The Chief Marketing Officer, Canada has overall responsibility for defining and delivering the marketing strategy across Manulife Canada. This includes leading all aspects of marketing, customer engagement, brand, digital, and customer experience to support the segment’s growth objectives, distribution effectiveness, and financial performance.
As a member of the Canada Segment Leadership Team, the CMO is accountable for shaping a modern, integrated, and commercially oriented marketing function that aligns to global strategy and enables strong execution across Canada’s businesses.
The role partners closely with business, distribution, product, operations and technology leaders to translate commercial priorities into data-driven, insight-led marketing strategies that advance Manulife’s ambition to become the #1 choice for customers, while driving acquisition and retention.
In alignment with enterprise priorities, the CMO will lead the continued modernization of marketing across Canada, embedding digital-first, data-driven, and AI-enabled capabilities to enhance personalization, improve campaign effectiveness, and generate measurable business outcomes.
The CMO also ensures alignment across Canada and global teams, balancing consistency of brand and strategy with the needs of the Canadian market, and providing strategic counsel to senior leaders on growth opportunities, market positioning, and customer engagement.
Position Responsibilities:
Commercial Growth and Performance:
- Define and execute a comprehensive Canada marketing strategy aligned to business growth priorities, customer segments, and enterprise objectives.
- Partner with business and distribution leaders to drive demand generation, client acquisition, retention, cross-sell, and digital adoption outcomes across Canada’s businesses.
- Establish clear performance metrics and KPIs; leverage data and insights to optimize marketing effectiveness and demonstrate return on investment.
- Own the Canada marketing budget and annual planning process, ensuring decisions are aligned to strategic priorities, optimizing resource allocation, and measurable business outcomes.
- Strengthen the role of marketing as a commercial function, directly contributing to revenue growth, earnings, and distribution effectiveness.
Digital, Data and AI Enabled Marketing Transformation:
- Lead the modernization of the marketing function across Canada, embedding best-in-class digital, data, marketing technology, and personalization capabilities.
- Advance AI-enabled marketing capabilities to enhance personalization, customer insights, campaign performance, productivity, and speed to market.
- Partner with technology and data teams to deliver integrated, scalable platforms that support marketing execution, digital experiences, and measurement.
- · Ensure responsible use of customer data and AI, with privacy, security, accessibility, legal, and regulatory requirements embedded by design.
Customer Engagement and Experience:
- Define and implement a Canada customer engagement strategy across the full client lifecycle.
- Ensure consistent, insight-led customer experience across all touchpoints, aligned to brand and business strategy
- Leverage research, voice of customer, journey insights, data, and analytics to improve customer experience, engagement, loyalty, and digital adoption outcomes
- Partner across Product, Operations, Distribution, Technology, and Data to remove customer friction and accelerate priority experience improvements.
Brand, Market Positioning, and Differentiation:
- Develop and execute an integrated, omnichannel marketing strategy across brand, content, media, digital, sponsorship, and performance marketing.
- Ensure strong, consistent brand positioning across Canada while enabling relevance across businesses, audiences, and distribution models.
- Establish strategic partnerships and external alliances to enhance brand reach and differentiation.
- Advise senior leaders on market dynamics, customer expectations, competitive positioning, and reputation opportunities and risks.
Canada Strategy and Business Execution:
- Translate the broader Manulife marketing strategy into a Canada agenda that connects enterprise priorities, business plans, investment decisions, and execution.
- Lead Canada Marketing and capability leaders to align priorities, resolve trade-offs, and balance shared standards with business and market needs.
- Create clear decision rights and accountable ways of working across Canada Marketing, business teams, and Global Marketing.
- Drive consistency, efficiency, scalability, and speed through shared capabilities, process simplification, technology, and disciplined agency management.
Marketing Leadership Capability:
- Build a strong Canada marketing talent pipeline, enabling movement of high-potential talent across businesses, functions, and enterprise opportunities.
- Develop senior marketing and capability leaders through succession planning, differentiated development, and exposure to broader Canada and global priorities.
- Build and lead a high-performing, inclusive, and future-ready organization with clear priorities, accountabilities, and performance standards.
- Create a culture of commercial accountability, customer focus, collaboration, constructive challenge, and continuous improvement.
Key Shared Accountabilities
- Lead the evolution of a globally aligned, Canada-focused marketing operating model.
- Partner with global marketing teams to ensure alignment with enterprise strategy, standards, platforms, and capabilities while representing Canada’s business and market needs.
- Foster collaboration across Canada’s businesses and global teams to drive consistency, efficiency, scalability, and stronger execution.
- Serve as a strategic advisor to senior leaders on growth opportunities, competitive positioning, customer strategy, digital transformation, and reputation.
- Maintain effective governance and appropriate financial, risk, legal, privacy, compliance, accessibility, and responsible AI oversight across marketing, customer, and digital decisions.
Required Qualifications:
- Demonstrated ability to define and execute complex enterprise-level marketing strategies, supported by direct experience in the Canadian market.
- Strong capability in leveraging data, AI, research, and customer insights to inform strategy and drive measurable outcomes
- Proven ability to translate marketing activity into business growth, including acquisition, retention, cross-sell, digital adoption, and revenue impact.
- Experience leading large-scale marketing, digital, customer, and operating model transformation in matrixed organizations.
- Demonstrated capability in marketing technology, personalization, and practical AI-enabled marketing.
- Strong commercial acumen, including significant budget ownership, investment prioritization, and performance management.
- Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills, including experience advising CEOs and senior leadership teams
- 15+ years of leadership experience, preferably within Marketing. Financial Services experience preferred.
- Experience leading large, diverse, multi-disciplinary teams in a matrixed and regulated environment.
- Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or related field; advanced degree considered an asset.
- Builds, develops, and leads high-performing, diverse teams· Demonstrates strong judgment, resilience, and low-ego leadership.
- Communicates with clarity and influence in complex environments.
- Balances innovation with disciplined execution.
- Operates with high integrity and transparency
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 hr@manulife.com.
Hybrid
Salary & Benefits
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.