Sun Life CFO moves to Asia, a training ground for future CEOs at Canada’s largest insurers

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Manjit Singh worked at several major financial institutions in Canada and the United States before settling into what looked like a clear path to top finance jobs at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Yet, 20 years later, there was something missing, in his view: True global experience from an executive role in Asia, which was something TD TD-T couldn’t offer.

Now, Mr. Singh is travelling a different road, from chief financial officer of Sun Life Financial Inc. SLF-T, which he joined in 2021, to the new head of the insurer’s Asian operations. It’s a big job – and one that has previously been a precursor to the chief executive officer role at Canada’s top life insurers.

“I wasn’t really looking to leave TD; it wasn’t that I wasn’t happy there,” Mr. Singh said during a recent interview with The Globe and Mail. “But I thought the opportunity to potentially work in Asia at some point over the next 10 years would really help to complete a global career for me.”

“Not a lot of Canadian companies can offer that.”

Despite spending a bulk of his career – 20 years – with TD, Mr. Singh, 54, thrives in situations where there is constant change.

He had 10 different positions at TD in three different regions, including his last role as executive vice-president of finance. He says he was slated to be TD’s next CFO. But in March, 2021, he surprised Bay Street when he joined Sun Life as its new CFO.

Sitting in a boardroom at Sun Life’s Toronto offices, Mr. Singh recites a quote he frequently uses when talking about his big career moves in the past.

“I always say if you take risks, something good may happen or something bad may happen. But if you take no risks, nothing will happen,” Mr. Singh said.

At the end of March, Mr. Singh is taking his next leap, moving to Hong Kong to oversee Sun Life’s operations in eight Asian markets. Over the past decade, the region has become increasingly important. It now accounts for nearly 17 per cent of Sun Life’s profits, up from just six per cent in 2011.

It is also establishing a track record for grooming the next generation of CEOs at Canada’s largest insurers. Sun Life’s current CEO, Kevin Strain, led the Asian operations for five years, while Manulife Financial Corp.’s Roy Gori was recruited from Citibank, where he led its Asia-Pacific retail business, to head Manulife’s Asia division in 2015. Two years later, he was appointed CEO.

And last summer, Manulife CFO Phil Witherington returned to Hong Kong as president and CEO of Manulife Asia – a region where he worked more than six years ago.

As Mr. Singh takes over the reins in Asia from Ingrid Johnson – who was recently appointed to vice-chair of strategic partnerships for Sun Life – he wants to continue the momentum that she built as the region came out of COVID-19 lockdowns.

“We already have a good strategy in place – a strategy that I have been a part of as CFO,” he said. “But now my role is around execution and to drive growth.”

In addition to Hong Kong, Sun Life operates in China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore. The insurer has grown the region by expanding its partnerships and bancassurance deals (which involve an insurer selling its products through a bank’s sales channels). Last year, Sun Life closed a new 15-year bancassurance partnership in Hong Kong with Dah Sing Bank, and increased its strategic investment in Bowtie Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Hong Kong’s first virtual life insurer.

Mr. Singh wants to expand Sun Life’s wealth management division in the eight regions, where it has about $36-billion assets, including large operations in India, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

“A large part of financial security is around wealth management, financial planning and financial education,” he added. “And we see opportunities to grow the business in places like Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia – places where there is still a bit of emerging middle class.”

Mr. Singh’s did not map out a career path into financial services from a young age. He says he fell into banking accidentally.

After completing an accounting degree at the University of Waterloo, he was approached by a headhunter for a job at Bank of Montreal BMO-T. Banks weren’t on his radar, but in 1994 he joined the internal audit group at BMO Capital Markets.

Three years later, at age 27 and just after the birth of his first child, he was offered his first executive vice-president position in Chicago with the Netherlands’ third-largest bank, ABN AMRO.

But less than a year into the role, the move wasn’t going as planned. “For that point in my career, the job wasn’t offering me enough of a challenge, enough growth or enough learning,” Mr. Singh said.

Luckily, he says, he got a call from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce CM-T that brought him back to Canada. Over time, he moved up the ladder to work with CIBC’s then-chief financial officer Tom Woods. Four years later, in 2001, TD Securities recruited him and he worked under then chief financial officer Riaz Ahmed.

“All these experiences have made me feel comfortable that I could go to a different place and figure things out, because I’ve done it before,” Mr. Singh said.

He wasn’t always comfortable. Growing up, as a young Indian immigrant to Canada in the early 1970s, Mr. Singh said he was one of only a handful of visible minority kids.

And he never saw people like himself in executive positions in corporate Canada. The only person he looked up to was Sabi Marwah, the then vice-chairman and chief operating officer of Bank of Nova Scotia BNS-T.

As a visible minority, Mr. Singh wanted to ensure he did not “squander” the opportunity and education his parents provided by bringing him and his three siblings to Canada.

“My parents are my heroes for leaving their home,” Mr. Singh said. “My dad left his own career as a banker in India and worked hard as a labourer. He worked 12-hour days, 67 hours a week. That’s always resonated with me.”

In 2020, Mr. Singh became the president of Ascend Canada, which helps increase the number of Pan-Asian business leaders. At TD, he was a member of the bank’s Diversity Leadership Council and chair of TD’s Visible Minority Committee.

“I saw there was this tremendous opportunity where if you can give a newcomer the resources that other people might have in their natural connections – whether it’s providing advice or mentorship or even helping them make a business connection,” Mr. Singh said. “That’s when I committed to myself that I would do everything I could to support levelling the playing field.”