Director, Project & Portfolio Management

Sun Life • Waterloo, ON

2d • CA$110,000 - CA$180,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The Director, Project & Portfolio Management (P&PM) leads and continuously improve portfolio governance and monitoring across Sun Life Canada’s initiative portfolio, ensuring that investments are governed consistently and decisions are supported with clear, decision‑ready insights. The role champions the evolution of P&PM practices by right‑sizing governance, strengthening accountability, and tying investment decisions to value delivery. The Director leads key governance and monitoring activities (including portfolio reporting, executive governance forums, and business casing) and partners with cross‑functional leaders to enable effective execution at scale.

Requirements

• 8–12+ years of progressive experience in Finance, Strategy, Transformation, and/or Consulting, including experience managing large initiatives.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex and imperfect information into clear, decision‑ready insights and executive‑ready materials.
• Strong governance design and operating discipline (forums, templates, thresholds, escalation criteria, reporting cycles) across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Strong financial and business case capability, including cost/benefit and investment governance expectations across the initiative lifecycle.
• Proven cross‑functional leadership and influence; able to align stakeholders with competing priorities and drive follow‑through without relying solely on formal authority.
• People leadership experience, including coaching and developing team members and maintaining quality control over critical governance outputs.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to build credibility with senior leaders.
• Proficient in MS Office (advanced Excel and PowerPoint) and comfort working with portfolio data and reporting tooling.
• 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

• Professional designation (CPA, CFA) is an asset.
• Experience leading and managing change within a complex organization.
• Project/program management experience.
• Creativity and resilience in ambiguous, fast‑changing environments.

Responsibilities

• Set the direction and continuously evolve Canada‑wide portfolio governance (standards, thresholds, escalation criteria, and monitoring) across Business Units and Enablement Functions.
• Lead the end‑to‑end operating rhythm for executive oversight forums (agenda and materials, decision points, outcomes tracking, and follow‑through).
• Direct quarterly portfolio reporting and health monitoring (spend, forecast, benefits confidence, status, key risks, re‑approval triggers) and ensure insights drive timely intervention.
• Translate portfolio information into concise, decision‑oriented insights to enable trade‑offs, prioritization, and escalation of material risks or changes.
• Provide governance oversight of business casing and investment changes to ensure minimum requirements are met and trade‑offs are explicit.
• Enable strategic and business planning by coordinating initiative inputs and ensuring portfolio views are complete, consistent, and leadership‑ready.
• Oversee governance controls that support compliance indicators and Canada attestations (process design, execution, and audit readiness as needed).
• Lead and develop team members; establish quality standards for critical governance outputs and support adoption of standard ways of working.
• Serve as a central point of coordination across Finance, portfolio leads, initiative owners, and delivery partners to align expectations and reduce ambiguity.
• Act as a trusted thought partner to senior leaders, portfolio leads, Finance, and delivery teams to translate strategy into outcomes.
• Navigate evolving priorities and competing perspectives with confidence and credibility, grounding recommendations in insight and logic.
• Drive alignment across stakeholders on governance expectations, decision points, and accountability for portfolio actions.
• Strengthen business case quality and consistency by defining minimum requirements, supporting due diligence, and enabling clear sign‑offs and auditability.
• Partner with value realization stakeholders to clarify outcomes, measurement approaches, and benefits confidence from business case through delivery and post‑implementation.
• Identify and recommend improvements to governance, reporting, and tooling to reduce friction, improve turnaround time, and enable faster data‑driven decisions.

Benefits

• Supportive, flexible, and inclusive work environment
• Opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed
• Global company with a passion for people
• Purpose to help Clients achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives
• Opportunity to make an impact on people in your community and around the world
• Opportunity to drive transformation, sustainability and innovation
• Hybrid organization offering choice and flexibility to work from both the office and virtually

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed