Assistant Vice President, Technology Lead, Group Retirement Services

Sun Life • Waterloo, ON

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The AVP, Technology Lead, Group Retirement Services (GRS) is a strategic technology leader responsible for running and building Sun Life’s wealth / retirement technology platforms to support sponsor and advisor experiences at scale. This role is accountable for embedding a world-class design and engineering culture across delivery teams, with a strong focus on digital experiences, stable core systems and critical capabilities that build and maintain an industry-leading wealth business. The role combines strategic leadership, technical oversight, people leadership, as well as vendor and financial management, to drive technology excellence and business value. The AVP Technology Lead partners closely with Product, Architecture, Operations, Enterprise Technology and Business Leads to ensure technology platforms, data 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, and bring strong technical credibility.

Requirements

• 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 the modernization and enablement of wealth management platforms, including sponsor and advisor web/mobile digital platforms.
• Proven ability to lead technology teams through modernization and transformation.
• Strong financial acumen with experience managing sizable budgets and portfolios.
• Strong understanding of wealth, retirement, and investment products
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.
• Experience in regulated financial services is valuable.
• Decisive leader comfortable operating in uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
• Strong technical credibility, with the ability to challenge architecture, delivery practices, and CI/CD approaches.
• Builder mindset with equal focus on fixing, scaling, and enabling.
• Pragmatic, outcomes-driven decision-maker and problem-solver.
• Collaborative leader/coach who builds trust and drives momentum.
• Critical thinker with a passion for challenging the status quo and driving innovation.
• Believes in a non-hierarchical culture of collaboration, transparency, and trust.
• Experimental mindset to drive continuous improvement.
• Bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only as the position includes managing both French and English-speaking staff (Quebec and outside Quebec) and providing daily support to the team.

Nice To Haves

• Advanced degree or MBA

Responsibilities

• Shape, communicate, and align technology and strategy across the business unit and the organization, ensuring it supports both near-term delivery commitments and longer-term modernization objectives.
• Partner with Business Leads, Operations, Core IT / Infrastructure, and Enterprise Architecture to define platform roadmaps and OKRs for technology capabilities, including data, integrations, applications, mainframe systems of record and digital user experiences.
• Provide thought leadership on how technology platforms should be developed, adopted, and governed.
• Promote adoption of technology stack standards and modern engineering practices, balancing build vs. buy vs. partner decisions in a complex technology ecosystem.
• Ensure design and engineering decisions account for reusability, scalability, security, and maintainability, actively managing technical debt in non-greenfield environments.
• Seek opportunities to scale capabilities across wealth businesses.
• Plan for exceptional digital experiences for sponsors and advisors by enabling business teams with reliable, scalable platforms and capabilities.
• Accountable for end-to-end delivery of technology platforms, including oversight of delivery teams, total cost of ownership and system integrator partners.
• Ensure platforms are intuitive, transact with ease and deliver automated operational processes that reduce friction and drive sponsor and advisor satisfaction.
• Drive delivery excellence by improving velocity, quality, and reliability across multiple agile squads that are at varying levels of maturity.
• Leverage AI-driven development capabilities and automated processes to deliver faster.
• Track delivery metrics and implement targets for productivity and delivery maturity.
• Gain commitment of partners, remove barriers to speed up execution and drive outcomes.
• Serve as the primary point of escalation for platform, delivery, and vendor-related issues, facilitating rapid resolution in a complex environment.
• Use experimentation and test-and-learn approaches to continuously improve.
• Lead, mentor, and develop technology teams, fostering a collaborative, inclusive, and execution-focused culture.
• Design and optimize team structures that achieve business and delivery outcomes.
• Inspire and empower teams through coaching, learning, and hands-on leadership.
• Empower your teams to test new ideas and solve problems.
• Develop your team’s resilience and agility during times of change and uncertainty.
• Support succession planning and capability development for critical roles.
• Provide honest constructive feedback that enables individual development and builds capability for career movement.
• Manage platform financials including budgeting, cost tracking, and capitalization.
• Govern strategic vendor and system integrator relationships, holding partners accountable for delivery quality, outcomes, and knowledge transfer.
• Drive technology platform efficiencies such that savings can be reinvested in system capabilities as appropriate.
• Ensure platform stability, security, and technology currency of applications.
• Establish governance processes that balance speed of delivery with risk management and regulatory requirements.
• Partner with Technology Operations to ensure effective incident management, change management, and disaster recovery for enablement platforms.
• Act as a strategic technology partner to value stream leaders across Product, Client Experience and Business Operations.
• Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to align technology plans with business priorities and client outcomes.
• Represent the GRS technology function in executive forums, bringing external perspective and best practices from complex enterprise environments.
• Clearly communicate priorities that inspire commitment to business outcomes.
• Align technology strategy with those business objectives and shared outcomes.
• Define and monitor platform roadmaps and OKRs.
• Set clear actionable goals based on the strategies, prioritizing our Clients and business outcomes.
• Establish and execute automation roadmaps that enable Canadian Operations to seamlessly scale as our business grows.
• Deliver leading digital capabilities for sponsors and advisors that differentiate Sun Life from our competitors.
• Oversee platform execution across delivery teams and vendors.
• Establish governance, track delivery metrics, and drive productivity improvements.
• Manage technology budgets and vendor relationships.
• Take ownership of all technology expenses (applications, infrastructure, security, etc.) and continually develop plans to reduce non-development technology expenses.
• Create and sustain a high-performing, engaged and inclusive technology culture.

Benefits

• Pension, stock and savings programs to help build and enhance your future financial security
• Work and professional development that is united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives
• A friendly, collaborative and inclusive culture
• Competitive salary and bonus structure influenced by market range data

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees