Canada Initiative Leader

As an Initiatives Leader within Canada Operations, this role is accountable for the end-to-end execution and successful delivery of complex, mid-to-large scale strategic initiatives, including both mandatory and discretionary programs. These initiatives are highly cross-functional in nature, often span multiple years, and may impact multiple business units, portfolios, operational capabilities, and technology platforms across the organization.

The Initiatives Leader serves as the primary execution leader for transformation efforts, overseeing all aspects of initiative delivery including strategic planning, financial management, stakeholder alignment, resource planning, organizational change management, risk mitigation, service readiness, operational implementation, and overall execution. The role holds significant influence across Canada Operations, driving solutions that affect systems, processes, organizational structures, people, controls, and client experiences.

This role is critical to advancing strategic initiatives across Canada Operations. Success requires orchestration and collaboration with senior business and Digital leaders, vendors, and a broad network of internal partners,

In addition to initiative delivery, the role provides strategic leadership by helping shape business direction, influence organizational strategy, strengthen operational capabilities, and support talent development. The Initiatives Leader plays a key role in ensuring the organization is positioned to effectively manage risk, achieve regulatory compliance, optimize operational performance, and deliver sustainable business outcomes.

Strategic Initiative Leadership

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of complex, high-impact initiatives that span multiple functions, portfolios, business units, and technology.
• Establish and maintain initiative governance structures, ensuring transparency, accountability, and effective decision-making.
• Drive organizational transformation efforts involving systems, processes, operating models, controls, and workforce capabilities.
• Ensure execution of multi-year initiatives while balancing strategic objectives, operational requirements, regulatory obligations, and client needs.

Technology, Process, and Solution Delivery Leadership

• Hold overall accountability for technology and process design, implementation execution, and operational readiness.
• Ensure a cohesive and integrated approach to solution development, delivery, and deployment with clearly defined quality, performance, and measurement metrics.
• Oversee end-to-end testing activities, implementation planning, and readiness assessments.

Stakeholder and Organizational Leadership

• Build alignment and commitment among leaders, executives, and cross-functional teams to achieve strategic outcomes.
• Facilitate conversations and decision-making across organizations impacted by initiative delivery.
• Partner with business, operations, technology, and vendor teams to manage competing priorities, dependencies, and risks.

Financial and Resource Management

• Manage initiative budgets and financial forecasts, ensuring effective allocation of funding and resources.
• Oversee resource planning strategies across multiple teams.
• Monitor benefit realization and ensure initiatives deliver measurable business value and operational improvements.

Risk, Governance, and Regulatory Oversight

• Serve as the primary escalation point for complex, cross-functional risks, issues, and dependencies throughout the solution lifecycle.
• Verify compliance with legal, regulatory, security, operational, and organizational requirements.

Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence

• Lead efforts to improve operational efficiency, effectiveness, and scalability through process redesign and technology enablement.
• Identify integration opportunities across business areas and promote partnerships that enhance organizational performance.
• 8-10 years of experience leading initiatives across one or more technical disciplines, including software engineering, technical program management, solution architecture, and large-scale technology implementations.
• Strong knowledge of Lean-Agile principles and practices, with experience applying frameworks and methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, and Agile delivery approaches.
• Proven ability to lead and influence geographically dispersed, cross-functional teams comprised of leaders, associates, vendors, consulting partners, and SaaS providers, without direct management authority.
• Demonstrated domain expertise in financial services and related operational functions, including brokerage operations, wealth management, or similar business areas.
• Extensive experience leading mid-to-large scale platform conversions, implementations, and transformation initiatives.
• Expertise in planning and overseeing functional, non-functional, integration, and end-to-end testing for large-scale technology deployments.
• Strong understanding of software engineering, technology delivery, business processes, and system development lifecycles, enabling effective oversight, governance, and decision-making.
• Data-driven leadership approach with experience leveraging metrics and performance indicators to monitor delivery outcomes, quality, and business value. Experience as a software engineering leader is considered an asset.
• Experience utilizing enterprise portfolio, product, and delivery management tools such as Jira, Clarity, Aha!, and related platforms to track, manage, and measure value delivery from portfolio through product and team execution.
• Exceptional stakeholder management, communication, and influencing skills, with the ability to build alignment across business, operations, and technology organizations.

Edward Jones does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, pregnancy, veteran status, genetic information or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

At Edward Jones, we value and respect our associates and their contributions, and we recognize individual efforts through a rewards program that promotes a long-term career, financial security and well-being. Visit our career site to learn more about our total compensation approach, which in addition to base salary, typically includes benefits, bonuses and profit sharing. The salary range for this role is based on national data and actual pay is based on skills, experience, education, and other relevant factors for a potential new associate.