Product Director

Manulife John Hancock Retirement is redefining our US Retirement business to help customers save for retirement. Working within a SAFe agile delivery model, the team focuses on delivering solutions that create engaging and streamlined experiences for retirement plan customers and intermediaries. The Product Director will serve as the bridge between strategy and execution, ensuring initiatives are properly analyzed, prioritized, approved, implemented, and monitored for outcomes.

Position Responsibilities:

• Vision and Roadmap: Contribute to the US Retirement vision and roadmap by understanding the competitive landscape and market. Identify desired outcomes and communicate product vision in alignment with business strategy. Define the business case, epic hypothesis, socialize across stakeholders and gain alignment.

• Delivery: Create epic artifacts and lead epics from the funnel to done stages. Facilitate collaboration with subject matter experts and stakeholders to refine and deliver the epic scope. Support decomposition of epics into capabilities and features, ensuring teams have clarity on intent, measurable outcomes and manage escalation for impediments.

• Stakeholder Engagement & Communication: Maintain alignment with Business Owners, Product Management, Enterprise Architects, and development teams. Facilitate cross-functional decision-making and resolve conflicts that impede epic flow. Communicate epic progress, risks, pivots, and learnings transparently.

• Monitor Outcomes and Adapt: Track leading indicators and validate whether the MVP delivers expected value. Recommend pivot, persevere, or stop decisions based on feedback and performance data. Ensure completion criteria align with the original epic definition and business goals.

• Customer CX Centricity: Advocate for the customer, ensuring their needs are central to product development and delivery. Partner with Customer Experience (CX) teams as needed to ensure solutions meet customer needs through human-centered design.

• Partnerships and Go-To-Market Support: Partner closely with Product Activation to support Go-To-Market activities as required.

• Reporting: Maintain an understanding of business, customer, and end-user needs. Ensure team and program risks and roadblocks are managed, reported and escalated as necessary.

Required Qualifications:

• Minimum of 7+ years of experience in a product, business role.

• Previous or active product leadership role as in US Retirement or related business strongly preferred.

• Strong leadership and communication skills; ability to take ownership of deliverables and drive initiatives.

• Ability to balance strategic thinking with detailed execution.

• Experience in collaborating with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

• Exceptional organization, communication, and interpersonal skills.

• Ability to cultivate relationships with key stakeholders across functions and levels.

• Good understanding of project management methodologies and agile processes. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Transformational, Strategic Thinking & Portfolio Mindset: Ability to translate business strategy into investable epics.

• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Skilled at working across architecture, product, finance, operations and agile teams

• Analytical & Data‑Driven Decision-Making: Proficient in cost-benefit analysis, prioritization, and hypothesis validation.

• Lean-Agile Practices: Understanding of SAFe, Portfolio Kanban, and MVP-driven development.

• Communication & Influence: Ability to present business cases and influence approvals and alignment.

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 [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.

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