Product Director

Manulife • Boston, MA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Manulife John Hancock Retirement is redefining our US Retirement business to help customers save for retirement. Working within a SAFe agile delivery model, the team focuses on delivering solutions that create engaging and streamlined experiences for retirement plan customers and intermediaries. The Product Director will serve as the bridge between strategy and execution, ensuring initiatives are properly analyzed, prioritized, approved, implemented, and monitored for outcomes.

Requirements

• Minimum of 7+ years of experience in a product, business role.
• Previous or active product leadership role as in US Retirement or related business strongly preferred.
• Strong leadership and communication skills; ability to take ownership of deliverables and drive initiatives.
• Ability to balance strategic thinking with detailed execution.
• Experience in collaborating with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.
• Exceptional organization, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to cultivate relationships with key stakeholders across functions and levels.
• Good understanding of project management methodologies and agile processes.

Nice To Haves

• Transformational, Strategic Thinking & Portfolio Mindset: Ability to translate business strategy into investable epics.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Skilled at working across architecture, product, finance, operations and agile teams
• Analytical & Data‑Driven Decision-Making: Proficient in cost-benefit analysis, prioritization, and hypothesis validation.
• Lean-Agile Practices: Understanding of SAFe, Portfolio Kanban, and MVP-driven development.
• Communication & Influence: Ability to present business cases and influence approvals and alignment.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the US Retirement vision and roadmap by understanding the competitive landscape and market.
• Identify desired outcomes and communicate product vision in alignment with business strategy.
• Define the business case, epic hypothesis, socialize across stakeholders and gain alignment.
• Create epic artifacts and lead epics from the funnel to done stages.
• Facilitate collaboration with subject matter experts and stakeholders to refine and deliver the epic scope.
• Support decomposition of epics into capabilities and features, ensuring teams have clarity on intent, measurable outcomes and manage escalation for impediments.
• Maintain alignment with Business Owners, Product Management, Enterprise Architects, and development teams.
• Facilitate cross-functional decision-making and resolve conflicts that impede epic flow.
• Communicate epic progress, risks, pivots, and learnings transparently.
• Track leading indicators and validate whether the MVP delivers expected value.
• Recommend pivot, persevere, or stop decisions based on feedback and performance data.
• Ensure completion criteria align with the original epic definition and business goals.
• Advocate for the customer, ensuring their needs are central to product development and delivery.
• Partner with Customer Experience (CX) teams as needed to ensure solutions meet customer needs through human-centered design.
• Partner closely with Product Activation to support Go-To-Market activities as required.
• Maintain an understanding of business, customer, and end-user needs.
• Ensure team and program risks and roadblocks are managed, reported and escalated as necessary.

Benefits

• 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.
• Manulife/John Hancock 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/401(k) savings plans and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources.
• Our generous paid time off program in the U.S. includes up to 11 paid holidays, 3 personal days, 150 hours of vacation, and 40 hours of sick time (or more where required by law) each year, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence.

What This Job Offers

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