Associate, Global Real Estate Financial Operations

Manulife Investment Management (“MIM”) is the global wealth and asset management segment of Manulife Financial Corporation. MIM's global real estate platform provides investment solutions globally as part of its comprehensive private markets’ capabilities, offering core, core-plus, and value-add strategies.

MIM’s global real estate team leverages its global platform and regional market knowledge to identify opportunities and drive results for its clients.  As of December 31, 2024, its sustainably operated platform includes 90 million square feet of office, industrial, retail, and multifamily assets located across Canada, the United States, and the Asia Pacific region, with over $25 billion CAD of real estate (500+ properties). The team is expanding its capabilities to meet evolving market opportunities, building a strong and diverse global culture as an entrepreneurial investment manager.

General Accountability:

The Associate, Global Real Estate Financial Operations is responsible for the financial operations of the Global Real Estate (“GRE”) platform, working alongside the GRE team, other internal Manulife teams, our strategic third-party portfolio accounting partner, and third-party property managers. . Responsibilties include, among others, review and oversight of the portfolio accounting and reporting deliverables, development and overall management of the global budgeting and forecasting policies, timeline and deliverables, compliance with relevant SOX controls, ongoing business support and maintenance of financial models, development of platform budgeting and forecasting, analysis and management reporting of platform profitability, management of scorecard metrics, and development and ongoing maintenance of platfrom-level financial operational policies.

The Associate will also support a Director, Global Real Estate Financial Operations, US, in providing financial and operational support to Global Real Estate’s strategic initiatives, as required.

The role requires a highly capable and accountable finance professional who is motivated to strive for success and be part of a highly engaged team. The incumbent will need to develop high levels of rapport and respect with key collaborators. The role will directly report to a Director, Global Real Estate Financial Operations, US..

Responsibilities:

Portfolio Accounting and Reporting Deliverables Oversight

• Perform initial review of portfolio-level accounting and reporting deliverables for reasonability. The third-party portfolio accounting manager will be responsible for reviewing property-level financial information and reports.
• Follow up with third-party managers on any unresolved exceptions and issues that were flagged by the third-party portfolio accounting manager.

Global Portfolio Budget and Reforecasting

• Support Director, Global Real Estate Operations, with:
  • Development and update of global budget policies and playbook including global budget assumptions and send the final budget policies and playbook to the third-party portfolio accounting manager who will share with third-party property managers.
  • Development of global budget and reforecast timeline.
  • Coordination with the Regional Heads of Asset Management to update Budget and Reforecast Dashboard template and distribution of the final template to the third-party portfolio accounting manager.  
• Perform the initial review of the Portfolio Budget and Reforecast Dashboards prepared by the third-party portfolio accounting partner. 
• Perform reviews of financial models to ensure accuracy and completeness.

SOX Controls

• Manage the SOX control walkthrough and testing requests.
• Perform required SOX control activities to ensure compliance.
• Perform an annual review of SOC 1 Reports from the third-party property managers and the third-party portfolio accounting partner and summarize the finding in a checklist/memo.

Property-level Operational Accounting Policy and Manual

• Assist Director, Global Real Estate Operations, with maintenance and update of property-level operational accounting policy and manual, as required. 

Anaplan Business Support

• Support the implementation of Anaplan for Global Real Estate platform.
• Work with Manulife’s Anaplan Center of Excellence (“COE”) and other internal/external collaborators to make required updates to Anaplan models.
• Request the owner of the Anaplan models to review and update the models for any changes in templates, portfolio and account mapping. 

MIM GRE Budgeting and Refor