Director CX Insights & Activation

Are you ready to elevate digital experiences and lead a Voice of Customer (VOC) and Customer Experience (CX) Insights team in shaping exceptional user journeys? Reporting to the AVP CX Transformation and Service Design, this role combines strong CX/research leadership with hands-on enablement, ensuring quality research and VOC work moves beyond artifacts and workshops into actionable roadmaps and delivery priorities.

At Manulife, we are committed to becoming a digital-first organization and leading our industry in digital customer experiences. Alongside two director colleagues, you will co-create the vision and strategy for VOC and CX insights maturity, partnering to drive positive and customer-focused change across Manulife’s Canadian Division. As research evolves with emerging technologies, you will support and champion the team’s evolution and adoption of AI in insights generation and analysis.

You will lead the CX Insights and Activation, encompassing voice of the customer, journey management and a research methodology that converts insights into tangible customer and business outcomes. You’ll guide a squad of CX researchers and insight analysts; partner closely with business partners to accelerate evidence-based decision making and business outcomes.

This is a highly collaborative role which requires excellence in both what and how you deliver work. The successful candidate will be confident in their strong quantitative research skills, a fair and flexible partner in a complex business environment, and enthusiastic about getting things done together. Resilience when tackling challenges and joy in collaboration are essential.

Position Responsibilities:

• Drive the continued of the VOC and CX Insights within Manulife Canada including activation, measurement, and storytelling.
• Support an evolving Journey Management practice that continuously researches, measures, optimizes, and orchestrates end-to-end customer journeys across channels and operations.
• Enriching our research methodology—from discovery and framing to analysis, concepting, piloting, and scaled adoption—grounded in measurable outcomes and actionable insights.
• Champion, support, and drive adoption of AI to streamline research processes and elevate what the team can accomplish.
• Lead VOC and CX Insights Leadership & Standards
  • Codify standards for research, quantitative analysis, customer feedback management, and measurement frameworks; steward research excellence alongside peer Directors in Brand Strategy and Service Design.
  • Coach and grow CX researchers and analysts; institute critique rituals, mentoring, and learning pathways.
• Drive Insights to Action
  • Translate research (quantitative and qualitative) into actionable strategies, opportunity backlogs, and solution concepts; ensure hypotheses are validated via experiments and pilots; anchor decisions in customer desirability and business viability.
  • Champion data-informed CX insights and business case storytelling to help secure alignment and funding.
• Partner & Deliver
  • Work with cross-functional leaders in operations, marketing, and AI to remove friction and enable journey orchestration at scale.
• Governance & Ways of Working
  • Co-create, with your director colleagues, a framework for governance for journey ownership, backlog intake, prioritization, and outcome tracking.

Required Qualifications:

• 10+ years in CX, customer insight, and journey management with 5+ years leading teams and practices in complex environments (financial services preferred).
• Bachelor's degree in research, business, data science or relevant field. Master's or advanced degree is a plus.
• Demonstrated expertise in quantitative research methods, survey design, data analysis, and evidence-based decision making.
• Exceptional storytelling skills—demonstrated ability to humanize data, champion the voice of the customer, and craft empathetic, insight‑driven narratives that resonate with stakeholders, influence decisions, and strengthen business cases.
• Proven track record translating insights into implemented solutions—from pilots to scaled adoption—across digital and operational channels.
• Strong stakeholder leadership; ability to influence senior leaders and align diverse teams around outcomes and metrics.
• Proven experience in or exposure to primary qualitative research methods.

Leadership Attributes

• An enthusiastic collaborator who loves building partnerships and helping organizations act in the customer’s best interest.
• Builder’s mindset; bias to action with disciplined measurement and a commitment to document and share.
• Systems thinker who can zoom out and in between macro strategy and micro-operations.
• Empathetic coach who elevates craft and creates psychological safety and engagement on the team.
• Clear communicator who can tell the story of change with data and human insight.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience building business cases and conducting desirability, viability, and feasibility (DVF) analyses for and with business colleagues.
• Knowledge of and/or experience working in insurance or financial services is an asset.
• UX or Product Design experience or proven experience working alongside product designers is a plus.
• Comfort using research platforms, survey/analytics tools, and AI technologies for mixed methods insight generation.
• Curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and growing in AI-driven research practices.

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.

#LI-Hybrid

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

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 [email protected].

Referenced Salary Location

Toronto, Ontario

Working Arrangement

Hybrid

Base salary range is expected to be between

$125,100.00 CAD - $175,100.00 CAD

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual base salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact [email protected] for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact [email protected] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.