AVP, AI

Overview

The AVP, AI – Group Functions AI Transformation Delivery is a senior AI leadership role responsible for leading the end‑to‑end delivery of AI‑enabled transformation across Group Functions, with a primary focus on Risk, Legal, Procurement, and Compliance. This role pairs hands‑on technical depth with strong delivery leadership to turn functional priorities into deployed, value‑generating AI solutions.

Responsibilities

• Lead end‑to‑end delivery of AI solutions for Risk, Legal, Procurement, Compliance, and other Group Functions – from opportunity shaping and design through deployment, adoption, and value realization.
• Own delivery roadmaps and execution across a portfolio of concurrent initiatives, ensuring measurable business outcomes against defined success metrics.
• Direct multidisciplinary delivery teams (AI/ML engineers, data scientists, product, and functional SMEs), removing blockers and ensuring quality, velocity, and accountability.
• Conduct full‑stack AI engineering work, including hands‑on development, prototyping, and architecture decisions where needed to accelerate delivery.
• Partner with leaders in Risk, Legal, and Procurement to surface high‑impact AI opportunities and articulate clear value cases.
• Translate functional needs into well‑structured initiatives aligned with enterprise AI strategy and capabilities.
• Provide thought leadership on Agentic AI, Generative AI, and machine learning, and advise functional leaders on use cases, readiness, risk considerations, and operating‑model changes.
• Coach stakeholders to drive adoption and embed AI into functional workflows and decision‑making.
• Ensure all solutions meet enterprise standards for security, data governance, model risk management, and responsible AI.
• Coordinate with Enterprise Architecture, Risk, Legal, and the Global Data Office to deliver secure, compliant, and scalable solutions.
• Promote reuse of enterprise components, shared codebases/libraries, and aligned architecture across initiatives.
• Represent Group Functions AI delivery in enterprise governance and portfolio forums, ensuring functional initiatives accelerate enterprise impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data science, AI/ML engineering, or applied machine learning, including significant experience leading delivery of complex AI programs at scale.
• Hands‑on engineering expertise in Python, cloud ML environments, MLOps, vector databases, LLM‑Ops, and modern evaluation frameworks; experience with Agentic AI architectures, orchestration frameworks, and multi‑model pipelines is strongly preferred.
• Prior experience with financial crime prevention, including graph‑based solutions.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with one or more corporate functions – preferably Risk, Legal, Procurement, Compliance, Audit, or Treasury – ideally within financial services.
• Proven people‑leadership experience, with the ability to build, coach, and lead high‑performing, multidisciplinary delivery teams.
• Strong ability to translate technical concepts into business outcomes and to communicate and influence at the senior‑leader level.
• Comfortable operating in a highly matrixed, global environment with a results‑driven, ownership mindset.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related field; an advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) is desirable.

Employment Information

• Location: Toronto, Ontario
• Working Arrangement: Hybrid
• Salary Range: $129,800.00 – $241,200.00 CAD (depending on market, skills, experience, and location).

Equal Opportunity Employment

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer. At Manulife/JohnHancock, 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/JohnHancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact View email address on ca.talent.com.