AVP, Technology Lead, Health

Description du poste

The AVP, Technology Lead, Health is a strategic technology leader responsible for running and building Sun Life’s health and benefits technology platforms to support member, sponsor and employee experiences at scale. This role is accountable for embedding a world-class design and engineering culture across delivery teams, with a strong focus on digital experiences, stable core systems and maintaining a roadmap of capabilities needed to achieve business outcomes.

The role combines strategic leadership, technical oversight, people leadership, as well as vendor and financial management, to drive technology excellence and business value delivery. The AVP Technology Lead partners closely with Product, Architecture, Operations, Enterprise Technology and Business Leads to ensure integrated, end-to-end enablement of technology capabilities—rather than ownership of business processes themselves.

This role operates in a highly visible, complex environment and requires a leader who can drive momentum, make clear decisions, and bring strong technical credibility.

Key Responsibilities

1. Stratégie technologique, Enablement numérique et ingénierie

• Shape, communicate, and align technology and strategy across the business unit and the organization, ensuring it supports both near-term delivery commitments and longer-term modernization objectives.
• Partner with Business Leads, Operations, Core IT / Infrastructure, and Enterprise Architecture to define platform roadmaps and OKRs for technology capabilities, including data, integrations, client-hosted applications, workflow systems, mainframe systems of record and digital user experiences.
• Provide thought leadership on how technology platforms should be developed, adopted, and governed—moving beyond delivery execution toward sustainable enablement.
• Promote adoption of technology stack standards and modern engineering practices, balancing build vs. buy vs. partner decisions in a complex technology ecosystem.
• Ensure design and engineering decisions account for reusability, scalability, security, and maintainability, actively managing technical debt in non-greenfield environments.
• Plan for exceptional digital experiences by enabling business teams with reliable, scalable platforms and capabilities.

2. Livraison de la plateforme et exécution

• Accountable for end-to-end delivery of technology platforms and capabilities, including oversight of internal delivery teams, total cost of ownership and system integrator partners.
• Drive delivery excellence by improving velocity, quality, and reliability across multiple agile squads that are at varying levels of maturity.
• Track delivery metrics and implement targeted productivity and delivery maturity improvements.
• Serve as the primary point of escalation for platform, delivery, and vendor-related issues, facilitating rapid resolution in a complex environment.

3. Leadership des personnes et développement des capacités

• Lead, mentor, and develop technology teams, fostering a collaborative, inclusive, and execution-focused culture.
• Partner with Business Leads and Chapter leaders to design team structures that achieve business and delivery outcomes.
• Inspire and empower teams through coaching, continuous learning, and hands-on leadership
• Support succession planning and capability development for critical roles.

4. Gestion financière et des fournisseurs

• Lead platform budget management, including annual budgeting, cost tracking, and capitalization.
• Manage strategic vendor and system integrator relationships, holding partners accountable for delivery quality, outcomes, and knowledge transfer.
• Ensure alignment between IT and business finance, identifying opportunities to optimize spend.

5. Excellence opérationnelle & gestion des risques

• Ensure platform stability, security, technology currency and end-of-life decommissioning for applications.
• Establish governance processes that balance speed of delivery with risk management and regulatory requirements.
• Partner with Operations to ensure effective incident management, change management, and disaster recovery for enablement platforms.

6. Collaboration transversale & engagement des parties prenantes

• Act as a strategic technology partner to leaders across Product, Operations, Client Experience, and Operations.
• Collaborate with business and IT stakeholders to align technology plans with business priorities and client outcomes.
• Represent the health technology function in executive forums, bringing external perspective and best practices from complex enterprise environments.

Exigences

• Align technology strategy with Health business objectives.
• Define and monitor platform roadmaps and OKRs.
• Oversee platform execution across delivery teams and vendors.
• Establish governance, track delivery metrics, and drive productivity improvements.
• Manage technology budgets and vendor relationships.
• Build and sustain a high-performing, engaged, and inclusive enablement-focused technology organization.

Résultats typiques

• Health technology strategy, platform roadmaps, and OKRs.
• Modernized technology platforms aligned to business priorities.
• Initiative roadmaps and delivery plans for enablement capabilities.
• Delivery metrics, vendor performance insights, and productivity improvement plans.
• Strategic workforce management plans.
• Opportunities for delivery team improvements to ways of working and agile maturity.

Qualifications & Expérience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (advanced degree or MBA is an asset).
• 10+ years of experience in senior technology leadership roles, with demonstrated success delivering complex mission-critical systems
• Experience leading the modernization and enablement of Health Technology platforms
• Proven ability to lead technology teams through modernization and enablement-focused transformation.
• Strong financial acumen with experience managing sizable budgets and vendor portfolios.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and leadership skills.
• Experience in regulated financial services is valuable.

Mentalité & comportements

• Decisive leader comfortable operating in ambiguity and complexity.
• Strong technical credibility, with the ability to challenge architecture, delivery practices, and CI/CD approaches.
• Builder mindset with equal focus on fixing, scaling, and enabling.
• Pragmatic, outcomes-driven decision-maker.
• Collaborative leader who rebuilds trust and drives momentum.
• Critical thinker with a passion for challenging the status quo and driving innovation.
• Believes in a non-hierarchical culture of collaboration, transparency, and trust.
• Experimental mindset to drive continuous improvement.
• Strong coaching and problem-solving skills.

Ce que nous offrons

• Great Place to Work® Certified for Most Trusted Executive Team in Canada – 2025, 2024 and 2023
• Great Place to Work® Certified for Best Workplaces in Canada - 2025
• Canada Order of Excellence for Mental Health at Work® certification from Excellence Canada. Sun Life is one of only four companies in Canada to ever receive this certification – 2024
• Top Work Places® for Remote Work – Monster Canada - 2024
• Great Place to Work® Certified for Best Workplaces in Canada – 2024 and 2022
• Great Place to Work® Certified for Best Workplaces for Women in Canada - 2024
• Flexible hybrid work model.