A partnership between Manulife and Communitech will see the RED Lab — which stands for ‘Research, Exploration and Development’ — with a goal to come up with new solutions for its clients.
Manulife provides financial services to millions of Canadians and the hope for the newly created lab is to foster and prototype new ideas that can be implemented into its everyday business. This is one of the first times a financial services firm has embedded itself within a startup space.
Marianne Harrison, SVP and General Manager, Canadian Division, Manulife, said, “So we have created the RED Lab to operate as a lean, innovation-focused startup. The goal of the Lab is to develop and prototype new solutions and to help drive a more innovative culture within Manulife.”
Rocky Jain, Director of the RED Lab, said that the RED Lab’s is completely different than its current way of operating, “Symbolically, the colour red, which sits opposite green on the colour wheel, represents an entirely different way of thinking at Manulife.”