Regional Vice President, Northern Ontario & Prairies

Reporting to the Chief Growth Officer of Manulife Wealth, the RVP of Northern Ontario & Prairies is a senior people and business leader who is responsible for owning and executing the strategy and the Dealer’s value proposition to ensure profitability and growth of our Advisory Teams and the overall business.

As a people leader, the incumbent will build and lead cross-functional field relationships across several action-oriented relationship experts across Canada. They will be responsible for planning and directing advisor recruitment, advisor retention, advisor development and growth, succession planning and the execution of programs and support for advisors’ practices, their teams and in particular branch owners.

The RVP will lead the development and delivery of the Advisor/Branch Transformation to align with Manulife Wealth’s aggressive growth ambitions as part of the Canadian Advice Strategy.

Adept at communicating vision, driving positive engagement, and challenging the status quo, this leader will bring the strategy to life. Specifically, this role will support the build out of an operating model to:

• Support our aggressive growth and recruiting plans,

• Adapt to a new branch focused support model,

• Enable advisor growth activities,

• Support advisory teams for efficiency and implementation of new technologies, resources and programs,

• Increase engagement,

• Support advisory team evolution through transitioning to fee-based, PM practice and other growth opportunities, and help us successfully transition and retain assets from advisors who are moving into retirement over the next 5 years and move their books of business to more cost-efficient distribution options within the firm.

This is a highly visible position that requires collaboration across the Manulife organization beyond Manulife Wealth, it is essential that the RVP works in partnership with our internal partners and distribution groups and establishes a strong working partnership with Canadian Segment partners such as Manulife Bank, Manulife Investment Management and Manulife Insurance to ensure respective strategies and initiatives are aligned and implemented in a mutually beneficial manner.

The role requires a delicate balance of relevant industry experience, advanced leadership skills, strategic and analytical thinking, creative problem solving, perseverance and agility to pivot from working on the business to working in the business as needed.

Accountabilities:

Advisory Teams / Branch Owners

• Coach advisors/branch owners to identify current condition of their businesses, define personal goals and objectives, innovate systems to improve performance to achieve personal advisor business and corporate goals, implement solutions and monitor and quantify results.

• Identify distinct advisor and branch owner segments, based on their value to the organization, while providing a competitive value proposition to retain talent and grow results.

• Support the book buying program, ensuring profitability and suitability objectives are achieved.

• Assist advisors to increase and maintain business growth rate, improve client retention, as well as improve their staff development and retention.

• Develop and maintain network of relationships at the branch level across their region.

• Develop and evaluate sales programs and pricing/distribution policies for individual advisors and branches.

• Coordinate with internal support teams to ensure advisors have access to the necessary resources and support.

• Working with regional teams across the Country to provide consistent messages and instructions.

• Develop and maintain programs to drive NPS at the advisor level towards the firm and at the customer level towards both the firm and the advisor.

Strategic Planning

• Lead the transformation of Advisor/Branch support model and strategy.

• Assist with overall business short-term and long-term planning including setting targets and objectives key results.

• Review existing sales objectives, establish short and long-range objectives, strategies and policies in conjunction with the Senior Management team.

• Build and maintain effective relationships within the Company and the industry.

• Drive automation/digitization of the field team to better utilize global Manulife tools/platforms.

• Establish a systematic process for collecting and analyzing feedback from advisors to continuously improve the business’ offering, addressing any gaps or areas for enhancement.

• Ensure Advisory teams have risk awareness to drive our culture, manage reputational risk and protect the brand of Manulife.

Recruiting/Retention

• Support the recruitment process to attract high value advisors and branch owners to Manulife Wealth.

• Ensure that all recruiting strategies target advisors that fit our culture and generate appropriate returns for the capital deployed to transition advisors to our platform.

• Leverage already established industry leads of top advisor branches to supplement the recruiting pipeline.

Marketing and Communications

• Provide guidance and insights on all dealer communications and marketing initiatives impacting advisors and Branch Owners and ensure these are in line with Dealer and MGA strategies.

• Significantly influence/drive the annual strategic planning by marketing and communications shared services in supporting the Dealer and MGA business.

• Keeping apprised of changes and communication within the company to provide an effective network of current information.

• Ongoing communication with Branch Owners and Advisory Teams on all pertinent information being shared by Manulife Wealth.

Risk Management

• Maintain an up-to-date view and pulse on the industry landscape and applicable regulation across Canada.

• Working closely with our internal partners and senior leadership of Regulatory Affairs, Risk and Compliance, provide business guidance and input into measures to identify and mitigate risks within the business and participate in industry response proposals.

• Partner with Legal, Compliance and Market Conduct to address advisor escalations.

Qualifications and Skills:

• Minimum 10 to 15 years of experience in the financial services industry.

• CFP, CIM designations are an asset.

• Extensive knowledge of IIROC & MFDA (CIRO) regulatory framework is required.

• Experience with sales management experience including recruiting, coaching, and leading advisors is required.

• Deep knowledge of Insurance products and practices.

• Leadership and people management skills with the ability to motivate and energize a team towards common goals.

• Experience in networking, negotiation, influencing and creative thinking skills.

• Build and manage relationships across functions and divisions.

• Resilient delivery mind-set with a strong execution focus.

• Excellent and effective communication and interpersonal skills

• Ability to travel.

• Organizational and prioritization skills to be able to work in a multitasking environment. Highly developed conflict resolution skills

• Comfortable making presentations to groups.