Senior Manager, Product Strategy

Join a Challenger

Being a traditional bank just isn’t our thing. We are big believers in innovating the banking experience because we believe Canadians deserve better options, and we challenge ourselves and our teams to creatively transform what’s possible in banking. Our team is made up of inquisitive and agile minds that find smarter ways of doing things. If you’re not afraid of taking on big challenges and redefining the future, you belong with us. You’ll get to work with people who will encourage you to reach new heights. We like to keep things fun, ask questions and learn together.

We are a big (and growing!) family. Overall we serve more than 670,000 people across Canada through Equitable Bank, Canada's Challenger Bank™, and have been around for more than 50 years. Equitable Bank's wholly-owned subsidiary, Concentra Bank, supports credit unions across Canada that serve more than six million members. Together we have over $125 billion in combined assets under management and administration, with a clear mandate to drive change in Canadian banking to enrich people's lives. Our customers have named our EQ Bank digital platform (eqbank.ca) one of the top banks in Canada on the Forbes World's Best Banks list since 2021. 

The Work:

The Senior Manager, Product Strategy will be responsible for supporting the Senior Director, Product Strategy & CX, working closely with Marketing and Product teams, and the Senior Vice-President and Group Head of Personal Banking on a variety of projects. This work will include new opportunity identification and evaluation, strategic planning, internal consulting and transformation, research, reporting & data analysis, and strategic initiative support. These projects usually involve cross-functional teams and contribute to the overall strategy and direction of the company and support senior executive and Board-level decision making. The incumbent will use their analytical abilities to provide both qualitative and quantitative input supporting the development of recommendations for Senior Management. The Senior Manager will also be expected to act as business lead for certain projects, managing internal stakeholders including senior leaders to drive execution. 

The Core Responsibilities of the Job:

• Product strategy development and execution 
• Play a lead role in developing the go-forward product strategy for Retail and Small Business Banking, including quantitative analysis to support forecasts 
• Drive critical thinking and compose materials required for key strategy meetings 
• Present key insights and recommendations based on key facts, insights and data analysis 
• Drive projects forward by managing internal stakeholders, developing output materials and presenting key deliverables, often independently
• Own execution of select strategic initiatives 
• Deploy new tactics in a ‘build, measure, learn’ loop 
• Develop team into subject matter experts across the Retail and Small Business Banking product shelf 
• Evolve the deposits (+future product shelf) value proposition & unique selling propositions 
• Accountable for making recommendations and analyzing implications of evolution of core fee structure / product incentives / reward currency for EQ Bank 
• New Idea assessment & business casing 
• Lead efforts to complete initial sizing, discovery and validation on new products domains / product ideas 
• Leverage prioritization framework to evaluate ideas 
• Partner with CX team to ensure all new ideas are customer centric and are addressing distinct customer needs and/or pain points
• Partner with data/analytics team to leverage internal data to drive assessments and build data-grounded business cases 
• Partner with product/engineering team to understand, articulate and assess the complexity involved in implementing each new idea
• Partner with Sr. Director, Product Strategy to facilitate the prioritization process to gain organizational alignment among key stakeholders on a prioritized backlog of ‘Big Bet’ products 
• Deposits Interest Rate Pricing Strategy 
• Own competitive interest rate benchmarking on Chequing, HISA, GIC 
• Accountable to make initial recommendations for ongoing interest rate changes across all three product categories underpinned by competitive dynamics and financial implications
• Competitive Benchmarking 
• Own the retail + small business banking competitive benchmarking and analysis process for EQ Bank 
• Build a mechanism to actively monitor and share changes in core value propostion, marketing campaigns, rewards offers, and pricing etc. with all key stakeholders at EQ 
• Scan international markets for new ideas and best practices that can fuel our new product/idea/feature pipeline 

Let's Talk About You!

• 7+ years of work experience, ideally minimum 5 years in a related field such as Financial Services Product Management, Management Consulting, Corporate Development and Strategy 
• MBA preferred 
• Bachelor degree in Business Administration, Engineering, Math or related field 
• Strong business acumen and understanding of the capital and business constraints of operating a regulated financial institution
• Awareness of key trends in financial services, particularly related to digital everyday banking and payments 
• Subject matter expertise in building, modifying, and running excel based business scenarios and business cases 
• 5+years’ of experience synthesizing analyses and preparing corporate presentations for senior executives (both oral and written) 
• Experience, confidence, and maturity managing internal and external stakeholders 
• This role may turn into a people leadership mandate over time, and incumbent therefore should display an aptitude and desire to lead people in the future
• Previous people leadership experience is not essential, but nice to have
• Despite being a sole contributor role to start, incumbent will need to have strong people leadership skills and be able to work collaboratively with colleagues while influencing the strategic direction we head

What we offer [For full-time permanent roles]

💰 Competitive discretionary bonus 

✨ Market leading RRSP match program

🩺 Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits

📝 Employee Share Purchase Plan

👶🏽 Maternity/Parental top-up while you care for your little one

🏝 Generous vacation policy, personal days and even a moving day 

🖥 Virtual events to connect with your fellow colleagues

🎓 Annual professional development allowance and a comprehensive Career Development program

💛 A fulfilling opportunity to join one of the top FinTechs and help create a new kind of banking experience

Equitable Bank is deeply committed to inclusion. Our organization is stronger and our employees thrive when we honour and celebrate everyone’s diverse experiences and perspectives. In tandem with that commitment, we support and encourage our staff to grow not just in their career path, but personally as well. 

We commit to providing a barrier-free recruitment process and work environment for all applicants. Please let us know of any accommodations needed so that you can bring your best self to the application process and beyond. All candidates considered for hire must successfully pass a criminal background check and credit check to qualify for hire. While we appreciate your interest in applying, an Equitable recruiter will only contact leading candidates whose skills and qualifications closely match the requirements of the position.

We can’t wait to get to know you!