Finance Team Lead

We are a leading financial services provider committed to making decisions easier and lives better for our customers and colleagues around the world. From our environmental initiatives to our community investments, we lead with values throughout our business. To help us stand out, we help you step up, because when colleagues are healthy, respected and meaningfully challenged, we all thrive. Discover how you can grow your career, make impact and drive real change with our Winning Team today.

Working Arrangement

Hybrid

Job Description

Are you looking for a supportive and collaborative workplace with great benefits and clear career development? You’ve come to the right place.

Why choose Manulife?

• Competitive Salary packages and performance bonuses
• Day 1 HMO + FREE coverage for your dependents (inclusive of same-sex partners)
• Retirement savings benefit
• Rewarding culture that values wellness and well-being
• Performance Bonus
• Global network of industry experts
• Extensive training resources

Job Description:

Accountable to the Finance Control Operations Director in MBPS, the role is primarily accountable for managing the Regional Office accounting, financial and management reporting, expense management, budgeting and forecasting and support specific Asia function as a finance partner. The role directly supports the Head of Expense Management Asia.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Provide timely, accurate and insightful expense forecasts with commentary to facilitate business review meetings, business decisions and to drive expense accountability for the Regional Office and the assigned Asia functions. This requires working with regional functional teams and local teams to ensure that the information is sufficiently robust for decision-making purposes.

Partner with the key stakeholders, including the Function Owner, to identify the spending trend and patterns, potential savings (SCM) / accrual needed and area of potential spending to align with and achieve the Regional Office and Asia Division strategic goals.

Provide monthly expense and FTE reports (MoM, QoQ, YoY, vs Plan, vs Forecast) to the ADEC functional heads in Regional Office regarding Asia functional expenses and address any queries.

Manage regional office legal entity reporting, including regional office expenses, expense allocation to business units. This includes liaising with regional functional teams and the BU finance teams to ensure the allocation basis is appropriate, meets tax transfer pricing requirements, and is understood and accepted by the business units.

Lead and in charge of all intercompany charges and communication with BUs to ensure proper elimination on Group level.

Preparation of the ADEC and other senior management reporting deck and will be responsible for providing insightful and relevant commentaries related to expense and FTE, to highlight areas of the business that require management attention by analyzing QoQ and YoY trends and major drivers of movements compared to plan.

Manage Group Financial reporting deliverables for Asia to ensure accurate and timely information is provided for Group external financial statement publication

Work with Corporate team to develop, implement, maintain, and operationalize expense policies to ensure that an expense-conscious culture is embedded within Manulife Asia. Work with the business unit finance teams to ensure that this is mirrored at the business unit level.

Provide meaningful and insightful reporting on project financials, with the ability to prepare project financial presentations, manage the accounting process of all project-related activities and partner with project managers, Asia PMO and Controllers on key reports and budget status.

Participate in Regional priority and strategic projects as assigned or other ad hoc activities. Some of the projects that the role will be involved includes but is not limited to the following:

• Anaplan Rollout (MVP 1, 1.5, 2, 3 and ongoing MVPs)
• Regional Warpspeed Project (accelerated timelines)
• IFRS17 adoption

Special Projects

Special projects will arise from time to time that will require strong financial knowledge, strong analytical and organizational skills with an innovative mindset. The role will be responsible ad-hoc projects as required by senior management pertaining to the introduction of new services, products and processes designed.

Individual Accountabilities:

• Asia & Regional Office expense budget

• Asia & Regional Office expense actuals reporting

• Asia & Regional Office expense forecasts

• Regional Office allocation

Key Shared Accountabilities:

• Asia expense policies (shared with Corporate Expense team)

Qualifications

• University Business Degree and/or recognized accounting designation (Chartered Accountant or CPA);
• 8+ years of progressive financial reporting and management experience; Life insurance industry experience is preferred
• Experience working with senior management teams (Strong stakeholder management requiring persuasion / influencing skills); relationship building and negotiation skills
• Prior experience of managing shared services/offshore team is an advantage
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and strong stakeholder management capabilities
• Strong technical accounting skills with a solid understanding of the business environment
• Advanced Excel skills and experience with database applications
• Strong project management skills
• Self-starter, detail-oriented, willingness to take ownership and accountability
• Able to cope in a fast paced and dynamic work environment, with the mindset of continuous improvement and aiming for excellence
• Strong oral/written communication skills required to interact with senior officers and representatives from other Divisions and functional departments
• Candidate should be willing to travel to Hong Kong regularly for business trips (once a quarter)

Competencies:

• Strong relationship management skills to build enduring and productive alliances across matrix organizations. Experience in partnering with a diverse team located in multiple locations and time zones.
• Strong presentation, influencing and negotiation skills across the organization.
• Demonstrates strong flexibility in the face of ambiguous situations, shifting demands, and challenging work environments. Uses diplomacy and tact to resolve difficult situations. Escalates more serious issues to management.
• Excellent initiative and ability to commit to a course of action in the face of risks and uncertainty
• Professional attitude and client service orientation; collaborative and results-oriented
• Practical problem-solving skills and the ability to influence change
• Strong oral/written communication skills required to interact with senior officers and representatives from other Divisions and functional departments
• Strong organizational and time management skills with the ability to be flexible to changing environments
• Ability to work independently and willing to collaborate with other teams for a project with huge scale benefits

Let's make every day better together. Learn about our opportunities at JOBS.MANULIFE.COM

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services group that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Asia, Canada, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and wealth and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and institutions. At the end of 2022, we had more than 40,000 employees, over 116,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 34 million customers. At the end of 2022, we had $1.3 trillion (US$1.0 trillion) in assets under management and administration, including total invested assets of $0.4 trillion (US $0.3 trillion), and segregated funds net assets of $0.3 trillion (US$0.3 trillion). We trade as ‘MFC’ on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges, and under ‘945’ in Hong Kong.

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 recruitment@manulife.com.