Director, Product Development

Job Description

:

Sun Life Retail Advice & Solutions (RA&S) is one of Canada’s leading financial institutions that offers Canadians holistic advice and innovative solutions spanning insurance, health, and wealth through a continuum of digital-first hybrid advice, proprietary career, and independent sales channels. Within RA&S, Insurance Solutions is responsible for designing and distributing leading-edge life and health insurance products to over 2 million individual retail clients across Canada.

Reporting to the AVP, Insurance Product & Solutions, the Director, Product Development will be responsible for driving new product innovations and enhancements to our retail insurance new business product portfolio. The successful candidate will be accountable for leading a high performing team to execute on product initiatives spanning our life (term, participating whole life, UL, perm whole life) and health (critical illness, long-term care, personal health insurance) insurance portfolios.

The ideal candidate is a challenge-seeking, analytical, results-oriented leader with strong communication and influencing skills, a ‘get stuff done’ mentality, balanced with a strategic mindset to optimize decisions involving trade-offs between Clients, advisors, and shareholders.

What you will do?

• Product Strategy – develop and evolve the strategy for individual products on the new business insurance shelf, with focus on driving business growth, leading the industry through innovation, and improving Sun Life’s market position
• Product Development – drive product development initiatives from concept to implementation, including Client/advisor research, concept development and validation, business casing, oversight of build and go-to-market, and value realization. Develop next-gen insurance concepts based on technology trends, market direction, competitor actions and Sun Life’s strengths and assets.
• Client / Advisor Research – leverage and champion design-thinking best practices to build creative solutions through empathy-driven, human-centered design. Lead the development and execute on of qualitative and quantitative research plans to bring forward the Voice of the Client and Voice of the Advisor to refine approach and proposed solutions
• High Performing Team – lead a team of Innovation/Product Managers and build a diverse, empowered, best-in-class team through proactive career development and continuous feedback / coaching

What you need to succeed?

• Minimum 5 years in the financial services industry
• Proven background in product management and/or strategy roles
• Track record of developing and launching new solutions
• Experience with financial and product performance analysis
• Demonstrated knowledge of the Canadian retail insurance landscape

Core Competencies

• Leadership & Influence: Ability to effectively manage cross-organizational relationships and drive results in a complex business environment
• Problem-Solving: Proven balance of analytical and creative approaches to critical business issues, with data-driven decision-making
• Execution: "Get stuff done" mentality in challenging, fast-paced environments

Technical & Analytical Skills

• Strong quantitative abilities including data interpretation, modeling, and information visualization
• Proficiency in financial analysis and performance metrics
• Experience with client research methodologies
• Design thinking practices
• Survey design and execution
• Focus-group facilitation

Communication & Leadership

• Exceptional presentation and written communication skills
• Track record of presenting to senior leadership
• Ability to lead and develop high-performing teams

Education & Qualifications

• University degree required
• Post-graduate studies in management (asset)
• As this position is posted in several locations, we specify that bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only for the frequent interactions with English and French-speaking colleagues or internal partners across Canada or worldwide.

What's in it for you?

• A friendly, collaborative and inclusive culture
• An environment of continuous learning and improvement
• Supportive working environment, culture of collaboration, high performance teams
• We’re committed to creating an inclusive and respectful environment. Our goal is to make sure all our employees have the chance to live up to their full potential
• Our unique Sabbatical Program gives you the opportunity to take up to 6 weeks off, every five years.