AVP, Technology Lead, GRS Digital - Acting

Bring us your passion for digital or data analytics, and we’ll put you to work on exciting initiatives that answer the challenge: "How can we do that better?" Working with a dedicated team of energetic, forward-thinking innovators, you’ll stretch your imagination and sharpen your skills on the leading-edge projects that are keeping Sun Life Financial ahead of the curve. You want more than a job; you want a career - a career with a company that encourages learning and personal growth. You want to be “one of the best”. At Sun Life, we're driven by our Purpose: helping our Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives. Our values shape how we work: caring, authentic, bold, inspiring, and impactful. When you join Sun Life, you'll work with passionate colleagues and empowering leaders who support your growth and celebrate your contributions, so you can make a meaningful difference in our Clients' lives.

Job Description:

Role Summary

The AVP Technology Lead – GRS Member Platform is a strategic technology leader responsible for running, modernizing, and scaling Sun Life’s Group Retirement Services digital and technology platforms to support member, sponsor, advisor, and retirement readiness experiences at scale. This role is accountable for embedding a world‑class design and engineering culture across delivery teams, with a focus on digital experiences, stable core systems, data‑enabled insights, platform modernization, and critical capabilities that build and sustain an industry‑leading wealth and retirement business. The role combines strategic leadership, technical oversight, people leadership, delivery execution, operational accountability, and vendor/financial management. The AVP partners closely with Product, Client Experience, Business Operations, Architecture, Enterprise Technology, and Operations leaders to ensure GRS technology platforms, data capabilities, journeys, integrations, and digital front‑end experiences enable sustained, profitable business outcomes. This role operates in a highly visible, complex environment and requires a leader who can drive momentum, make clear decisions, strengthen delivery discipline, and bring strong technical credibility across both modern digital capabilities and complex legacy environments. This is a 14‑month fixed term role that offers partial benefits and vacation.

What will you do?

Technology Strategy, GRS Digital Enablement & Engineering

Shape, communicate, and align GRS technology strategy across the business unit and enterprise, ensuring it supports near‑term delivery commitments, retirement business priorities, and longer‑term modernization objectives. Partner with Business Leads, Product, Operations, Client Experience, Core IT, Infrastructure, and Enterprise Architecture to define platform roadmaps and OKRs for GRS technology capabilities. Provide thought leadership on how GRS platforms should be developed, adopted, governed, simplified, and scaled across wealth and retirement businesses. Promote adoption of technology standards, modern engineering practices, automation, and architectural excellence while balancing build vs. buy vs. partner decisions. Ensure design and engineering decisions account for reusability, scalability, security, maintainability, accessibility, and technical debt reduction in non‑greenfield environments. Plan for exceptional digital experiences for members, sponsors, and advisors by enabling business teams with reliable, scalable, personalized, and insight‑driven platforms.

Platform Delivery & Execution

Accountable for end‑to‑end delivery of GRS digital and technology platforms, including oversight of internal teams, vendors, system integrators, and total cost of ownership. Ensure platforms are intuitive, reliable, easy to transact on, and capable of supporting automated operational processes that reduce friction and improve satisfaction. Drive delivery excellence by improving velocity, quality, reliability, predictability, and productivity across multiple agile squads at varying levels of maturity. Track delivery metrics, implement productivity targets, remove barriers, and gain commitment from partners to accelerate execution and outcomes. Serve as the primary escalation point for GRS platform, delivery, vendor, operational, and dependency‑related issues. Use experimentation, test‑and‑learn approaches, AI‑enabled development practices, and continuous improvement to increase delivery speed and impact.

People Leadership & Capability Development

Lead, mentor, and develop GRS technology leaders and teams, fostering a collaborative, inclusive, resilient, and execution‑focused culture. Design and optimize team structures to deliver business outcomes, strengthen platform ownership, and create clearer accountabilities. Inspire and empower teams through coaching, learning, hands‑on leadership, and constructive feedback. Develop team resilience and agility during times of change, modernization, and operating model evolution. Support succession planning, capability development, and career movement for critical technology and delivery roles. Partner across Product, Business, Chapter, and Engineering teams to ensure workforce plans align with delivery needs and long‑term capability requirements.

Financial & Vendor Management

Manage GRS platform financials, including budgeting, cost tracking, capitalization, forecasting, and investment prioritization. Govern strategic vendor and system integrator relationships, holding partners accountable for delivery quality, outcomes, knowledge transfer, and value realization. Drive technology platform efficiencies so savings can be reinvested in modernization, automation, platform resiliency, and business growth capabilities. Take ownership of technology expenses across applications, infrastructure, security, vendors, and related platform investments.

Operational Excellence, Risk & Security

Ensure platform stability, resiliency, security, technology currency, and effective lifecycle management across GRS applications and platforms. Establish governance processes that balance delivery speed with risk management, regulatory requirements, audit expectations, and enterprise controls. Partner with Operations to ensure effective incident management, change management, production readiness, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Proactively manage technical debt, aging platforms, operational risk, and service reliability within a complex retirement and wealth technology ecosystem.

Cross‑Functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

Act as a strategic technology partner to GRS Product, Client Experience, Business Operations, Architecture, Operations, and Enterprise Technology leaders. Align technology plans with business priorities, Client outcomes, sponsor/advisor needs, and retirement readiness objectives. Represent the GRS technology function in executive forums, bringing external perspective, enterprise thinking, and clear recommendations. Build trusted relationships across business and technology partners to enable faster decision‑making, clearer trade‑offs, and shared accountability for outcomes.

Accountabilities

Align GRS technology strategy with business objectives, Client outcomes, enterprise standards, and shared retirement/wealth priorities. Define and monitor platform roadmaps, OKRs, modernization priorities, and delivery sequencing. Establish and execute automation and modernization roadmaps that enable scalable operations and improved digital experiences. Deliver leading digital capabilities for members, sponsors, and advisors that differentiate Sun Life’s GRS experience. Oversee platform execution across delivery teams, vendors, system integrators, and enterprise partners. Establish governance, track delivery metrics, and drive productivity, quality, and reliability improvements. Manage technology budgets, vendor relationships, and cost optimization opportunities. Create and sustain a high‑performing, engaged, inclusive, and accountable GRS technology culture.

Qualifications & Experience

Qualifications & Experience Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; advanced degree or MBA is an asset. 10+ years of experience in senior technology leadership roles with demonstrated success delivering complex, mission‑critical systems. Experience leading modernization and enablement of wealth, retirement, investment, sponsor/advisor, or member‑facing digital platforms. Strong understanding of wealth, retirement, investment products, and regulated financial services environments is valuable. Proven ability to lead technology teams through modernization, transformation, and operating model change. Strong financial acumen with experience managing sizable budgets, vendor portfolios, and technology cost optimization. Excellent communication, stakeholder management, executive presence, and leadership skills. Strong technical credibility across modern digital platforms, integrations, data, mainframe/core systems, and operational reliability.

As this position is posted in several locations, we specify that bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only for the frequent interactions with English and French‑speaking colleagues or internal partners across Canada or worldwide.

Mindset & Behaviours

Decisive leader comfortable operating in uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Strong technical credibility with the ability to challenge architecture, delivery practices, platform decisions, and CI/CD approaches. Builder mindset with equal focus on fixing, scaling, simplifying, and enabling. Pragmatic, outcomes‑driven decision‑maker who balances innovation, stability, risk, and business value. Collaborative leader and coach who builds trust, creates clarity, and drives momentum. Critical thinker who challenges the status quo constructively and drives continuous improvement. Experimental mindset with a willingness to test, learn, adapt, and improve. Strong commitment to developing people, building resilient teams, and creating an inclusive leadership culture.

What’s in it for you?

A competitive salary based on market scale

Time off that allows you to focus on the moments that matter most.

20 vacation days per year.

We are proud to be included in Great Place to Work’s 2026 list of Canada’s Best Workplaces.

A warm, supportive, and inclusive culture.

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our Clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds. Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process, or those needing job postings in an alternative format, may e‑mail a request to View email address on click.appcast.io. We are proud to be a hybrid organization that offers our employees the choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually based on the needs of the business, our Clients and you. We may use artificial intelligence to support candidate sourcing, screening, interview scheduling.

Salary Range: 145,000/145 000 - 235,000/235 000 Job Category: Project Management - Systems Posting End Date: 23/08/2026

Shine together At Sun Life, we understand the importance of a culture that fosters openness and inclusion. We want you to be your most brilliant self. That’s why we do everything we can to support your well‑being and development. Here, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute and collaborate across the organization with the support of your colleagues behind you and the guidance of leaders at every step. Make life brighter Working in Tech, you will have the opportunity to have widespread impact across all levels of the organization. By helping us find better and smarter ways of doing things, you will make a positive impact in the lives of our clients and colleagues and contribute to our meaningful purpose. Shape the future In Tech at Sun Life, you will be at the forefront of our transformation. You will apply your curious mind, bold thinking, and creativity to evolve our offering and processes and shape the future of our industry. You will be empowered to push boundaries and explore new ways of doing things to drive positive change. Your unique perspective is exactly what we’re looking for. Join a top employer for a brighter future.