Manager, Agile Delivery & Portfolio Enablement

Role Summary

The Manager, Agile Delivery & Portfolio Enablement serves as the delivery and operational lead for the People Technology portfolio.

Reporting to the AVP, People Technology, this role partners with Product Leaders, Technology teams, HR stakeholders, and operational partners to drive Agile delivery execution, portfolio planning, governance, roadmap management, executive reporting, capacity visibility, and operational triage activities across the portfolio. The role enables effective delivery practices through facilitation of Agile ceremonies, dependency management, risk identification, prioritization support, and portfolio reporting. Working across multiple squads and initiatives, the incumbent helps ensure delivery commitments remain aligned to business priorities while providing leadership with transparency into delivery health, resource capacity, risks, dependencies, and progress against commitments.

Success in this role requires strong Agile delivery expertise, portfolio management discipline, analytical thinking, stakeholder management, and the ability to influence teams across a highly matrixed environment.

Key Responsibilities

Agile Delivery Leadership

• Facilitate sprint planning, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Support Agile teams in delivering commitments and achieving sprint objectives.
• Track delivery progress, risks, dependencies, and impediments.
• Partner with Product Leaders to ensure priorities are clearly defined and appropriately sequenced.
• Coordinate and manage cross-team dependencies.
• Support Agile maturity and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Maintain delivery metrics, dashboards, and reporting within Jira and related tools.
• Provide visibility into delivery health and proactively escalate risks requiring leadership attention.
• Support quarterly planning activities and dependency management across teams operating within Agile and SAFe delivery models.

Portfolio Planning & Governance

• Coordinate portfolio-level Quarterly Planning activities across the People Technology function.
• Support Quarterly Operations Planning to align delivery commitments, business priorities, and resource capacity.
• Maintain integrated portfolio roadmaps, milestones, risks, dependencies, and delivery schedules.
• Facilitate prioritization discussions across strategic initiatives, operational work, platform enhancements, and regulatory requirements.
• Coordinate governance forums and ensure adherence to established operating rhythms.
• Support annual planning, affordability discussions, and portfolio reviews.
• Provide portfolio insights, analysis, and recommendations to support leadership decision-making.

Executive Reporting & Leadership Support

• Coordinate preparation of Book of Work executive reporting and portfolio reviews.
• Develop and maintain executive dashboards and portfolio reporting.
• Consolidate delivery status, portfolio health, risks, dependencies, capacity updates, and key decisions.
• Support leadership meetings through development of materials, analysis, action tracking, and follow-up activities.
• Provide leaders with timely and accurate delivery and portfolio insights.

Technology Operations & Triage Coordination

• Support portfolio intake and triage processes.
• Coordinate operational requests, production issues, and enhancement prioritization activities.
• Facilitate escalation management and resolution tracking.
• Monitor portfolio health and identify areas requiring leadership attention.
• Support process improvements that increase delivery effectiveness and operational efficiency.
• Help ensure alignment between operational activities and strategic priorities.

Capacity Planning & Resource Visibility

• Maintain portfolio capacity and allocation information within approved planning tools, including Smartsheet.
• Support quarterly planning activities by providing resource and capacity insights.
• Identify potential capacity constraints and associated delivery risks.
• Support affordability and staffing discussions through reporting and analysis.
• Maintain workforce planning artifacts and reporting for leadership review.

Change Governance & Risk Management

• Support Change Control Board governance activities where required.
• Prepare governance materials, impact assessments, business cases, and supporting documentation.
• Track decisions, approvals, action items, risks, and dependencies.
• Support audit, compliance, privacy, security, and risk management activities.
• Ensure adherence to established governance and change management processes.

Qualifications

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Technology, Information Systems, Human Resources, Project Management, or a related discipline.
• Agile, Scrum, SAFe (SAFe Scrum Lead, SAFe Agilist, or related), PMP, or Portfolio Management certifications are considered an asset.

Experience

• 5-8+ years of experience in Agile Delivery, Scrum Leadership, Portfolio Enablement, Technology Operations, Program Delivery, or a related discipline.
• Experience serving as a Scrum Lead, Agile Delivery Lead, or similar role supporting one or more Agile teams.
• Experience working within Agile and SAFe delivery environments, including quarterly planning and cross-team dependency management.
• Experience supporting enterprise technology portfolios within complex, matrixed organizations.
• Experience facilitating Agile ceremonies and coordinating cross-functional technology initiatives.
• Experience supporting quarterly planning, governance, and executive reporting.
• Experience working with delivery teams, product leaders, and business stakeholders to manage priorities, risks, and dependencies.
• Experience supporting Human Resources technology platforms and processes is strongly preferred.

Technical Skills

Required Experience

• Jira
• Power BI
• Smartsheet
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Teams
• SharePoint

Preferred Experience

• HR Technology ecosystems
• AI-enabled technology solutions

Knowledge & Competencies

• Agile and Scrum methodologies
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) principles and practices
• Portfolio planning and governance
• Executive reporting and data storytelling
• Roadmap and dependency management
• Quarterly planning and prioritization
• Capacity planning and resource visibility
• Risk and issue management
• Stakeholder management and facilitation
• Operational triage and escalation management
• Continuous improvement methodologies

Success Measures

The successful candidate will:

• Enable consistent and effective Agile delivery practices across People Technology squads.
• Deliver accurate and timely quarterly planning and portfolio reporting.
• Maintain visibility into portfolio health, delivery progress, risks, and dependencies.
• Improve delivery predictability through effective dependency and risk management.
• Maintain accurate capacity and resource planning information.
• Support effective intake, triage, and prioritization processes.
• Enable informed leadership decision-making through timely reporting and analysis.
• Improve coordination across strategic, operational, and enhancement work while reducing delivery friction.

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.

#LI-Hybrid

The role being advertised is an existing vacancy.

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].

Referenced Salary Location

Working Arrangement

Salary range is expected to be between

Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact [email protected] for the salary range for your location.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact [email protected] for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.

We use data and analytics technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), and automated processing tools, to analyze and process the information you provide to us or third parties in the application process. For more information, please refer to our personal information collection statement.