Lead Platform Owner , New Business & Underwriting

The Lead Platform Owner, New Business & Underwriting is responsible for the leadership, stability, and continued evolution of John Hancock’s New Business & Underwriting platform. In this Director-level role, you will own the platform roadmap, delivery outcomes, and operational health, ensuring the platform supports the efficient, compliant, and scalable onboarding and underwriting of individual life insurance business.

You will partner closely with business leaders, architecture teams, data teams, risk partners, and vendors to deliver measurable business outcomes while advancing long-term modernization and simplification objectives.

Position Responsibilities:
Platform Strategy & Ownership

• Define and execute the New Business & Underwriting platform roadmap in alignment with Individual Life business priorities, digital initiatives, and target architecture.
• Partner with architecture teams to advance platform capabilities, reduce complexity, introduce responsible artificial intelligence capabilities, improve straight-through processing, and shorten application-to-issue cycle times.
• Evaluate platform capabilities, vendor offerings, and incremental innovations that can improve underwriting efficiency, risk selection, and the overall customer experience.
• Ensure the platform remains stable, secure, scalable, and fit for purpose across new business intake, underwriting, case management, and downstream integrations.
• Develop a modernization roadmap that reduces technical debt, simplifies integrations, improves platform extensibility, and supports future artificial intelligence and advanced analytics capabilities.
• Partner with enterprise data teams to support high-quality, governed data assets for underwriting decisions, automation, reporting, and artificial intelligence solutions

Delivery, Execution & Operational Health

• Lead the planning, prioritization, and execution of platform initiatives, enhancements, and regulatory changes across New Business and Underwriting workflows.
• Balance delivery commitments, regulatory requirements, and technical debt while maintaining reliable day-to-day operations.
• Apply Agile delivery practices to improve predictability, transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Monitor platform performance, availability, incidents, and service health, partnering with support teams to address risks and resolve issues.
• Establish and track platform key performance indicators, including application-to-issue cycle time, straight-through processing rates, underwriting productivity, quality, resiliency, and operational efficiency.
• Drive continuous improvement through automation, observability, proactive monitoring, and the reduction of manual operational activities.

Business Partnership & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as a strategic technology partner to New Business and Underwriting stakeholders, aligning platform delivery with measurable business outcomes such as cycle-time reduction, improved quality, and cost efficiency.
• Collaborate with Product, Distribution, Underwriting, Operations, Compliance, and Risk partners to translate business needs into clear technology priorities and actionable delivery plans.
• Provide clear, concise, and executive-ready updates on platform health, delivery progress, risks, priorities, and value realization.

AI, Automation & Intelligent Decisioning

• Define and execute the platform’s artificial intelligence strategy, identifying opportunities to improve underwriting efficiency, decision quality, customer experience, and operational effectiveness through responsible adoption.
• Partner with business, architecture, data, and risk teams to implement AI-enabled solutions, including underwriting decision support, evidence summarization, document intelligence, case prioritization, agent copilots, workflow automation, and predictive analytics.
• Establish appropriate governance, controls, and monitoring for artificial intelligence capabilities, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements, model-risk management standards, privacy obligations, and responsible AI principles.
• Promote the adoption of AI-assisted software engineering practices across the platform team, including code generation, automated testing, documentation, quality assurance, and operational support.
• Measure and communicate AI-driven business outcomes, including cycle-time reduction, increased straight-through processing, underwriting productivity, quality improvements, and cost efficiency.
• Maintain awareness of emerging artificial intelligence technologies, industry trends, and vendor capabilities, translating relevant opportunities into practical business value.

People Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, support, and develop a team of full-stack and quality engineers responsible for the New Business & Underwriting platform.
• Support workforce transformation and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence capabilities.
• Manage team capacity and skills to support consistent, high-quality delivery.
• Foster an inclusive environment that encourages ownership, accountability, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.

Vendor & Partner Management

• Manage relationships with platform vendors and delivery partners supporting the New Business & Underwriting ecosystem.
• Establish clear expectations and hold vendors accountable for delivery quality, operational stability, and alignment with platform priorities.
• Contribute to financial planning and investment prioritization for platform operations and change initiatives.

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure the platform aligns with internal technology standards, security requirements, data privacy policies, and applicable insurance regulations.
• Define and track key performance indicators related to platform health, delivery performance, and business impact.
• Partner closely with Architecture to support adherence to design standards, engineering best practices, and the appropriate use of automation.

Required Qualifications:

• 10 to 15+ years of technology experience, including leadership responsibility for enterprise platforms or core business systems.
• 3 to 5+ years of people leadership experience managing cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated platform leadership experience, including balancing operational stability with the delivery of business and technology change.
• Experience supporting complex, business-critical platforms within insurance New Business, Underwriting, Policy Administration, or related policy-lifecycle domains.
• Experience within life insurance New Business, Underwriting, or Policy Administration is strongly preferred.
• Strong stakeholder-management and communication skills, with the ability to build alignment and influence across business and technology teams.
• Experience applying Agile or iterative delivery practices within regulated environments.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, supported by sound judgment and practical decision-making.
• Ability to communicate platform value, health, risks, and priorities in clear business terms.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of or experience with one or more of the following areas:
• Digital application intake and case-management capabilities.
• Underwriting workflows, rules, and decision-support solutions.
• Third-party data, evidence, and underwriting integrations.
• Document management and customer or producer correspondence.
• Integrations with Policy Administration, Billing, and Distribution systems.

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. 

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

Salary range is expected to be between

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual 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/John Hancock 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/401(k) savings plans and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in the U.S. includes up to 11 paid holidays, 3 personal days, 150 hours of vacation, and 40 hours of sick time (or more where required by law) each year, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence.

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.

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