Lead Business Analyst & Functional Architect

Define, maintain and apply the Regional Design Principles; create and manage design principles, and standards, aligned to the group strategy and objectives. Adapt the detailed principles to connect to the specific Core Product in focus. 

Position Responsibilities:

• Act as the Design Authority; in conjunction with the Product Owners, Delivery Leads and Solution Architects, be the ‘conscience’ of the business in all Core Product design matters. 

• Define and maintain the functional architecture; oversee the creation of valuable and usable artefacts that describe the in-focus operating model, both Current and Target (ToM). Ensure the Business Architecture connects to both the Customer Journeys and the supporting Technical Architectures. 

• Champion the Customer Experience and Customer Journey maps; working with the relevant Customer Experience owners, ensure the target Customer Journeys are defined, understood and reflected in the Core Product designs.

• Ensure the integration points between platforms are enabled; using the Customer Journeys, identify the integration points and ensure they are built into the Core Product designs and resultant Product Roadmaps. 

• Delivery: Getting the Right Solution to Customers: Once alignment and an understanding of how the product can be delivered, it’s time to build the solution.  Whether developing in iterations or a big bang implementation, functional architect will create fast feedback loops and adjust your approach along the way. Familiarity with technology will help to better understand any development challenges, options, risks, and dependencies. Once the product (or product increment) is built, it needs to be tested before it’s release it to production.  Familiarity with testing approaches required to ensure product quality.  Whether it’s creating User Stories with acceptance criteria in Gherkin format, writing test cases, performing User Acceptance Testing (UAT), or ensuring quality in some other way, this is a critical piece of product delivery. 

• Apply AI skills and promote AI-enabled ways of working; leverage generative AI, automation and data-driven insights to accelerate requirements analysis, improve solution design, enhance documentation quality and increase delivery efficiency, while ensuring responsible use, data privacy, security and appropriate human oversight. 

• Maintain an awareness of external best practices; both in functional architecture design and external market developments to proactively recommend initiatives or opportunities to the business. 

• Transition and change; assist in the identification of the transition journey from current to target state, and the change management activities/focus areas to enable successful adoption of the solutions. 

• Collaborative working; multi-cultural, multi-location teams, and cross functional working with teams from other business areas. 

In addition to the project delivery activities the Business Architect has responsibilities for developing the wider Business Analysts Community and developing the wider BA practice; 

• Lead and develop the Business Analyst community; be the professional role model for the BA teams, driving excellence across all BA activities 

• Adding value to the business;  

• Promote Subject Matter Expertise for a specific business area or business capability 

• Proactively challenge the business approach, solution design or value focus to ensure the best Minimum Marketable Product (MMP) is achieved 

• Contribute to the Change Management design and delivery 

• Identify opportunities to enhance transformation capabilities in country businesses 

• Identify new ways of working; 

• New methods, tools or approaches for business analysis 

• Bring external insights into the team from other insurance players or industries 

• Enhance team maturity; 

• Drive consistency and standardization in all work and outputs 

• Identify opportunities to improve working practices and  relationships with other teams 

• Increasing  the team brand and acting as an ambassador for the department 

• Line management for BA’s; 

• Active contribution to the BA development plans and performance reviews 

• frequent monitoring and measurement of performance 

• Realignment of objectives and focus 

Required Qualifications:

• Degree holder, or equivalent, of Business Administration,  Information Systems/Technology or related discipline     

• Ideally experience in a Business Architecture or Solution Architecture role 

• Minimum 12 years of solid business analysis experiences in Financial Services (products, administration or distribution domain), with specific Life Insurance or Wealth Management knowledge a bonus 

• Strong people manager preferable or recognized experience in managing teams of people. 

• Experience in insurance distribution, operations or digital projects would be an advantage 

• Practical experience in both Agile and Waterfall delivery approaches 

• Excellent  analytical and creative problem solving skills, strong communicator at all business levels, with the ability to exercise flexibility and judgment in a dynamic environment 

• Excellent facilitation and influencing skills, including ability to work effectively across a large organization, developing strong cross–functional relationships 

• Well organized and high attention to detail, with the ability to adapt to a fast-paced environment and changing priorities 

• Strong PC skills including MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint  and Visio 
  

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].