The Senior Project Manager is accountable for leading complex, strategic, technical, and cross-functional initiatives through the full delivery lifecycle while operating within the Enterprise Project Management Office governance framework. The role converts enterprise priorities into executable plans, aligns stakeholders, manages scope, schedule, budget, quality, risks, issues, dependencies, resources, and change impacts, and ensures that projects deliver measurable business outcomes and intended benefits. The role also strengthens enterprise delivery discipline through transparent reporting, stage-gate compliance, continuous improvement, and active contribution to EPMO standards and capability building.
Key Accountabilities:
1. Strategic Alignment and Project Leadership
- Lead assigned strategic, transformation, business, and technology projects from initiation through implementation, transition, and closure.
- Translate approved business cases and enterprise priorities into clear project outcomes, roadmaps, delivery plans, milestones, and decision points.
- Maintain alignment between project objectives, enterprise strategy, investment intent, and expected business value.
- Provide direction to cross-functional project teams, clarify roles and expectations, and enable effective collaboration across local and regional Business Units.
2. Scope, Requirements, and Delivery Management
- Partner with sponsors, clients, Business Analysts, technology teams, and subject-matter experts to define scope, strategy, requirements, acceptance criteria, and implementation approach.
- Manage delivery across initiation, planning, design, development, testing, deployment, transition, and closure using fit-for-purpose predictive, Agile, or hybrid methods.
- Control scope, schedule, budget, quality, and deliverables, and apply disciplined change control when requirements or priorities shift.
- Coordinate business and technical workstreams, including requirements analysis, solution readiness, user acceptance testing, and operational handover.
3. EPMO Governance and Assurance
- Comply with and champion enterprise project management standards, methodologies, templates, reporting requirements, and governance controls.
- Prepare projects for stage-gate reviews and provide complete, accurate evidence to support approval, continuation, reprioritization, or intervention decisions.
- Maintain core project artifacts, including charter, integrated plan, RAID log, dependency map, financial tracker, status report, decision log, change log, and closure report.
- Support project health assessments, quality reviews, audits, and recovery actions; promptly address governance gaps and non-compliance.
4. Risk, Issue, Dependency, and Decision Management
- Identify, assess, document, mitigate, monitor, and control delivery, operational, financial, technology, regulatory, and change risks.
- Manage issues and cross-project dependencies to resolution, with clear owners, target dates, impacts, and escalation paths.
- Escalate material risks, delivery constraints, and decisions to sponsors, governance forums, and EPMO leadership with evidence-based recommendations.
5. Financial, Resource, and Capacity Management
- Develop and manage project budgets, forecasts, resource plans, and cost tracking in partnership with Finance and functional leaders.
- Identify critical skill and capacity needs, establish team accountabilities, and resolve resource conflicts through timely enterprise-level discussions.
- Monitor project financial performance and resource utilization, and recommend corrective actions to protect delivery and investment value.
6. Stakeholder, Change, and Communications Management
- Build trusted relationships with sponsors, executives, Business Units, clients, delivery teams, and enabling functions.
- Create and execute stakeholder engagement and communication plans that provide transparent, timely, and decision-useful information.
- Partner with change and business leaders to assess organizational impacts, readiness, adoption risks, training needs, and transition requirements.
- Facilitate governance meetings, workshops, working sessions, and executive updates; drive decisions, ownership, and follow-through.
7. Benefits Realization and Value Delivery
- Partner with sponsors and benefit owners to define measurable outcomes, baselines, targets, measurement methods, and realization timelines.
- Track benefit delivery through implementation and transition, identify value leakage, and initiate corrective action where outcomes are at risk.
- Conduct post-implementation and lessons-learned reviews and contribute evidence to EPMO benefits realization and portfolio reporting.
8. Data, Digital, AI, and Reporting Enablement
- Use project and portfolio data to identify delivery trends, dependencies, risks, and opportunities and to strengthen decision-making.
- Produce accurate executive status reports, project health views, forecasts, and decision-support materials for the EPMO and governance bodies.
- Promote responsible use of digital, automation, analytics, and AI-enabled project management tools to improve planning, reporting, insight generation, and delivery productivity.
- Ensure human oversight, data quality, confidentiality, and appropriate controls when using AI-enabled tools or generated insights.
9. Delivery Excellence and Capability Building
- Contribute to EPMO methodologies, playbooks, tools, templates, lessons learned, communities of practice, and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Coach project team members and peers in practical project management, stakeholder engagement, risk management, and governance disciplines.
- Share insights from project delivery to improve enterprise project management maturity, scalability, and consistency.
Key Deliverables
- Approved project charter and governance plan
- Integrated project schedule, milestones, and dependency plan
- Resource plan, budget, forecast, and financial status
- RAID, decision, change, and action logs
- Stage-gate submissions and project health assessments
- Executive status reports and decision-support materials
- Stakeholder, communication, and change readiness plans
- Benefits realization plan and benefits tracking updates
- Implementation, transition, closure, and post-implementation review outputs
- Lessons learned and reusable EPMO assets
- Decision Rights and Accountability
- Recommend delivery approach, sequencing, corrective actions, and escalation within the approved project mandate.
- Challenge assumptions, plans, estimates, and delivery practices that put outcomes, controls, or benefits at risk.
- Escalate material risks, issues, dependencies, resource constraints, and governance non-compliance to the appropriate sponsor or EPMO forum.
- Accountable for accurate reporting, disciplined execution, timely decisions, transparent communication, and compliance with EPMO requirements.
- Project approval, reprioritization, suspension, termination, and enterprise funding decisions remain with the authorized governance bodies.
Success Measures:
- Delivery against approved scope, schedule, budget, quality, and outcome commitments
- Compliance with EPMO governance, stage gates, standards, and reporting requirements
- Accuracy and timeliness of project health, financial, risk, and dependency reporting
- Effectiveness of risk mitigation, issue resolution, and decision turnaround
- Achievement and sustained tracking of intended business benefits
- Stakeholder confidence, engagement, readiness, and adoption
- Effective utilization of project resources and critical capabilities
- Quality of closure, lessons learned, and contribution to EPMO maturity
Required Qualifications and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, Finance, Investments, Legal Management, or another relevant discipline; equivalent professional experience may be considered.
- Relevant experience leading complex business and/or technology projects involving multiple stakeholders, functions, or Business Units.
- Demonstrated capability across project planning, execution, governance, financial management, risk management, stakeholder engagement, and implementation.
- Working knowledge of business systems analysis, including information gathering, requirements definition, process improvement, and user acceptance testing.
- Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications and project planning, visualization, reporting, and collaboration tools.
- Ability to work across different schedules when required by regional or project delivery needs.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Professional project or program management certification such as PMP, PRINCE2, Agile, Scrum, or an equivalent credential.
- Experience with Agile or hybrid delivery methods, portfolio governance, stage-gate reviews, benefits realization, and project assurance.
- Experience in financial services, wealth management, insurance, or another regulated environment.
- Experience using portfolio analytics, automation, digital collaboration platforms, or AI-enabled project management capabilities.
- Experience working with executive sponsors, governance boards, and geographically distributed teams.
Leadership and Behavioral Capabilities:
- Enterprise mindset and strategic alignment
- Ownership, accountability, and disciplined follow-through
- Influence without authority and constructive challenge
- Clear executive communication and facilitation
- Commercial, financial, and value orientation
- Structured problem-solving and sound judgment
- Adaptability, learning agility, and continuous improvement
- Collaboration, inclusion, and stakeholder partnership
- Ability to enable others and strengthen team capability
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 hr@manulife.com.
Hybrid
