“I’ve always loved law,” says Linda Mantia, Law’92. Since graduating from Queen’s, “armed with the knowledge of how to learn and a curiosity about the world,” she has pursued her career passion in a variety of ways. 

“I’m one of those people who likes to have a lot of doors open,” she says. She used the curiosity she gained at Queen’s to seize international opportunities outside of the practice of law. Now based in Toronto, she is five months into her new position as Senior Executive VP and Chief Operating Officer at Manulife. 

“Linda is a collaborative, innovative and transformative leader, with deep roots in digital disruption and a passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences,” said Manulife President and CEO Donald Guloien at the time of her hiring.

Mantia says her focus on innovation made Manulife a good fit. “It’s an industry that’s ripe for re-imagination. People are living longer and their financial security is less well-known. I liked the things Manulife is doing to help people through their life journey from a financial and wellness perspective.”

Mantia leads a team of over 7,000 people around the world, providing leadership in a variety of areas, including the creation of new strategies to tackle those modern problems.

She says she was fortunate early on in her career to be hired at Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg LLP to practise securities law during an economic recession in the early ‘90s. “When business picks up, you get to do a lot more things than you would otherwise. I worked on things that were a lot broader than those that other young lawyers had access to.”

One of her clients was a former partner at McKinsey & Co, the global management consulting firm. She eventually left practice to join McKinsey. “It sounded liked an amazing opportunity to learn more on the business side, around the world. I was young and single, and I wanted to travel.” 

She found practising law in Ontario limited her international learning. “I’ve always been very interested in things that are global. When I started practising, I realized how local the business was,” she says. “I didn’t like how that door was going to be closed for me, so when McKinsey showed me that door could be open, that was really, really exciting for me.”

Mantia’s interests pulled her to the Royal Bank of Canada, where she worked in a variety of positions, including COO of the International Wealth division in London, England, and most recently, executive vice-president of digital, cards, and payments in Toronto, where she also led a large part of Innovation for RBC. 

“Moving from consulting to RBC allowed me to get much more hands-on with a team. I really wanted to get more engaged in a company. I had these fabulous jobs at RBC,” she says. “When Manulife came along, I had an opportunity to be involved in a global company with a global footprint, working with the CEO and his team. I was also very attracted to being directly involved in expanding Manulife in Asia.” 

Back in law school 25 years ago, the Correctional Law Project (now Prison Law Clinic) was her chance to try something different. “As odd as it sounds, I draw on that experience all the time,” she says. “There was nothing comfortable about it, as a 21-year-old girl … I was so out of my depth.”

She says it was the most useful experience she had at Queen’s. “When I think about practical skills you can get from law school, for me it was getting comfortable in uncomfortable situations.”

Mantia says it’s important that Queen’s Law maintain opportunities for law students to get that broader outlook that she has found so rewarding. Things like studying internationally, clinical opportunities in as many practice areas as possible help broaden students’ horizons. Queen’s Law has vigourously expanded opportunities like these in recent years. 

“Anything that broadens people makes them better.”

By Jeremy Mutton