It is my privilege to address you as Chair following a significant year for Manulife. In 2024, we delivered record insurance new business results for the full year, generated continued top-line growth in Asia and impressive net inflows in Global WAM, and announced landmark transactions that have set a strong foundation for continued execution against our strategy. Our results have contributed to top-quartile total shareholder return, record NPS, continued top-quartile employee engagement, and progress against the financial targets announced at Investor Day.
Underpinning our financial results and the value we deliver for you, our shareholders, is a steadfast commitment to making decisions easier and lives better for our customers around the world.
Board Refreshment
One of our priorities this year was Board succession, with a focus on welcoming new directors who bring perspectives and expertise that align with the future of our business. We were delighted to welcome several exceptional leaders who joined the Board in 2024:
Michael Durland is a former senior executive at The Bank of Nova Scotia, holding a number of senior roles in their capital markets division, including Group Head and CEO, Global Banking and Markets. He brings a sophisticated risk taking and risk structuring capability set to the board, along with international business experience.
Don Kanak is a former senior executive who held several senior roles at Prudential and previously served in senior executive positions at American International Group (AIG). He brings deep insurance experience, including extensive experience in Asia.
Anna Manning has extensive insurance industry experience, most recently as President and CEO of Reinsurance Group of America, a role she held until January 2024. Anna brings deep global reinsurance expertise to the Board.
John Wong is the former Senior Partner and former Chairman of Greater China at Boston Consulting Group. His experience serving global clients in the Asian healthcare market provides valuable insight to our business in Asia and globally.
We have a robust Board orientation and onboarding program that is tailored to individual director needs to provide new directors with the resources needed to provide effective oversight.
CEO Succession
In 2024, after leading Manulife through significant transformation during which we realigned our organization around a clear mission, values, and strategy, reshaped our portfolio, grew our business, and delivered significant value to shareholders and more than 36 million customers around the world, Roy Gori shared his intention to retire as President and CEO in May of 2025. I want to highlight the thoughtful, deliberate work our entire Board undertook, leveraging our established succession planning process to identify and appoint Phil Witherington as our new leader as of May 9, 2025.
Effective succession planning is a continuous effort, and we benefited from having an established succession framework in place that we refresh annually. This includes regular discussions about leadership development and talent reviews for internal candidates, evaluating potential external candidates, and aligning those reviews with our strategic priorities and values.
As part of our selection process, we reflected on our current strategic positioning and the leadership qualities that helped us get to where we are today to determine which leadership qualities would ensure our success moving forward.
Thanks to Roy and his team’s leadership, Manulife is a fundamentally different company today than it was in 2017. Atop the strong foundation that has been built, we knew Roy’s successor would have a different starting point, leading a Manulife that is now better positioned for success than ever before, despite a rapidly evolving market.
I’m pleased to share the Board was unanimous in our selection of Phil, who embodies the leadership qualities critical to the next chapter of our journey. His values-based approach, deep knowledge and understanding of our business and industry, experience in both developed and emerging markets, and his key role in Manulife’s transformation make him the perfect person to serve as the next leader of Manulife.
Shareholder Engagement
When I began engaging with shareholders as Chair in 2022, we looked back on what we had achieved, including increasing core earnings run rate, improving capital ratios, NPS scores, and colleague engagement scores.
As we approached 2024, the Board and I wanted to underscore not only our significant transformation as a company, but also the strength of our execution – and our vast potential as an organization.
We began the year by closing our historic LTC transaction with Global Atlantic and finished 2024 by announcing a $5.4 billion agreement with RGA, including $2.4 billion of LTC reserves. As a result of our continued efforts to optimize our portfolio and free up capital, we returned $3.2 billion to shareholders via buybacks in 2024. Additionally, our total shareholder return on NYSE-listed shares of 45.1% is more than double peer average in 2024.
But we know the best is still ahead of us. In June we hosted our Investor Day in Hong Kong and Jakarta, and during it, we raised the bar on how we will deliver on our strategic priorities with updated financial targets, including recommitting to our medium-term targets, increasing our core ROE target to 18%+ by 2027, introducing a new target of $22 billion+ cumulative remittances between 2024 and 2027, and further improving our expense efficiency goal to <45% in the medium term. As Phil steps into his new role, he will be focused on executing our strategy and delivering against these targets in the years ahead.
Thank you
The Board and I extend our deep gratitude to Roy for his extraordinary leadership over the past eight years. His ability to make the complex clear, set ambitious targets and deliver upon them, and foster a winning team and culture has defined Manulife’s transformation and set it on a strong course for continued success. Thank you for your remarkable stewardship, Roy.
To our recently retired Board members – Susan Dabarno, Vanessa Kanu, and James Prieur, and to Pam Kimmet – a former Board member who will retire this year from Manulife’s Executive Leadership Team, we greatly appreciate your partnership and sound counsel.
We have built a strong foundation and are excited about the road ahead, where we will continue to put our customers, shareholders, colleagues, and communities at the heart of what we do. The Board remains steadfast in our commitment to strong governance, transparency, and the long-term success of our company. We thank you, our shareholders, for your trust and support, as well as our teams who continue to raise the bar and deliver on our promises.
