Program Director – Enterprise Transformation

Job Description

Program Director | Sun Life

The Tone:
This is a full-time hybrid role at Sun Life, primarily based in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, with other posted locations where bilingualism is required for Quebec. Sun Life’s purpose is helping clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives, valuing caring, authenticity, boldness, inspiration, and impact. This role is essential for leading a large, complex enterprise transformation within Group Retirement Services Operations, ensuring strategic goals translate into measurable business outcomes and making life brighter for Clients.

The TL;DR
• Role: Full Time
• Type: Full Time
• Location: Hybrid – Waterloo, Ontario, Canada (other locations available, with Quebec requiring bilingualism)
• Pay: $130000–$180000 yearly
• Team: Group Retirement Services Operations (Partners with Executive Sponsor, Steering Committee, workstream leads, and senior stakeholders)
• Mission: Owns the integration and execution leadership for a large-scale enterprise transformation, establishing governance and discipline to align teams and manage dependencies for measurable business outcomes.

What You’ll Actually Do
• Lead integrated execution: Lead the integrated execution of a large-scale transformation program spanning multiple projects, workstreams, teams, and delivery partners.
• Manage program plan: Develop and manage the integrated program plan, encompassing scope, milestones, dependencies, resources, financials, risks, decisions, and business readiness.
• Lead governance activities: Lead program governance and Steering Committee activities, providing senior leaders with clear visibility into progress, key decisions, risks, dependencies, and trade-offs.
• Partner with stakeholders: Partner with business, technology, operations, finance, risk, and change management leaders to align priorities, accountabilities, sequencing, and delivery.
• Integrate successful outcomes: Integrate technology delivery, business readiness, change management, operating-model impacts, implementation, adoption, and benefit realization to support successful program outcomes.

The Must-Haves
• Background: Director level professional with Group retirement business experience or knowledge.
• Experience: Significant experience leading large, complex transformation programs involving multiple workstreams, delivery teams, dependencies, and senior stakeholders. Demonstrated program and project management expertise across integrated planning, financial and resource management, risk and issue management, dependency management, change control, and executive reporting. Experience coordinating business and technology leaders in complex, matrixed organizations and influencing outcomes without direct authority.
• Skills: Ability to lead governance and facilitate senior-level decision-making by translating complex information into clear recommendations. Ability to anticipate cross-program impacts, solve complex delivery challenges, and create clarity in ambiguous situations. Effective communication of complex information to executive, business, and technology stakeholders, combined with facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills. Experience delivering programs from planning through benefit realization using Agile, waterfall, iterative, or hybrid approaches.
• Bonus: Project or program management certification such as PMP, PgMP, PRINCE2, or equivalent. Agile or scaled Agile experience and related certification. Experience within Sun Life’s Digital Enterprise. Bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec-based roles for frequent interactions across Canada.