Vice President-Continuous Improvement, Head of Sustainability

Location Designation:Hybrid - 3 days per week

When you join New York Life, you're joining a company that values career development, collaboration, innovation, and inclusiveness. We want employees to feel proud about being part of a company that is committed to doing the right thing. You'll have the opportunity to grow your career while developing personally and professionally through various resources and programs. New York Life is a relationship-based company and appreciates how both virtual and in-person interactions support our culture.

Purpose of the role:

As part of the CI journey, the CI Central Team will ensure that business units have the knowledge and capabilities in place to sustain the management system that forms the basis of the Continuous Improvement way of working.

• Partner with Senior Sustainability Leaders and Business Unit Leaders to ensure a cascading set of metrics, targets and performance dialogues
• Partner with Senior Sustainability Leaders and Business Unit Leaders to establish a cascading root cause problem-solving system
• Partner with Senior Sustainability Leaders and Business Unit Leaders to educate BU leaders on policy deployment and establish a policy deployment process where demanded by the business
• Support the Head of Operations in coaching the EC on implementing regular performance dialogues using visual boards, metrics and targets; root cause problem solving; and educating the EC on the policy deployment process

• Partner with the Head of the CI Academy to develop a standard onboarding training program for new Sustainability Leaders and Senior Sustainability Leaders
• Supervise Sustainability Leaders and Senior Sustainability Leaders in the creation of the WILOs
• Coach Sustainability Leaders and Senior Sustainability Leaders in the execution of their WILOs
• Provide regular feedback and coaching to Sustainability Leaders and Senior Sustainability Leaders
• Create and maintain skills matrixes for Sustainability Leaders and Senior Sustainability Leaders
• Provide input into Sustainability Leader performance reviews and compensation decisions with local business leaders

• Partner with the Head of CI Academy to develop a standard approach and methodology for conducting Continuous Improvement sustainability assessments at the tier 1-2 levels
• Refresh the approach every 6 months during the initial years and then every 12 months beyond
• Partner with the Head of Deployment and business leaders to establish a quarterly assessment cadence across the Enterprise
• Partner with Sustainability Leaders at the local level to support specific assessments by scheduling necessary assessors. When Senior Sustainability Leaders are present, ensure they are providing similar support
• Supervise co-creation of 100-day plans between the Sustainability Leader and business leaders and ensure plans are responsive to gaps surfaced in the assessment

• Maintain job descriptions for Sustainability and Senior Sustainability Leaders
• Determine initially required sustainability resources at the start of a slot
• Engage the Head of Deployment, HR, and business leaders at the start of a slot to identify potential Sustainability Leaders, ideally among the Local Change Agents on the Slot
• Engage the Head of Deployment, HR, and business leaders to ensure initial Sustainability Leaders are hired no later than at the conclusion of month 3 of an initial deployment within a value stream

• Work closely with designated functional support from Finance function to ensure gains from sustainability are made transparent, validated, and documented

• Ensure the company maintains a robust network within the broader external CI practitioner community

• Ensure the company conducts regular go-and-see visits at other leading companies (including, but not limited to other leading financial institutions) for senior and mid-level business leaders as well as members of the community of practice
• Ensure the company hosts other financial institutions as a way of building morale and ensuring best practices are sustained

• Build credibility of and promote CI amongst organizational leaders up to and including the EC through the delivery of immersion sessions, formal and informal executive communication
• Create and maintain plan to develop awareness at the executive level and to generate interest before, during and after the transformation
• Coach executive sponsors and slot leaders on role modelling and CI Leadership through formal CI Leadership training programs
• Coordinate immersion sessions (i.e. go-and-see visits) to other leading Lean companies

• Head of CI
• Head of Deployment
• Head of CI Academy
• Human Resources (Learning and Development)

• Exposure to CI or similar transformation programs applying lean techniques
• Experience managing multiple large-scale projects using a mixture of internal and external resources
• Experience managing influencing and coaching stakeholders at all levels
• Team leadership experience preferred