Associate Director, Operational Innovation & Readiness

Royal Bank of Canada • Toronto, ON

1d • Onsite

About The Position

The Associate Director, Operational Innovation & Readiness leads the design, development, and execution of comprehensive Operational Readiness strategies aligned with RBC CM-COO transformation roadmaps, technology roadmaps, and business priorities. This strategic delivery role ensures that major initiatives, system implementations, organizational changes, and technology deployments are supported by robust readiness planning, governance, and execution frameworks. The role partners with leadership and stakeholders across product, technology, data and business functions to integrate operational and technology readiness planning with initiative planning.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Business administration or a related field.
• 7–10 years of progressive experience in operational readiness, change management, program management, or technology implementation.
• Exceptional communication, collaboration and influencing skills.
• Expertise in change management, organisational design, and senior stakeholder engagement.
• Expertise in data-driven decision-making; proficiency in Tableau/Power BI, Microsoft Suite (Excel, PowerPoint, Sharepoint) and Project Management tools (Microsoft Project, Jira).
• Track record in leading technology implementations, system deployments, or digital transformation initiatives in a complex enterprise environment.
• Familiarity with developing and implementing operational readiness frameworks, assessment methodologies, and governance structures.
• Proven ability to translate technology capabilities into operational insights, procedures and workflows.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in financial services or a regulated industry strongly preferred, Capital Markets knowledge an asset.
• Expertise in designing operational readiness frameworks, maturity models, and governance structures.
• Expertise in leading readiness assessments and translate technical capabilities into operational workflows.
• Expertise in mitigating readiness and adoption risks in regulated environments.
• PMP or equivalent certification an asset.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain a comprehensive operational readiness strategy and framework that guides preparation for operational initiatives and technology deployments.
• Define readiness methodologies, standards, and best practices for the organization.
• Establish governance structures, decision-making processes, and readiness review gates that ensure disciplined assessment of organizational preparedness.
• Develop or connect existing escalation protocols and technology adoption checkpoints that align operational readiness to executive decision-making.
• Design, align and implement readiness assessment and organizational maturity models that measure preparedness across key dimensions such as process design, staffing, training, technology readiness, data readiness, and communication.
• Develop readiness assessment tools to provide objective, data-driven insights into organizational capability and risk.
• Refine assessment methodologies based on lessons learned and evolving business needs.
• Embed readiness planning into major initiatives from the outset through close partnership with product, platform, business, and technology stakeholders.
• Coordinate with cross-functional teams on process redesign, staffing, training, and change management workstreams to ensure plans are comprehensive and integrated.
• Partner with technology and business stakeholders to develop and oversee technology readiness assessments, maintaining visibility across infrastructure, data, cyber risk, and user adoption.
• Identify adoption barriers and drive organization-wide technology uptake in partnership with relevant teams.
• Monitor organisational performance post-implementations, assessing whether changes delivered intended business outcomes and benefits.
• Track readiness metrics and KPIs, identify gaps, and adjust approaches based on lessons learned.
• Document outcomes and contribute insights to the function's knowledge base to continuously strengthen the organisation's readiness capability.

Benefits

• A comprehensive Total Rewards Program including bonuses and flexible benefits, competitive compensation, commissions, and stock where applicable.
• Leaders who support your development through coaching and managing opportunities
• Ability to make a difference and lasting impact.
• Work in a dynamic, collaborative, progressive, and high-performing team.
• Flexible work/life balance options.
• Opportunities to do challenging work.
• Opportunities to take on progressively greater accountabilities.
• Access to a variety of job opportunities across business.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director