Estate & Trust Lead, MD Signature Private Wealth - Quebec, QC

Is this role right for you?

In this role you will :

• You will steward the estate and trust offering for MDS clients, ensuring a compelling client experience, driving awareness, and developing client-facing content and tools.
• You will research, develop and provide estate and trust planning subject matter expertise to MDS advisors, financial planners, and specialists.

This includes partnering with National Leads, Team Leads and Directors to provide estate and trust planning guidance, technical coaching, and training to relevant advisors, financial planners, and specialists.

You will play a key role in enhancing the delivery of the MDS offering through the integration of estate and trust planning expertise in the delivery of financial planning content to clients.

This includes answering questions, writing commentary and on a limited basis, participating in client meetings where advanced estate and trust planning expertise is required, and providing estate and trust planning support on complex engagements.

• You will assess the impact of changes in estate, trust and tax legislation to planning strategies, services and products, and provide recommendations to determine changes needed to ensure compliance with the federal Income Tax Act and / or any other relevant legislation.
• You will create and foster a high-performance, client-focused, team-based environment, ensuring a value proposition and infrastructure that attracts, retains, develops and motivates as well as a laser focus on deepening client relationships and leveraging broader MD and Scotiabank relationships, systems and knowledge.
• You will promote MD’s advanced estate and trust planning capabilities in the marketplace through promotional activities, public relation events, the creation of thought leadership material and by building and maintaining relationships with external legal firms and professional tax and accounting service providers.
• You will manage risk connected to estate and trust planning issues, particularly the potential for insights to be misconstrued as legal advice.

This includes working closely with other subject matter experts of MDS’s Wealth Strategy Team and the organization (e.g.

Scotiatrust, MD Private Investment Counsel, Taxation, Scotia Wealth Insurance Services) to ensure a coordinated approach to estate and trust planning issues.

• You will play an active role as a member of the MDS team, participating in various internal committees relating to team policies and processes on the topics of estate and trust planning and coordination with other lines of business such as Scotiatrust.
• You will ensure adherence to professional standards, including policies, procedures and best practices, and professional codes of conduct related to client engagement, taking Scotiabank’s risk appetite and culture into consideration relative to day-to-day activities and decisions.

The Must Haves :

• Member in good standing of the Chambre des notaires du Québec or of the Quebec Bar association
• Proven experience in the estate and trust industry, including the regulatory environment.
• Extensive knowledge of the competitive estate and trust market products, companies, taxation and marketing concepts.
• Detailed knowledge of estate and trust law, including related Quebec Civil law, to resolve complex problems and to provide guidance to MDS staff and clients.
• Demonstrated history of working with notaries / lawyers, advisors and other trust professionals.
• Dynamic written, presentation / public speaking skills.
• Ability to work non-standard hours.
• Ability to travel.
• Fluency in both French and English is required
• The desire to lead by example encouraging others to model your growth mindset, initiative, passion, integrity, diplomacy, and authentic and trusted relationship-building skills.
• An appreciation of the exceptional client experience using your ability to understand client’s requirements quickly and clearly, you will provide timely and accurate responses to a myriad of estate planning-related queries.
• A sense of urgency what’s important to the client is equally important to you. You make getting things done a priority.
• The flexibility to work independently and a s part of a broader team to provide the best service to clients and to ensure alignment of objectives to long-term plans and priorities.
• You embrace change thriving in a diverse environment of ever-changing priorities where multi-tasking and tight deadlines are the norm.
• A dedication to ongoing learning maintaining a strong and current understanding of provincial laws and regulations, legislative changes and trends in the estate and trust planning industry and using these learnings to drive awareness and understanding through the p provision of educational seminars and the creation of supporting materials.
• You’re a natural coach possessing the ability to motivate others to achieve business critical gaols and navigate through times and extreme changes.

Education / certification :

• University degree in Common law, with an ability to support Common Law provinces.
• Industry accreditation (Canadian Securities Commission, Institut québécois de planification financière (IQPF) diploma, Certified Financial Planner, Personal Financial Planner)
• Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) designation (TEP), or equivalent
• Diploma or master’s degree in taxation.

Do you have the skills that will enable you to succeed in this role? We’d love to work with you if you have :

• Strong presentation skills particularly related to financial matters. The ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and effectively.
• Ability to work as part of an interdependent team and individually when required. Works well with autonomy and is an excellent communicator in a modern, flexible work environment.
• Proven skills and experience in building and maintaining effective working relationships with clients, peers, client facing advisors, leadership, and senior management.
• Superior time management and prioritization skills and the ability to manage multiple projects at the same time.

In accordance with the language needs assessment conducted by Scotiabank, the selected individual must be able to communicate in English, in addition to French, as they will closely collaborate with other corporate groups primarily working in English.