Director, corporate strategy - Toronto, ON, Canada - Sun Life Financial

Description

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:

The Corporate Strategy & Enablement Team supports Sun Life in achieving and maintaining a position of sustainable strategic advantage and growth in the long term. It has a broad focus of strategy topics that span all businesses, functions, and geographic markets where Sun Life operates. The team provides support on high priority strategic issues and projects for Sun Life's Executive team, Corporate Functions, and Business Groups (BG), and is responsible for actively monitoring and analyzing external trends shaping the markets in which Sun Life operates.

What will you do:

The Corporate Strategy & Enablement team works in a dynamic, collaborative, and collegial team-based environment. Team members are provided with stretch opportunities to work on many of Sun Life's most interesting and challenging problems, exposure to senior executives, and the opportunity to diversify knowledge of Sun Life's businesses and markets. Specifically, the team has four main responsibilities:

• Run the annual strategic planning process
• Shape and support strategy design and advancement of strategy execution
• Support facilitation and planning of Board and Executive Team strategy discussions
• Monitor external trends and draw linkages to Sun Life's businesses

Reporting to the Assistant Vice-President Corporate Strategy & Enablement, the successful candidate will be responsible for strengthening our professional practice standards, enabling best practice sharing, and developing Sun Life specific strategy skills and capabilities through curriculums created for new and experienced strategy practitioners.

The Director, Corporate Strategy & Enablement - Practice Management is expected to apply problem-solving and analytical capabilities, strategic thinking and insight generation, and effective communications and relationship management. They should be highly independent in their ability to execute strategy projects and manage senior stakeholder relationships.

Responsibilities:

Practice Development

• Support the development of the Practice Management strategy, plan and delivery
• Partner with HR and BGs to design a framework to strengthen our professional strategy and enablement practice standards globally for training and development
• Help the structuring, development and documentation of our strategy engagement and delivery methodology and framework and promote knowledge sharing across the practice by coordinating strategy asset collection and structuring, assisting in creation of tools and templates for reusability, etc.
• Be a key player in creating and launching a program for new and experienced strategy practitioners focused on strengthening Sun Life-specific strategy and enablement skills and capabilities
• Once the practice is developed, this role will help promote processes to be leveraged, ensure communication and engagement are ingrained in the way we do business and continue to look for ways to improve the process and continuously evolve with the future needs of the organization

Communication and relationship management

• Effectively communicate insights, ideas, and strategies to an executive level audience in a clear, compelling, and concise manner
• Tailor written and verbal communication based on audience and situation to facilitate productive discussions, foster buy-in, and establish productive working relationships
• Proactively maintain relationships with stakeholders in BGs and Corporate Functions, to maintain an understanding of new developments in their areas and identify needs for strategy support

What do you need to succeed:

• Deep understanding of at least one of Sun Life's business areas (i.e., asset management, individual life insurance, group benefits, group retirement solutions, wealth management, asset management) and geographic markets (i.e., Canada, US, Asia)
• Resourceful and rapid learner, able to work across many topics and domains
• Excellent oral and written communication and presentation skills
• Strong interpersonal skills; able to effectively collaborate with multiple stakeholders across multiple teams
• Strong creative and analytical problem solver, with a solid background working with data, conducting quantitative and qualitative analysis, interpreting results, and writing reports/presentations
• Results-oriented project management skills; well organized, with a high attention to details
• Able to work independently on assignments with appropriate judgment
• Able to manage junior team members on projects, providing guidance on analysis and coaching on deliverables
• Minimum of 5 years relevant business experience, ideally within insurance or financial services; experience in or knowledge of Sun Life's businesses would be an asset
• University degree in business or related discipline; MBA or other relevant advanced degree is an asset
• Experience analyzing and solving complex business problems
• Experience at top-tier management consulting firm or equivalent experience in a Corporate setting focused on developing a practice or program/curriculum design is preferred
• Experience in conducting in-depth secondary research, including collection and synthesis
• Experience in financial analytics, including using modelling tools and techniques, is an asset

What's in it for you:

• Flexible hybrid work model
• Pension, stock and savings programs to help build and enhance your future financial security
• Work and professional development that is united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives
• A friendly, collaborative and inclusive culture
• Be part of our continuous improvement journey in developing the next greatest digital enterprise experience
• Competitive salary and bonus structure influenced by market range data
• A common sense dress code, where you decide how you dress based on your day
• The opportunity to move along a variety of career paths with amazing networking potential

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

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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