Asia Chief Technology Officer and Global Cloud
Manulife Financial · Hong Kong
Role purpose
The Asia CTO & Global Cloud leader is accountable for technology strategy, infrastructure, operational resilience, end-user technology and transformation across Asia, while owning Manulife’s global cloud environment and platform agenda. The role combines regional executive leadership with enterprise accountability for secure, resilient and cost-effective cloud capabilities that enable business growth, AI, data and application modernization.
Core accountabilities
1. Asia technology leadership
- Serve as the senior technology executive for Asia and the principal technology adviser to Asia business and technology leadership. Will sit on the CTSO Global team and also be the representative at the Asia Regional CIO team.
- Own the regional technology strategy, roadmap, investment priorities and execution outcomes across Asia markets.
- Align enterprise standards with local market needs, regulatory expectations and country-specific operating constraints.
- Own Asia technology governance, financial management for Infrastructure, workforce planning, risk management and audit readiness.
- Lead cross-market prioritization and delivery of the Asia technology book of work in partnership with regional and global teams.
2. Global cloud strategy, engineering and environment ownership
- Own the full global Azure environment end to end, including strategy, architecture, engineering, landing zones, platform services, governance, operational readiness, resilience and lifecycle management.
- Define and execute the enterprise cloud strategy across Azure, AWS and AliCloud, balancing speed, portability, cost, security and regulatory requirements.
- Build and scale cloud-agnostic catalog items that can be deployed consistently across Azure, AWS and AliCloud, using common patterns, policy-as-code, infrastructure-as-code, automated controls and reusable engineering components.
- Ensure catalog items deliver a consistent developer and operator experience while allowing provider-specific optimization where it creates clear business value.
- Lead global cloud engineering, platform product management, landing-zone evolution, service onboarding, automation and cloud architecture standards.
- Accelerate adoption of cloud-native services and the modernization of legacy hosting, databases and middleware.
- Enable application portability, disaster recovery and multi-cloud resilience through repeatable patterns and tested capabilities.
- Provide scalable cloud foundations for AI, data, digital and application modernization programs.
3. Infrastructure, networks and end-user services
- Lead the operation and modernization of Asia data centres, cloud infrastructure, storage, database and hosting services.
- Own Asia network and connectivity services across cloud regions, data centres, colocation facilities, headquarters and branch locations.
- Oversee regional carrier strategy, WAN, SD-WAN, corporate Wi-Fi, voice, call-centre technology, collaboration and endpoint services.
- Deliver stable, secure and frictionless technology experiences for colleagues and business operations across Asia.
- Drive data-centre exits, infrastructure simplification and migration to strategic cloud platforms.
4. Operations, automation and resilience
- Partner with the CISO and Global Operations Command Centre teams to embed security and operational requirements into cloud and infrastructure platforms from design through production.
- Jointly drive automation of provisioning, configuration, monitoring, patching, vulnerability remediation, certificate management, backup, recovery and operational controls.
- Ensure clean handoffs into GOCC, with clear service ownership, observability, runbooks, support models, service levels and escalation paths.
- Lead resilience engineering across Asia and Global Cloud, including recovery testing, service mapping, cloud portability and protection of critical assets.
- Maintain strong performance against technology risk, operational resilience, service reliability and regulatory commitments.
5. Technology transformation and modernization
- Lead major Asia and Global Cloud modernization programs, including cloud migration, data-centre exits, Oracle modernization, landing-zone expansion and infrastructure automation.
- Drive a software-defined operating model using platform engineering, self-service, infrastructure-as-code and AI-enabled operations.
- Reduce manual work, delivery lead time, technical debt and operational risk through standardized engineering patterns.
- Establish outcome measures covering reliability, deployment speed, automation, cloud adoption, productivity, cost and risk reduction.
6. People and organizational leadership
- Lead a geographically distributed organization spanning Asia Infrastructure and Global Cloud.
- Build a high-performing leadership team across cloud, infrastructure, networks, workplace technology, engineering, architecture, operations and transformation.
- Develop future-ready skills in automation, platform engineering, AI-enabled operations, cloud architecture, resilience and commercial management.
- Create a culture of accountability, customer focus, engineering excellence, inclusion and continuous improvement.
- Strengthen succession, leadership depth and talent mobility across Asia and the global technology organization.
Success measures
Business enablement
Asia priorities and global modernization programs are delivered with improved speed, scalability and stakeholder confidence.
Cloud platform
Azure is operated as a secure, resilient and efficient enterprise environment, while reusable catalog items are deployable across Azure, AWS and AliCloud.
Reliability and resilience
Critical services meet reliability, recovery and risk-tolerance expectations, with tested recovery and portability capabilities.
Automation
Provisioning, patching, monitoring, remediation and operational controls show measurable increases in automation and reduced manual effort.
Financial performance
Cloud and infrastructure spend is transparent and aligns to our Finops Practices.
Colleague experience
Infrastructure, network, voice and end-user services provide reliable and frictionless experiences across Asia.
Talent and leadership
The organization has strong leadership depth, critical cloud and automation skills, clear accountability and credible succession plans.
Candidate profile
- 15+ years of progressive technology leadership, including accountability for large-scale infrastructure and cloud organizations.
- Demonstrated success leading multi-country technology services in Asia and operating across diverse regulatory environments.
- Deep expertise in enterprise cloud, platform engineering, infrastructure, networks, operations, resilience, security-by-design and technology risk.
- Experience owning a major hyperscale cloud environment and leading multi-cloud strategy across Azure, AWS and regional cloud platforms.
- Proven ability to build reusable cloud products and catalogs, automate operations and drive adoption at enterprise scale.
- Strong commercial and financial leadership, including FinOps, strategic sourcing, vendor governance and large investment portfolios.
- Executive presence and the ability to influence senior business leaders, regulators, auditors and strategic partners.
- Track record of building diverse, distributed teams and creating clear accountability across complex global operating models.
Leadership characteristics
- Enterprise-first leader with strong regional empathy and market awareness.
- Consensus builder who aligns diverse global stakeholders and drives timely decisions.
- Collaborative operator who enables shared accountability across regions, functions and platforms.
- Outcome-focused decision-maker who balances value, speed, resilience, cost and risk.
- Clear, candid communicator who translates complex choices into business implications.
- Visible talent and change leader who simplifies, develops capability and empowers ownership.
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 hr@manulife.com.
Working Arrangement