Director, Change Management

The Canada Life Assurance Company•Toronto, ON

1d•CA$114,200 - CA$164,200•Hybrid

About The Position

Reporting to the AVP, Change Management, the Director, Change Management is responsible for establishing and leading the enterprise change management practice that supports strategic business transformation across Canada Life. This role provides leadership and oversight for change initiatives across multiple portfolios of programs and projects, ensuring stakeholder alignment, change readiness, adoption, and sustainment of business outcomes. The Director serves as a trusted advisor to executives, business leaders, and program teams, driving a consistent and scalable approach to organizational change. Through strong partnership, influence, and strategic leadership, this role helps accelerate transformation success by ensuring people, process, technology, and organizational impacts are thoughtfully planned, measured, and sustained. This position requires a highly collaborative leader who can operate effectively in complex environments, influence without authority, and build organizational change capability across the enterprise.

Requirements

Proven leadership experience developing and executing change management strategies in complex, enterprise-wide transformational environments.
Exceptional executive presence with demonstrated ability to influence, challenge, and partner with senior leaders and executives.
Strong understanding of change management principles, methodologies, and leading industry practices.
Experience leading change portfolios that span business process, technology, operating model, organizational design, and experience transformations.
Strong business acumen with the ability to translate strategic objectives into practical and measurable change outcomes.
Exceptional stakeholder management, relationship-building, communication, and facilitation skills.
Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities, and lead through matrixed organizational environments.
Experience establishing governance frameworks, operating models, success measures, and reporting for large-scale transformation programs.
Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities, with a focus on using data and insights to inform decision-making.
Experience leading and developing high-performing teams.
Bachelor's degree in Business, Human Resources, Organizational Development, Psychology, Communications, or a related field.
10+ years of progressive experience in change management, transformation, business enablement, or related leadership roles.
5+ years of people leadership experience.

Nice To Haves

Change Management certification (e.g., Prosci, CCMP, ACMP) preferred.
Financial Services or Insurance industry experience strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead the delivery and continuous improvement of enterprise change management strategy, framework, methodology, and governance to support Canada Life's transformation agenda.
Provide strategic leadership and oversight for change activities across a portfolio of business initiatives.
Ensure alignment between business priorities, transformation objectives, and change management approaches to maximize adoption and business value realization.
Lead the development of change management standards, tools, templates, and best practices that can be consistently applied across the organization.
Act as a trusted advisor and thought partner to senior leaders, executives, and program sponsors on change strategy, stakeholder engagement, risk mitigation, and organizational readiness.
Partner closely with Business PMO, Technology PMO, transformation leaders, communications, HR, learning, and business teams to deliver integrated transformation outcomes.
Facilitate executive discussions to align stakeholders around strategic objectives, priorities, dependencies, and organizational impacts.
Provide guidance and coaching to leaders and sponsors to strengthen change leadership capabilities and increase sponsor effectiveness.
Oversee organizational change impacts across multiple concurrent initiatives, ensuring an integrated and coordinated approach to change delivery.
Assess enterprise-level change capacity, readiness, and risks while identifying opportunities to simplify, sequence, and optimize change across the organization.
Maintain a consolidated view of change impacts, stakeholder considerations, dependencies, and adoption risks across the portfolio.
Ensure change management activities are appropriately integrated into project and program delivery methodologies.
Lead the development and execution of enterprise readiness, adoption and sustainment strategies for large-scale business transformations.
Establish approaches to assess stakeholder readiness, measure adoption, and monitor sustained behavioural and operational change.
Drive proactive risk identification and mitigation strategies related to people impacts, business disruption, and organizational resistance.
Ensure lessons learned and continuous improvement practices are embedded throughout transformation initiatives.
Lead, mentor, and develop a team of change management professionals while fostering a high-performance, collaborative culture.
Build organizational change management capability across Canada Life through coaching, education, and community of practice.
Champion a growth mindset and continuous improvement culture while enabling leaders and teams to successfully navigate change.
Support resource planning and talent development to ensure change management capabilities meet current and future business needs.
Establish project and program change measurement plans including effectiveness measures and adoption metrics, to drive business outcome tracking.
Monitor and report on change portfolio performance, organizational readiness, adoption, and transformation outcomes to senior leadership.
Ensure governance processes provide meaningful insights into change impacts and risks, progress, resource capacity, and overall transformation health.
Leverage data and feedback to continuously refine strategies and improve change effectiveness.