, cross-functional teams.

The role balances strategic stewardship with targeted delivery support to keep initiatives on plan and on value.

Role And Responsibilities

Functionally reporting to the AVP, Finance Transformation and locally to an MBPS AVP, the Program Director, Finance Elevate provides programlevel reporting, governance and change leadership across the Finance Elevate transformation portfoliosetting standards, orchestrating governance forums, owning the executive reporting narrative, and ensuring compliance with ODF and Delegation of Authority. The Director leads the program's communication and change enablement strategy (readiness, adoption, and sustainment), maintains the integrated roadmap of delivery and change milestones, provides business case and financial oversight, owns executive and stakeholder reporting, provides targeted project management support, and drives portfolio insights that inform prioritization, funding, and benefits realization decisions. The role partners closely with Finance senior leadership, workstream leads, and enterprise partners (e.g., IT/HR). Key responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Program Governance & Oversight (Program-Level)
• Organize and run functional governance forums for Finance Elevate (e.g., Steering Committees, working groups), document decisions, actions, owners, and timelines; ensure follow-through.
• Establish and maintain guidelines, standards, and templates for initiative updates and governance requests (e.g., intake, gating, status, RAID, change control, benefits).
• Ensure adherence to companywide project reporting standards and systems (e.g., GIA), partnering with delivery leads to sustain reporting discipline and auditability.
• Integrate ODF and Delegation of Authority (DoA) expectations into portfolio ways of working; continuously improve playbooks and controls.
• Own and maintain programlevel RAID log and change governanceescalating systemic risks, mitigation options for executive decision, and track to closure.
• Govern and own change control for scope, timeline, and cost changes; assess impacts, prepare decision options, and secure timely approvals through governance forums
• Drive sequencing, prioritization, and alignment of the Finance Elevate transformation portfolio of projects to strategic outcomes, resourcing/capacity, dependencies, and constraints.
• Business Case & Financial Oversight
• Facilitate business case preparation/refinement: scope definition, benefits logic, KPIs, investment rationale, and alignment to strategic priorities.
• Monitor portfolio financial performance vs. approved business cases, including project expenses and benefits realization (timing, magnitude, run rate).
• Conduct variance analysis, forecasting, and re-planning; support intake and Transformation Portfolio balancing based on value, risk, and capacity.
• Reporting & Analytics (Executive Narrative & Insights)
• Own the executive narrative for monthly, quarterly, and adhoc executive reportingsynthesizing status, risks, financials, KPIs, benefits realization, and decisions required.
• Define and maintain the integrated roadmap of project and change timelines; communicate downstream and crossprogram impacts to stakeholders to manage dependencies.
• Set portfolio KPIs and success measures (adoption, readiness, value delivery) and oversee cadence, quality, and consistency of submissions; approve final reporting packs.
• Conduct trend and variance analysis to surface insights, recommend rebalancing/sequencing, and prompt corrective actions.
• Communication & Change Enablement (Strategy to Adoption)
• Lead Finance Elevate communications strategyhighlighting transformation value, milestones, and impacts; tailor messages by audience (e.g., sponsors, leaders, practitioners, impacted teams).
• Drive change enablement across workstreams and programwide: impact and readiness assessments, sponsor activation, change network mobilization, communications, learning, and resistance management.
• Align change/adoption planning with delivery milestones (cutovers, releases, transition to BAU) and ensure sustainment plans and ownership are in place.
• Strategic & ValueAdded Activities (Enterprise Focus)
• Develop the consolidated business case for the program and lead funding allocation and benefits realization discussions with sponsors and Finance leadership.
• Recommend portfolio rebalancing based on readiness, value, risk posture, and capacity; prepare decision options consistent with DoA thresholds.
• Continuously improve transformation approachesidentify synergies, eliminate lowvalue activity, and codify lessons learned to scale what works.
• Keep Finance leadership informed and secure approvals for key decisions; represent Finance Elevate in enterprise change forums.
• Coordinate with workstreams and IT/HR partners to proactively address crossfunctional issues and enable timely resolution.
• Leadership and Delivery Support
• Build capability and consistency across PMs, BAs, and change practitioners through standards, clinics, and communities of practice.
• Provide targeted project management and business analysis support in unblocking issues (scope clarification, plan dependencies, requirements hygiene, RAID remediation).
• Coach delivery teams on ODF practices, benefits tracking, RAID discipline, and change control rigor; improve consistency and throughput.
• Controls, Compliance & Data Quality
• Ensure auditreadiness and traceability of portfolio decisions and change artifacts; uphold data quality standards across PPM and reporting tools (including GIA).
• Partner with Audit, Risk, and Finance to maintain control effectiveness and evidence requirements tied to ODF and DoA.
  
  

Decision Authority

• Accountable for:
• Programlevel change enablement strategy, communications/learning approach, success measures (adoption/readiness), and reporting standards.
• Governance forum orchestration (agenda, cadence, decision papers) and approval of final executive reporting packs.
• Portfolio data quality standards and acceptance criteria across PPM/reporting systems (incl. GIA); control and audit readiness.
• Initial impact assessments and recommendations for scope, schedule, and cost changes (including change/adoption implications) within delegated limits.
• Program-level RAID framework and hygiene; identification and tracking of mitigations and dependencies.
• Portfolio reporting standards, cadence, and content quality for leadership and C-suite forums.
• Data quality standards and acceptance criteria for portfolio/PPM tools; reconciliation of status, financials, and benefits data.
• Approves within delegated thresholds:
• Change control items of limited materiality (communications/training adjustments, timeline optimizations) and resource reallocation within approved capacity envelopes.
• Templates, guidelines, and process standards for portfolio reporting, governance requests, and change deliverables.
• Makes recommendations on:
• Major prioritization and sequencing decisions across the Transformation Portfolio (value, cost, risk, capacity tradeoffs).
• Material change requests (scope, timeline, budget, benefits) and funding allocation or rebaselining of benefits.
• Strategic resourcing (surge capacity, specialized change skills) to protect critical path, derisk delivery or accelerate adoption.
• Business case assumptions, KPIs, and benefits realization plans (including recovery actions for variance to plan).
• Consulted and Supports:
• Steering Committees, sponsors, and senior leaders on program health, risk posture, and decisions required.
• Finance, Technology, and HR partners on governance compliance, PM/BA best practices, and adoption/change alignment.
• Audit, Risk, and Finance partners on adherence to controls, evidence, and traceability.
  
  

Qualifications

• Education & Certification
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Organizational Change, or related field. CPA is an advantage.
• Professional designations are preferred or equivalent experience: Prosci ADKAR, CCMP, PMP/PMIACP, Lean Six Sigma.
• Experience
• 810+ years in change enablement and/or program/portfolio leadership within complex, global financial services or similarly matrixed environments.
• Demonstrated success leading largescale transformations with measurable adoption and benefits realization outcomes.
• Experience facilitating business cases and monitoring expenses and benefits realization against approved plans.
• Proven capability in executivelevel reporting, portfolio governance, and influencing without authority across functions and geographies.
• Track record of influencing without authority and partnering across Finance, Technology, and Shared Services.
• Experience managing and developing talent (at least one direct report) and covering IC scope during absences or peak cycles.
• Handson experience integrating change practices with PPM, delivery lifecycles (e.g., ODF), and finance governance (business cases, DoA).
• Technical Skills
• Mastery of change methodologies (Prosci ADKAR, Kotter, or similar): impact/readiness assessments, stakeholder analysis, communications/learning, resistance management.
• Strong reporting and analytics (KPIs for adoption/benefits, variance analysis, forecasting) and executive data storytelling (PowerPoint/Power BI/Excel).
• Proficiency with PPM and collaboration tools (e.g., Planview/Clarity/Jira, SharePoint/Confluence) and disciplined documentation/audit trail management.
• Familiarity with ERP/finance platforms and architectures (e.g., Infor, SAP, Oracle) and related accounting applications; understands process, data, and control implications.
• Familiarity with ODF (or similar delivery frameworks), governance controls, and Delegation of Authority processes.
• Comfortable with operating model and org design (role clarity, capability uplift, change network mobilization).
• Leadership and Soft Skills
• Executive presence with outstanding written and verbal communication; crafts decisionoriented insights and clear narratives.
• High emotional intelligence; skilled in facilitation, negotiation, and conflict resolution across diverse stakeholders and time zones.
• Strategic and structured problem solving; balances scope, schedule, cost, risk, readiness, and value to drive sound tradeoffs.
• People leadership: coaching, performance management, standards setting; ensures accountability and quality.
• Resilience and learning agility; able to switch between strategic stewardship and handson delivery seamlessly.
• Highly skilled in prioritization, resource planning, and decision-making under pressure.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of business drivers to align financial strategies with organizational objectives.
• Successful Behaviors
• Communicates with clarity and influencetranslates complex portfolio and change data into concise, executiveready narratives that drive decisions.
• Enables change and navigates ambiguityaligns stakeholders, manages resistance, and sustains focus on outcomes through shifting priorities and dependencies.
• Develops and coaches othersuplifts the broader project teams; models hands-on leadership to maintain the highest standards in change delivery.
• Demonstrates collaboration and inclusionbuilds trust across global, crossfunctional teams, tailors engagement to diverse perspectives and decision rights.
• Applies enterprise, business, and technical acumenanticipates risks, evaluates tradeoffs, and recommends actions that protect value and accelerate adoption.
• Delivers results with accountabilityowns outcomes and ensures commitments on scope, financials, adoption, and timelines are met.
• Exhibits a growth mindsetcontinuously improves governance, reporting, and change practices; seeks feedback and scales lessons learned.
  
  

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 [Confidential Information].

Working Arrangement

Hybrid