Director, Experience & Content Design

Are you ready to elevate digital experiences to new heights and lead a team of hard-working designers in crafting exceptional user experiences? Join our dynamic and innovative team as a Director of Experience & Content Design. We are seeking a visionary, collaborative, and enterprise minded Digital Experience leader to shape the future state user experience of our digital properties. This role will champion best in class UX practices, contribute to our design system, elevate our content strategy, and partner across the organization to deliver cohesive, user-centric digital experiences.At Manulife, we have high ambitions of being a digital-first organization. We are committed to ensuring our customers enjoy cohesive, personalized experiences that make their lives easier, better, and faster. As a Director of Experience & Content Design, you will play a pivotal role in shaping the future of our digital properties, creating seamless omni-channel experiences that resonate with users worldwide.Position Responsibilities:Experience Vision & Leadership: Lead the vision, strategy, and roadmap for the future-state experience of our digital properties across both public websites & secure channels , ensuring they are intuitive, consistent, and aligned to user needs.Product Design (UX/UI): Oversee end-to-end product design for digital experiences, including user research, journey mapping, interaction design, and high-fidelity UI, applying industry best practicesCross-Functional Alignment: Lead cross-functional workstreams and efforts that address sophisticated challenges, driving alignment and decision-making at senior levels.Design System Evolution: Support the evolution of our design system to ensure consistency, scalability, accessibility, and brand alignment across all digital experiences.Inclusive Design Advocacy: Champion the integration of inclusive design practices within the design system, fostering a culture of accessibility and diversity.Roadmap Integration: Be responsible for the use of design exploration, user testing, and research to advise and drive the product roadmap, experience improvements, and prioritization.Content Strategy: Support content strategy evolution for public web properties, defining how we bring content to life in thoughtful ways to drive positive outcomes.Team Mentorship and Development: Mentor and develop a cross-functional team of designers, product managers and content specialists fostering standard methodologies and a user-centered design culture.Required Qualifications:Extensive Experience: A minimum of 10+ years of dynamic experience in digital experience design and/or product management, with a consistent record of leading successful digital product initiatives at scale.Technical Proficiency: Knowledge of the Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) platform—or similar enterprise CMS—supporting authoring workflows, component design, and content governance.Preferred Qualifications:Comprehensive Portfolio: A robust portfolio that showcases a diverse range of design projects, highlighting your design process, craftsmanship, and the successful outcomes of your work. The portfolio should demonstrate your ability to deliver innovative and impactful design solutions.Design Excellence Advocacy: A strong advocate for design excellence, demonstrating research insights to advise and drive strategic design decisions. Capable of creating both visionary, forward-thinking concepts and practical, immediately implementable solutions.Leadership and Mentorship: Demonstrated experience in leading and mentoring design teams, with a focus on fostering collaboration with cross-functional teams, including engineering and product management. Proven track record to inspire and guide teams towards achieving design excellence.Accessibility Leadership: Extensive experience with accessibility guidelines and standards, including WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act). A commitment to integrating accessibility into all design processes and fostering an inclusive design cultureProven Leadership in Experience Design: Demonstrated history of leading the delivery of successful digital products and services at scale, with a focus on strategic impact and innovation.Advanced Cross-Functional Leadership: Extensive experience working in and leading sophisticated, cross-functional teams within enterprise environments or digital agencies, driving collaboration and alignment across diverse collaborators.Expertise in Human-Centered Design: Mastery in human-centered design principles, visual design theory, usability, and accessibility, with a track record of integrating these practices into large-scale projects to enhance user experiences.Comprehensive End-to-End Design Process Mastery: In-depth understanding and leadership of the entire digital product design process, including sophisticated user validation techniques, complex user flows, content modeling, wireframing, prototyping, user testing, and the creation of high-fidelity visuals.Strategic Critical Thinking: Exceptional critical thinking skills with the ability to conceptualize and drive the development of innovative products from inception to execution, addressing both user needs and business objectives .Advanced Communication and Facilitation Skills: Highly persuasive communication and facilitation skills, capable of articulating complex design ideas and strategies to both design teams and senior non-design collaborators, fostering understanding and agreement.Leadership in Design Strategy and Execution: Tried ability to lead, prioritize, and run multiple high-stakes work streams in a fast-paced, time-sensitive environment, ensuring strategic alignment and delivery excellence.Design Systems and Tools Expertise: Extensive experience with design systems and advanced tools such as Figma, Mural, and UserTesting.com, with a focus on driving consistency and innovation across digital platforms. Experience in Adobe Experience Manager or Adobe Platforms is an asset.Technical Acumen in Digital Design: Deep familiarity with technical constraints and opportunities for designing across digital platforms, including desktop and mobile (Android and iOS), ensuring seamless integration and performance.Agile and Iterative Design Leadership: Strong proficiency in agile, iterative design approaches, with a focus on achieving business and adoption outcomes, enabling rapid market delivery and continuous validation of digital customer experiences.What Motivates You?Committed to Quality : Lead the charge on delivering best-in-class, compelling user experiences.Confident : Gracefully defend your design decisions with strong, expert opinions.Data-Driven & User-Focused : Back your work with research and challenge opinion-driven decisions.Deeply Empathetic : Protect and balance user interests with collaborator and business goals.A Realistic Visionary : Think big while balancing scope, limitations, and future possibilities.Own Your Craft : Enthusiastic about solving core product problems and owning all aspects of UX/UI.A Strong Communicator : Effectively sharing your work with diverse audiences and levels in the organization.A Collaborator : Chip in to a culture of collaboration, transparency, and growth with low ego.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.#LI-HybridThe role being advertised is an existing vacancy.About Manulife and John HancockManulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit .Manulife is an Equal Opportunity EmployerAt 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 View email address on ca.talent.com .Referenced Salary LocationToronto, OntarioWorking ArrangementHybridSalary range is expected to be between$125,100.00 CAD - $175,100.00 CADEmployees 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 View email address on ca.talent.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 View email address on ca.talent.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 . #J-18808-Ljbffr