Director, Enabling Functions - Planning & Performance

Job Overview

The Director, Enabling Functions coordinates and optimizes corporate and shared services that support Wawanesa’s business operations. Acting as a key liaison between business leaders and enterprise service partners, the role aligns priorities, resolves complex service issues, and drives consistent, effective operational support.

As a trusted advisor to the Senior Leadership Team, the Director translates strategic priorities into coordinated action, integrates operational and service performance insights, and supports informed decision-making, governance, organizational effectiveness, and continuous improvement. The role balances strategic planning and relationship management with hands-on execution.

Job Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary point of coordination between business leaders and enterprise partners across Compliance, Corporate Strategy and the Enterprise Project Management Office, Human Resources and Internal Communications, Technology, Legal, Risk and Regulatory, and Special Projects.
• Build strong working relationships across Wawanesa to enable collaboration, service excellence, and timely issue resolution.
• Represent business requirements in enterprise planning and ensure operational needs are reflected in service priorities and decisions.
• Monitor service performance, coordinate escalation and resolution of complex issues, and identify opportunities to improve quality, responsiveness, efficiency, and effectiveness.
• Develop and maintain service governance, operating practices, service expectations, and reporting mechanisms.
• Support strategic and operational planning, budgeting, forecasting, resource allocation, and execution.
• Align business priorities, enterprise initiatives, resources, timelines, and dependencies across functions.
• Monitor objectives and provide senior leadership with timely updates on progress, performance, risks, issues, and required decisions.
• Lead or coordinate cross-functional initiatives and special projects affecting Wawanesa’s operations.
• Provide objective analysis, operational insight, options, and recommendations to support executive decisions.
• Coordinate leadership meetings, planning sessions, governance forums, operational reviews, and follow-up activities.
• Prepare executive presentations, reports, briefing notes, correspondence, business cases, and Board or committee materials.
• Track decisions, commitments, and action items, reinforce accountability, and support timely execution.
• Integrate operational and support-function reporting to provide a clear view of organizational and service performance.
• Develop dashboards, measures, and performance indicators for service delivery, operational effectiveness, and strategic initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Law, Business, Commerce, Finance, public Administration, or related field; an MBA or other advanced business education is an asset.
• Eight to ten years of progressive leadership experience in business operations, corporate services, strategic planning, consulting, administration, program management, or a related discipline.
• Demonstrated success in a complex, matrixed organization and in leading cross-functional initiatives through influence.
• Strong understanding of corporate functions, service delivery, governance, risk management, budgeting, and operational planning.
• Excellent business acumen, judgement, relationship management, facilitation, negotiation, communication, and executive writing skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving ability, with a proven capacity to synthesize complex information and turn it into clear action.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, sensitive information, and time-critical deliverables with discretion, integrity, and attention to detail.
• Experience supporting senior executives and governance processes is an asset; flexibility to travel or work outside regular hours is required.