Director, Product Owner - Process Optimization - Simplii Financial

We’re building a relationship-oriented bank for the modern world. We need talented, passionate professionals who are dedicated to doing what’s right for our clients.

At CIBC, we embrace your strengths and your ambitions, so you are empowered at work. Our team members have what they need to make a meaningful impact and are truly valued for who they are and what they contribute.

To learn more about CIBC, please visit CIBC.com

At Simplii Financial, we're reshaping how millions of Canadians manage their finances. As the Director, Product Owner, Process Optimization, you'll lead the vision, roadmap, and priorities for Simplii’s Process Optimization squad. You’ll identify high-impact opportunities across core operational processes and guide the squad from discovery through delivery, with a focus on simplifying work, improving reliability, and creating better outcomes for clients and team members. A key priority in this role is using modernization as an opportunity to redesign how the bank operates, rather than replicating fragmented or manual legacy processes on new platforms. You’ll work across business, operations, technology, and control teams to design future-state processes that are efficient, scalable, and resilient. Throughout, you’ll bring strong business judgment, leadership, and a practical mindset that keeps the team focused on measurable progress.

At Simplii we enable the work environment most optimal for you to thrive in your role. You'll have the flexibility to manage your work activities within a hybrid work arrangement where you'll spend 2-3 days per week on-site, while other days will be remote.

How you'll succeed

• Set direction - Define the vision, roadmap, and backlog priorities for the Process Optimization squad. Make clear trade-off decisions that balance business value, client and employee impact, operational efficiency, risk reduction, and long-term simplification.

• Drive process transformation - Lead the team in identifying operational pain points, mapping current-state processes, and designing practical future-state improvements. Increase straight-through processing, reduce manual effort, simplify handoffs, and improve reliability across core operational activities.

• Envision and build a modern bank - Use Simplii’s modernization program to rethink from first principles how a modern digital bank should operate.

• Advance automation and AI opportunities - Identify where automation, workflow tools, process mining, document intelligence, decision support, and artificial intelligence can improve speed, quality, controls, and resilience. Ensure solutions are practical, measurable, well-governed, and appropriate for a regulated banking environment.

• Embed controls by design - Work closely with risk and control partners to build compliance, fraud, anti-money laundering, privacy, security, auditability, and operational resilience into processes from the start. Help shift from manual controls to preventative, automated, and data-informed controls.

• Lead agile delivery - Break work into clear epics, stories, and sprint-level outcomes that create visible progress. Keep the squad aligned on priorities, accountable for delivery, and focused on outcomes that are adopted, measured, and connected to the broader operating model.

Who you are

• You bring deep business and operational insight. You understand how banking works across products, channels, operations, technology, risk, and enterprise partners. You can identify where the biggest process improvement opportunities exist and connect them to meaningful business outcomes.

• You know how to turn ambiguity into action. You can take a broad or complex challenge and define a clear path forward, including priorities, sequencing, success measures, and practical next steps.

• You have strong leadership and transformation experience. You bring experience leading teams, process optimization, business transformation, business architecture, operations improvement, or related cross-functional change in a complex organization. You’re confident shaping roadmaps and connecting delivery to measurable results.

• You’re skilled in process design and continuous improvement. You have experience diagnosing operational pain points, mapping current-state processes, and designing better future states. You’re familiar with methods such as root-cause analysis, value-stream thinking, process mapping, process mining, service design, and continuous improvement.

• You understand risk in a regulated environment. You have sound knowledge of risk, compliance, privacy, security, fraud, anti-money laundering, auditability, and operational resilience requirements. You apply this knowledge to ensure process improvements are both effective and appropriately controlled.

• You influence across teams. You can build trust and alignment with senior leaders, subject matter experts, engineers, architects, operations partners, data teams, and control partners. Experience in banking, financial services, fintech, digital operations, consulting, or another regulated high-volume environment is strongly preferred, and exposure to modernization, workflow, APIs, automation, or AI-enabled operations is an asset.

• Values matter to you. You bring your real self to work, and you live our values - trust, teamwork, and accountability.

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What CIBC Offers

At CIBC, your goals are a priority. We start with your strengths and ambitions as an employee and strive to create opportunities to tap into your potential. We aspire to give you a career, rather than just a paycheck.

• We work to recognize you in meaningful, personalized ways including a competitive salary, incentive pay, banking benefits, a benefits program*, defined benefit pension plan*, an employee share purchase plan, a vacation offering, wellbeing support, and MomentMakers, our social, points-based recognition program.

• Our spaces and technological toolkit will make it simple to bring together great minds to create innovative solutions that make a difference for our clients.

• We cultivate a culture where you can express your ambition through initiatives like Purpose Day; a paid day off dedicated for you to use to invest in your growth and development.

*Subject to plan and program terms and conditions

What you need to know

• CIBC is committed to creating an inclusive environment where all team members and clients feel like they belong. We seek applicants with a wide range of abilities and we provide an accessible candidate experience. If you need accommodation, please contact Mailbox.careers-carrieres@cibc.com

• CIBC is committed to clarity in our hiring process. All roles posted are opportunities we’re actively recruiting for, unless stated otherwise.

• You need to be legally eligible to work at the location(s) specified above and, where applicable, must have a valid work or study permit.

• We may ask you to complete an attribute-based assessment and other skills test (such as simulation, coding, French proficiency).

• We use artificial intelligence tools during the recruitment process. Our goal for the application process is to get to know more about you, all that you have to offer, and give you the opportunity to learn more about us.

Job Location

Toronto-161 Bay St., 4th

Employment Type

Regular

Weekly Hours

37.5

Skills

Analytical Thinking, Backlog Management, Communication, Data-Driven Decision Making, Domain Knowledge, Influencing Without Authority, Mentorship, Negotiation, Problem Solving, Product Portfolio Strategy, Product Roadmap Development, Risk Management, Sprint Planning, Stakeholder Management, User Story Mapping