Lead Platform Owner, New Business & Underwriting

About the role

The Lead Platform Owner, New Business & Underwriting leads, stabilizes and evolves John Hancock's New Business & Underwriting platform in a Director-level role. You own the platform roadmap, delivery outcomes and operational health, ensuring the platform supports efficient, compliant and scalable onboarding and underwriting of individual life insurance business. You work closely with business leaders, architecture, data, risk teams and vendors.

Key responsibilities

• Define and execute the platform roadmap aligned with Individual Life priorities, digital initiatives and target architecture, and partner with architecture teams to reduce complexity, introduce responsible AI and shorten application-to-issue cycle times.
• Keep the platform stable, secure and scalable across new business intake, underwriting, case management and integrations, and build a modernization roadmap that reduces technical debt.
• Partner with data teams on governed data assets for underwriting, automation, reporting and AI, and lead delivery of platform initiatives using Agile practices.
• Monitor performance, availability and incidents, track KPIs such as cycle time, straight-through processing and underwriting productivity, and drive continuous improvement through automation and observability.
• Act as a strategic technology partner to New Business and Underwriting stakeholders, working with Product, Distribution, Operations, Compliance and Risk to turn business needs into technology priorities.
• Define and run the platform's AI strategy, including underwriting decision support, document intelligence, agent copilots and predictive analytics, with governance, controls and monitoring aligned to regulation and model-risk standards.
• Lead, support and develop a team of full-stack and quality engineers, manage capacity and skills, and foster an inclusive, collaborative environment.
• Manage vendor and partner relationships, contribute to financial planning and investment prioritization, and ensure compliance with technology standards, security, data privacy and insurance regulations.

Required profile

• 10 to 15+ years of technology experience, including leadership of enterprise platforms or core business systems.
• 3 to 5+ years of people leadership experience managing cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated platform leadership experience, including balancing stability with business and technology change.
• Experience with complex, business-critical platforms in insurance New Business, Underwriting, Policy Administration or related domains; life insurance experience strongly preferred.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication and analytical skills, and experience with Agile or iterative delivery in regulated environments.

Preferred qualifications

• Knowledge of digital application intake and case management, underwriting workflows and decision support, third-party data and underwriting integrations, document management, and integrations with Policy Administration, Billing and Distribution.