AVP, Value Realization Office

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you’ll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

About the role

Value Realization is the key to understanding how strategy implementation impacts your operational and transformational goals. A Value Realization Office (VRO) is how that understanding is monitored, communicated and continuously improved.

Sun Life Canada is strengthening its Value Realization Office, with a critical mission to increase the flow of value across the Canadian business. This will compliment the role of traditional PMOs in the enterprise. This shall enable, orchestrate & accelerate business outcomes so that the Canadian portfolio can achieve its strategic objectives and priorities.

The AVP, Value Realization Office will support the vision of delivering seamless digital experiences and solutions across Sun Life Canada’s health, wealth and insurance business units. Reporting to the VP, and CFO, Canadian Operations and CXO and Expense Mgmt, this leadership role will closely partner with Sun Life Canada’s Finance, Strategy & Growth, Business Units and Technology teams to:

• Track and measure value and outcomes realized through our investments, particularly for value delivered to our Clients.

• Support prioritization and effective use of resources for complex cross-BU initiatives, as well as One Sun solutions.

• Identify impediments and global trends through Health Checks; remove impediments to enable agility and execution success.

• Drive continuous improvement, culture change, and Digital Enterprise adoption, including best practices and coaching. Help Sun Life Canada mature its practices and agile ways of working.

• Lead the execution of multi-year roadmaps that deliver consistent, seamless client/sponsor/advisor experiences across our businesses.

• Actively promote One Sun solutions to drive efficiencies and re-use across Sun Life Canada.

• Leveraging input from the Strategy & Growth team, support strategic and OKR alignment across Sun Life Canada. This will establish linkage of outcomes to Sun Life Canada’s business and technology goals.

• Support and enable Project & Portfolio Management governance evolution to establish controls for execution success while ensuring compliance with regulatory mandates.

What you'll be doing

Orchestrate complex epics, initiatives and plans across business units for Sun Life Canada

• Lead cross-BU prioritization forums to ensure maximum value is realized for the investments we make, and to coordinate where our resource capacity is best focused.

• Help create a unified vision of One Sun opportunities - common solutions, capabilities and programs that create optimal client outcomes across our life, health and wealth businesses.

• Lead annual and multi-year planning activities for the holistic Sun Life Canada portfolio.

• Facilitate the collection of central funding asks as part of annual budgeting processes and oversee the allocation of those funds once provided by Canada Finance.

• Drive strategic alignment and shared goals/objectives across Sun Life Canada business units. Facilitate creation of roadmaps and OKRs that align to the north star vision from CET.

Accelerate value realization for Sun Life Canada

• Articulate the value, benefit, and trade-offs of digital investments, how they support the business strategy and how it integrates into the broader technology architecture.

• Track and report outcomes achieved, and value derived from investments.

• Streamline / optimize reporting processes so that outcomes are made visible to the organization in an efficient manner.

• Identify and remove systematic impediments raised by our teams through Health Checks.

Promote best practices while effectively managing risks

• Partner with the Global Value Realization Office on controls, best practices and reporting needs.

• Provide teams with optimal tools to enable productivity and delivery success.

• Oversee rollout of Planview platform across SLF Canada. Planview is a Portfolio Management tool that enables Strategic Planning Management and Enterprise Agile Planning. This integrated tool connects Strategy to Execution and provides visibility into the work across People & Capacity, Strategic Value & Outcomes, Investments & Returns, and Health & Progress of Work.

• Ensure risk and compliance requirements are met by all teams.

• Support Canadian Finance / CPOC with visibility to delivery that they have funded. Actively support CPOC transformation initiatives under Digital Enterprise.

Key Attributes

Reputation for strong leadership and partnerships

• Excellent strategic planning, collaboration and communication skills to interact with and influence all levels of the organization, including senior management and executives.

• A leader that communicates with an authentic style that breaks down silos and encourages open communication across IT and the Business.

• Highly credible leader that has demonstrated superior management skills; attracts and retains strong technology professionals by developing engaged, cohesive teams.

• Experience leading virtual teams spanning multiple global locations.

Proven ability to advance organizations and deliver results through complex, ambiguous situations

• Experience leading complex initiatives, activities and processes that spans multiple business units or functions. Proven experience facilitating prioritization decisions and aligning multiple stakeholders towards a common objective.

• Ability to design and explain complex scenarios with simplicity, to aid in understanding for the specific audience.

• Demonstrated experience with organizing and overseeing multiple initiatives simultaneously, in a high-pressure environment.

• Test and learn, experimentation mindset to enable teams to keep moving forward.

Experience leading Value Realization Office or Enterprise PMO functions

• Ability to assess the benefits / value / outcomes of an investment and compare it to other priorities.

• Strong listener who gauges the perspectives of various stakeholders to assess competing priorities and facilitate decisions on investments, resourcing, etc through influencing.

• Strong communicator who excels in storytelling the benefits of digital investments, transformations, etc. Ability to track and report key metrics to show progress, trends, etc.

Experience or interest in leading teams in an agile environment

• Using agile software development methodologies, processes, ceremonies, and tools.

• Working with SAFe, Kanban and/or Scrum methodologies.

• Leading through organizational transformations and supporting employees in the required change management processes.

What you'll need to succeed

• 15+ years working in a large, complex, matrixed organization, with preference to Financial Services

• 10+ years' experience in Senior project delivery / governance leadership roles

• PMP Scaled Agile (SaFe) certification

• Prosci certified change practioner (or equivalent experience)

• Demonstrated people leadership experience, building and engaging high performing teams

• Strong Financial Acumen; preference will be given to leaders who can demonstrate a high degree of financial literacy.

• Experience leading large project delivery teams.

• Proven ability to navigate Sun Life and the complexities of a matrix organization.

• Knowledge of Sun Life Canada’s life, health and wealth businesses ideal.

• Ability to engage, influence and build strong relationships with internal partners.

• Financial Services experiences would be an asset.

• This role currently has a team of four Directors and one Sr. Manager - this is subject to change as the business evolves.

• Period travel will be required to Toronto and Waterloo

• As this position is posted in several locations, we specify that bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only as the position includes managing both French and English-speaking staff (Quebec and outside Quebec) and providing daily support to the team.

What's in it for you:

• Being a member of the Sun Life family, a group of people united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.
• In 2024, Sun Life ranked among the top 100 most sustainable global corporations by Corporate Knights for the 15th consecutive year, leading Canadian insurers.
• We are proud to be on the 2024 Best Workplaces in Canada list by Great Place to Work.
• We’re also listed as one of the Best Workplaces for Women and Best Workplaces with Most Trusted Executive Teams.
• Our unique Sabbatical Program gives you the opportunity to take up to 6 weeks off, every five years.
• Care Days available for self-care or care of others (i.e., family or others you may support) and Sick Days to support your well-being.

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

At Sun Life we strive to create a flexible work environment where our employees are empowered to do their best work. Several flexible work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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