Position Responsibilities:

• Lead and manage the end-to-end custodial project, ensuring it is delivered on time, within scope, and budget.
• Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, and key milestones.
• Coordinate and facilitate meetings, workshops, and governance forums with internal teams and vendor.
• Monitor project risks, issues, and dependencies, implementing mitigation plans as necessary.
• Provide regular project updates to senior management and stakeholders.
• Oversee the gathering of the business requirements related to custodial operations, processes, reporting, and control.
• Assess the impact of the custodial change on existing processes, systems, and operational workflows.
• Oversee the validation of new business processes, ensuring alignment with regulatory and operational best practices.
• Work closely with IT teams and vendors to support system changes, integrations, and data migration activities.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management:

• Act as the primary liaison between internal teams (Front Office, Operations, Compliance, Technology, Product, Risk, Finance, Client Services, Platform Management, etc) and vendors.
• Ensure all regulatory and contractual requirements are met as part of the transition.
• Manage vendor relationships, ensuring SLAs, service standards, and operational requirements are met.
• Support the negotiation and finalization of custodial agreements.

Regulatory & Compliance Oversight:

• Work closely with Compliance and Legal teams to ensure all due diligence and reporting requirements are fulfilled throughout the transition process

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Business Administration, or a related field,
• Minimum 7 years of experience as a Project Manager within asset management, investment management and financial service industry.
• Strong knowledge of investment operation, custodian & security services, fund structures, investor services, and regulatory requirements.
• Good understanding of various fund types, including Luxembourg Funds (UCITS), Cayman Island Funds, Pension Funds and Fund of Funds.
• Experience in managing large-scale operational transitions or custodial migrations.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work with cross-functional teams, external vendors, and regulators.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with experience in process mapping and change management.
• Familiarity with custodial systems, investor servicing platforms, and data migration methodologies.
• Hands-on experience in business requirements gathering, UAT, and post-migration support.
• Strong Project Management skills, ideally with experience using Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid methodologies.
• Fluent in English, and Cantonese preferred (not essential) with excellent verbal and written communication skills.     
• Oversee the development and execution of UAT (User Acceptance Testing) plans with proper documentation, ensuring smooth operational readiness.
• Lead data migration process and partner with IT to ensure the accuracy and completeness as well as conduct data reconciliation to verify successful data transfers.

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.

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].

Hybrid