Manulife Wealth is a leading provider of advice and solutions to meet the diverse needs of Canadian families within Global Wealth & Asset Management (GWAM) Canada. The Manulife Wealth independent channel comprises two distribution firms: a CIRO-regulated investment dealer (combining IIROC and MFDA advisors) and an insurance managing general agency/national account. Through these businesses, Manulife Wealth partners with over 2 ,000 of its most closely aligned independent advisors across Canada.

Reporting to the President & CEO, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) is a high-impact leadership role responsible for the effective day-to-day operations of the investment dealer and for driving continuous improvement across the business. The COO will ensure operational excellence, scalability, and alignment to the firm’s strategic priorities, while enhancing advisor and client experience.

With a deep understanding of the competitive landscape and the evolving needs of advisors and clients, the COO will lead the ongoing evolution of the business. This includes working with wealth leaders to drive operational improvements, enhance service delivery, and enable the business to achieve both its near-term priorities and long-term strategic objectives.

The COO will act as a key integrator across the organization, aligning functions, teams, and processes to the overall business strategy. This includes oversight of branch managers and close collaboration with key internal partners across P roduct and P latform, T echnology, C ompliance, R isk, F inance, Strategy, M arketing, and operations to ensure alignment, accountability, and delivery against defined service levels and business outcomes.

A strong champion of data and analytics, the COO will embed the use of metrics and information into everyday decision-making processes. This includes driving performance measurement, enhancing reporting capabilities, and leveraging insights to improve operational efficiency, advisor productivity, and client outcomes.

Building strong and constructive relationships, the COO will work collaboratively with senior internal stakeholders, external partners, and vendors to deliver on strategic initiatives and service expectations. The role will serve as a senior subject matter expert, working closely with executive leadership and strategy teams on key initiatives, including the continued development and execution of the firm’s advice strategy.

Position Responsibilities:

Individual Accountabilities:

Operational Alignment & Execution:

• Drive day-to-day alignment and execution across the business, ensuring coordinated delivery, clarity of priorities, and consistency with strategic and enterprise objectives.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Liaise and collaborate with functional leaders to ensure coordinated execution and alignment to business objectives.

Strategic Execution & Planning:

• Partner with the CEO and executive leadership team to define business objectives, key metrics, organizational vision, and mission, translating strategy into clear priorities and aligned execution across functions.

Subject Matter Expertise & Strategic Initiatives:

• Act as a senior subject matter expert, collaborating across functions to shape and deliver key strategic objectives and enterprise-wide initiatives.

Performance Management & Analytics:

• Champion the use of data and analytics to track business performance, enable transparency, and support informed decision-making across the organization.

Advisor Voice & Experience:

• Ensure the voice of the advisor is actively gathered, understood, and embedded into decision-making, using insights to shape initiatives, enhance the advisor experience, and drive continuous improvement across the business.

Financial Alignment:

• Collaborate with finance and business leaders on budget planning, monitoring, and resource allocation to support disciplined execution and strategic investment.

Branch Leadership (Direct Accountability):

• Lead and oversee Branch Managers (BMs), ensuring effective supervision, compliance adherence, and consistent operational standards across the network. Enable clear communication of regulatory requirements, policies, and business priorities to advisors, driving alignment and accountability.

Advisor Compensation Oversight:

• Oversee the advisor compensation framework (including grid and fee structures), acting as a key stakeholder and subject matter expert while collaborating with finance, strategy, and leadership teams to ensure alignment with business objectives, competitiveness, and profitability.

Process, Policy & Continuous Improvement:

• Champion the review, modernization, and implementation of policies and procedures across the business. Partner closely with the Policy & Process Lead to ensure changes are practical, effectively embedded, and consistently adopted across operations and the advisory network.

Process Improvement & Technology Enablement:

• Identify capability gaps and work in partnership with functional leaders to drive the adoption of improved processes, systems, and technologies that enhance efficiency, scalability, and advisor/client experience.

Revenue & Profitability Optimization:

• Collaborate with business and functional leaders to assess and optimize revenue streams, advisor grid structures, fee models, product offerings, and key relationships to enhance profitability and growth.

Communications & Business Alignment:

• Work closely with communications and marketing teams on the structure and execution of internal and external communications, ensuring the firm’s vision, priorities, and key developments are clearly, consistently, and effectively conveyed.

Organizational Effectiveness:

• Facilitate coordination across functions and geographies to ensure clarity of priorities, efficient execution, and alignment to enterprise goals.

Culture & Leadership:

• Foster a highly inclusive, high-performance culture grounded in accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Talent Development: Support the development of organizational capability by coaching, mentoring, and engaging talent, while role-modeling leadership behaviours and values.

Required Qualifications:

• Over 15 Years of senior executive experience within the financial services and wealth management industry.
• Bachelor’s degree in relevant field with a graduate degree (MBA) preferred.
• Minimum of 10 years in senior position at an IIROC firm.
• Prior experience as senior leader of an IIROC/MFDA dealer.
• Strong understanding of distribution models in financial services in Canada.
• Established network in the financial services industry.
• Strong knowledge of Canadian insurance industry and MGA landscape.
• Strong knowledge of financial planning, wealth planning and HNW advice business models.
• Demonstrated experience as a successful senior leader of medium to large sized cross functional teams.
• Demonstrated credibility in presenting to senior executive leadership, industry leaders and top advisors.
• Highly developed business and financial acumen, comfortable managing complex business decisions around risk and profitability.
• Ability to influence across all lines of business at all levels within the company.
• Exceptional interpersonal skills with an ability to foster and maintain relationships.
• A strong service focused and continuous improvement mindset.
• Willingness to travel as required.
• Bilingual (French) is an asset.

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 hr@manulife.com .

Referenced Salary Location

CAN, Ontario, Toronto, 200 Bloor Street East

Working Arrangement

Hybrid

Salary range is expected to be between

$175,700.00 CAD - $326,000.00 CAD

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 hr@manulife.com 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 hr@manulife.com 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 .