Manager, Operational Excellence

Work Location:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Hours:

35

Line of Business:

Enterprise Enabling Functions

Pay Details:

$94,000 - $132,700 CAD

TD is committed to providing fair and equitable compensation opportunities to all colleagues. Growth opportunities and skill development are defining features of the colleague experience at TD. Our compensation policies and practices have been designed to allow colleagues to progress through the salary range over time as they progress in their role. The base pay actually offered may vary based upon the candidate's skills and experience, job-related knowledge, geographic location, and other specific business and organizational needs.

As a candidate, you are encouraged to ask compensation related questions and have an open dialogue with your recruiter who can provide you more specific details for this role.

Job Description:

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Operational Excellence Specialist is a senior individual contributor within PCA's Performance & Operational Excellence function—one of six core pillars of the Private Client Advice channel. This role is the engine behind PCA's ability to continuously improve how work gets done: identifying inefficiencies, designing better processes, and landing tangible, measurable improvements that directly support the channel's profitability and client experience objectives.

A defining feature of this role is navigating PCA's operating model within a large bank-owned insurance structure. The Specialist works as an active participant in shared journey pods—cross-functional agile teams that include mass market and other business line partners—to champion and advance PCA-specific initiatives in an environment where priorities are actively contested and resources are finite. Success here requires more than process expertise: it demands persuasion, political savvy, and the ability to build a compelling case for why PCA's needs deserve prioritization.

Equally important is the Specialist's ability to operate beyond the journey pod model. When formal channels are slow, constrained, or misaligned with PCA's needs, this role finds creative workarounds—partnering with non-journey stakeholders, leveraging informal networks, and engineering practical solutions that drive results without waiting for perfect conditions.

OPERATING CONTEXT

PCA operates within a bank-owned insurance structure where enterprise-wide journey pods serve as the primary vehicle for identifying, prioritizing, and executing operational and digital improvements. These pods are shared across business lines—including mass market personal lines—and are subject to a competitive prioritization process. PCA's ability to secure pod capacity and influence the roadmap is directly tied to how well its representatives can articulate value, quantify impact, and build stakeholder coalitions.

The Operational Excellence Specialist must be fluent in both the formal pod governance model and the informal dynamics that shape what actually gets built. Where journey pod bandwidth is unavailable or misaligned, this role is expected to identify alternative paths: manual workarounds, interim solutions, non-journey technology resources, or cross-functional partnerships that allow PCA to move forward independently.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

1. Journey Pod Engagement & PCA Initiative Advocacy

• Represent PCA as an active, informed participant in shared journey pods, ensuring HNW-specific needs and use cases are clearly articulated and not absorbed into mass market defaults

• Develop rigorous business cases for PCA improvement initiatives, quantifying expected impact on COR, client retention, LEI, and advisor productivity to compete effectively for pod prioritization

• Maintain a PCA-specific improvement backlog, continuously refining and sequencing initiatives based on strategic value, feasibility, and dependency on journey pod versus non-pod delivery paths

• Track pod roadmap decisions and advocate proactively when PCA initiatives risk deprioritization—escalating with data and stakeholder alignment where necessary

• Translate PCA's channel strategy and journey phase priorities (Shop → Buy → Manage → Loyalty) into pod-ready problem statements with clear acceptance criteria and success metrics

2. Creative Problem-Solving with Non-Journey Partners

• Identify and cultivate relationships with partners outside the formal journey pod structure—including operations, underwriting, finance, technology, and bank shared services—to source alternative implementation paths for PCA improvements

• Design and pilot pragmatic interim solutions (process redesigns, manual workarounds, targeted tool enhancements) that deliver near-term value while longer-horizon pod initiatives are in queue

• Map the informal influence landscape across PCA's partner ecosystem and develop tailored engagement strategies to advance operational improvements through non-standard channels

• Broker creative arrangements—resource swaps, co-funded pilots, shadow capacity—that allow PCA to move at the pace its HNW client base demands, independent of enterprise release cycles

3. Process Improvement & Operational Excellence

• Lead end-to-end process improvement initiatives from diagnosis through implementation and benefit realization, applying structured methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, or equivalent)

• Conduct process mapping, root cause analysis, and operational diagnostics across PCA's functional areas to surface the highest-value improvement opportunities

• Develop and maintain process documentation, playbooks, and standard operating procedures that codify best practices and enable consistent execution across the team

• Ensure operational readiness for product, pricing, technology, and policy changes by designing transition processes that minimize disruption to clients and advisors

4. AI Capability Building & Roadmap Ownership

• Own PCA's AI capability roadmap—identifying, evaluating, and sequencing AI-enabled use cases across the full client journey and operational landscape that have the greatest potential to improve efficiency, accuracy, and client experience

• Serve as PCA's primary advocate and subject matter lead for AI initiatives within journey pod prioritization discussions, articulating the business value of AI-powered solutions in terms of COR, capacity, and client outcomes

• Partner with enterprise data, technology, and digital teams to assess AI tooling availability, feasibility, and readiness for PCA-specific applications—including automation, intelligent triage, predictive analytics, and advisor-facing AI tools

• Pilot and evaluate AI-enabled process improvements, establishing proof-of-concept frameworks that allow PCA to test, learn, and scale AI capabilities in a risk-managed and compliant manner

• Track the evolving AI capability landscape within the bank and broader insurance industry, translating emerging developments into concrete opportunities for PCA to maintain its white-glove, high-touch positioning while improving operational scalability

• Develop AI literacy and adoption within PCA by collaborating with team leads to embed AI tools into workflows, building confidence and capability at the frontline

5. Performance Tracking & Insight Generation

• Define and monitor operational KPIs including turnaround times, error rates, exception volumes, SLA adherence, and capacity utilization across PCA workflows

• Build and maintain operational performance reporting that connects process metrics to channel-level outcomes—COR, NIAT, retention, and client experience scores

• Partner with the Strategy & Planning Specialist to ensure operational improvement impact is reflected in PCA's north star metrics framework and executive reporting

• Conduct post-implementation reviews on completed initiatives to capture lessons learned and validate realized benefits against business case projections

6. Client & Employee Experience

• Apply a high-net-worth lens to every operational decision, ensuring process improvements are calibrated to the elevated expectations of PCA's affluent client segment

• Identify and eliminate operational friction points across the full client journey—particularly at high-stakes moments such as onboarding, renewals, endorsements, and claims interfaces

• Collaborate with account management, new business, and appraisal teams to understand frontline pain points and translate them into structured improvement opportunities

QUALIFICATIONS & EXPERIENCE

Required

• 5–8 years of progressive experience in operational excellence, process improvement, or business operations within financial services or insurance

• Demonstrated experience working in or alongside agile delivery teams, journey pods, or cross-functional squads within a large, matrixed organization

• Proven ability to build compelling business cases and influence prioritization decisions in competitive, resource-constrained environments

• Track record of delivering operational improvements through both formal project channels and informal, self-directed problem-solving

• Strong working knowledge of P&C insurance operations including policy servicing, underwriting support, renewals, and claims interfaces

• Proficiency in process mapping, root cause analysis, and structured problem-solving methodologies (Lean, Six Sigma, Agile, or equivalent)

• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills; comfortable engaging peers, partners, and senior leaders with equal effectiveness

• Undergraduate degree in Business, Operations, Finance, or a related field

Preferred

• Experience in high-net-worth or affluent client segments within personal lines property and casualty insurance

• Familiarity with bank-owned insurance distribution models and the operational dynamics of bancassurance

• Experience navigating shared technology or transformation roadmaps where business line priorities compete for limited delivery capacity

• Hands-on experience identifying, piloting, or scaling AI-enabled solutions in an insurance or financial services operating environment (e.g., automation, intelligent document processing, predictive analytics, or AI-assisted advisor tools)

• Familiarity with responsible AI principles, model governance, and compliance considerations in regulated industries

• Lean Six Sigma certification (Green Belt or higher) or equivalent continuous improvement credential

• CIP, FCIP, or other insurance professional designations considered an asset

Who We Are:

As part of TD Bank Group, one of Canada's largest financial institutions, at TD Insurance, we care for Canadian families, making it easy to get the best advice, protection, and support in their moments of need, always.

TD Insurance offers a wide range of products, including General Insurance and Life and Health. Everyday, we strive to make every interaction, product and experience remarkably human and refreshingly simple for more than four million customers who count on us.

Our Total Rewards Package
Our Total Rewards package reflects the investments we make in our colleagues to help them and their families achieve their financial, physical, and mental well-being goals. Total Rewards at TD includes a base salary, variable compensation, and several other key plans such as health and well-being benefits, savings and retirement programs, paid time off, banking benefits and discounts, career development, and reward and recognition programs. Learn more

Additional Information:
We’re delighted that you’re considering building a career with TD. Through regular development conversations, training programs, and a competitive benefits plan, we’re committed to providing the support our colleagues need to thrive both at work and at home.

Please be advised that this job opportunity is subject to provincial regulation for employment purposes. It is imperative to acknowledge that each province or territory within the jurisdiction of Canada may have its own set of regulations, requirements.

Colleague Development

If you’re interested in a specific career path or are looking to build certain skills, we want to help you succeed. You’ll have regular career, development, and performance conversations with your manager, as well as access to an online learning platform and a variety of mentoring programs to help you unlock future opportunities. 

If you’re passionate about helping clients and building deep, lasting relationships, TD offers diverse career paths where you can grow your expertise and make a meaningful impact.  

We're committed to your success and foster a respectful workplace where diverse perspectives are valued, everyone has fair opportunities to grow, and you can unlock your full potential to achieve your career goals. Here at TD, we hire and develop the best.

Training & Onboarding
We will provide training and onboarding sessions to ensure that you’ve got everything you need to succeed in your new role.

Interview Process 
We’ll reach out to candidates of interest to schedule an interview. We do our best to communicate outcomes to all applicants by email or phone call.

Accommodation
Your accessibility is important to us. Please let us know if you’d like accommodations (including accessible meeting rooms, captioning for virtual interviews, etc.) to help us remove barriers so that you can participate throughout the interview process.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Language Requirement (Quebec only):

Sans Objet