Strategy Director

Manulife is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Canada, Asia, and the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups, and institutions.

The opportunity

We are seeking a highly driven, independent, and strategic thinker to join our strategy team as Strategy Director. This role will be the key support to the Head of Strategy in ensuring alignment with Manulife Singapore’s strategic goals and assist in tracking progress and KPIs. The ideal candidate will possess strong problem-solving abilities, thrive in ambiguity, and be a proactive self-starter capable of developing strategies and driving it through to execution. This role requires someone who can lead cross-functional initiatives, collaborate across teams, and influence decision-making across levels.

Responsibilities:

• Support the strategic planning process, coordinating the development of plan documents with functional and regional stakeholders.
• Conduct strategic reviews by analyzing business problems, deep diving into current challenges to define clear points of departure, potential strategic options, and actionable plans toward measurable outcomes.
• Support the development and refinement of company-wide strategies, including new strategic initiatives, and collaborating across functions to identifying, prioritizing, developing clear execution roadmaps, and monitoring progress where required.
• Conduct detailed analyses of market and industry performance, identifying trends and insights, to support strategic decisions, including identifying new opportunities.
• Support in the preparation of content development of CEO reports, including but not limited to, strategy presentations, Board Papers, Rating Agency/Investor Relations papers, Business Reviews, and any ad-hoc requests.
• Co-ordinate the roll-out of scorecard across business, including collaborating on regular assessment of the GM scorecard with the regional office.

• Identify opportunities for innovation and improvement within strategic processes and recommend solutions.

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Economics, Finance, Actuarial or a related field required; MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred.
• 5 to 8 years of experience in strategy development, management consulting, corporate
• strategy, or a related role, preference for those with direct insurance or insurance related consulting experience
• PowerPoint, Word, Excel Power BI: expert skills in PowerPoint with the ability to tell a story and sell a message. Can analyze large quantities of data, generate charts in PowerPoint and Excel.
• Stakeholder management: effectively collaborate with members of the Asia Strategy team/local BUs and other functions (such as Controllers, Tax, Actuarial, Legal, IT and Wealth Management) to provide the deliverables needed to drive projects to completion.   
• Proven ability to independently frame problems, identify key drivers, and develop effective strategic solutions.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to balance strategic thinking with execution focus.
• High degree of initiative, resourcefulness, and self-motivation.
• Excellent organizational and time management skills and a strong ability to recognize critical path deliverables to deliver within project timelines.
• Strong verbal and written communication with the ability to effectively articulate and communicate technical vision, possibilities, and outcomes.
• Proven track record of leading cross-functional strategic initiatives from ideation to implementation.
• Experience in a dynamic, high-growth, or transformation-focused environment is a strong plus.
• Effective stakeholder management skills and ability to partner with and influence senior management to drive data culture in the organization.

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].