Moving up - north?

John DesPrez III wants to be CEO.

Ambition can take people to unpredictable places. John DesPrez III hopes it sends him a one-way ticket to Canada.

DesPrez, the man who has been in charge at Boston insurer John Hancock since 2005, is making a pitch to succeed his boss, retiring Manulife Financial Corp. chief executive Dominic D'Alessandro. He's in a two-way contest for the job with Donald Guloien, the chief investment officer of Manulife who works at the company's headquarters in Toronto.

I don't know when the Manulife board will make a decision, but early fall is a good bet. It had to be Topic A for directors at a meeting last week, once they got past the quarterly financial report.

DesPrez declined to talk to me last week about the top job at the world's sixth-largest insurance company. But in past conversation, he's been direct about his desire to succeed D'Alessandro.

DesPrez can think like a lawyer but talks like a salesman, which is a good combination for someone running an insurance company. He has held lots of jobs and can point to many accomplishments. But there is one thing he is not: Canadian.

Would that really matter? People who follow Manulife for a living say no. Sort of. "I don't think it should," says analyst Tom McKinnon, who follows Manulife for Scotia Capital.

But D'Alessandro is a famously proud Canadian.

Newspaper columns north of the border fret that the center of power at Canada's insurance giant might sag southward if an American ran the business and suggest top executives at Canadian companies should live in the country where they work.

Canadian pride may in fact play a role at the fringes of the executive search, not a plus for the candidate with an office view of Boston Harbor. But Manulife truly grew into a global giant during the D'Alessandro years, and international expansion will be the key to the company's future. It's hard to imagine nationality as a deciding factor.

DesPrez is very much an American. He grew up in Cleveland, attending Harvard and Georgetown Law School before going to work for a Washington law firm that counted Manulife among its clients. DesPrez joined Manulife and set up the company's early New York insurance subsidiary. He kept getting bigger jobs and got involved in John Hancock soon after it was acquired by Manulife in 2004.

DesPrez, 51, first ran Hancock's wealth-management business and became chief executive of the entire company in 2005. "It was very clear how strong he was," says David D'Alessandro, the former Hancock chief executive who sold the company to Manulife but is no relation to Dominic. "Certainly he's a highly qualified candidate for the CEO job here or at any of the [insurance industry] majors. I'm not sure the company can afford to lose John."

DesPrez is hardly a household name around Boston, but he is known for his low-key community involvement. When the mayor alleged that Boston was none the worse for its loss of big corporate headquarters, he pointed to Hancock as a model subsidiary.

"John is a very quiet pillar of the business community," says John Fish, chief executive of Suffolk Construction, the company that built Manulife's South Boston headquarters building. "He does it without any fanfare, and that's unlike a lot of business executives."

But Hancock's actual business performance will be much more important to DesPrez and his executive ambitions. Those numbers will certainly work to his favor.

Hancock has grown into a substantially larger business since the company was acquired by Manulife. Income from its US insurance business grew from $508 million in 2005 to $718 million last year. Wealth-management income jumped from $484 million in 2005 to just over $1 billion last year.

Within four years, Hancock has become a crucial part of Manulife's business story. It accounts for half of profits, 58 percent of premiums and deposits, and nearly 60 percent of funds under management.

Dominic D'Alessandro, who called Manulife's purchase of Hancock a "transformative" deal from the start, rightly wins praise for building an insurance giant. But DesPrez can claim some credit of his own for the successful integration of the huge new business that changed Manulife.

Now, analysts think the company may be in the hunt for other deals around the world, thanks to a relatively high stock price, a strong Canadian dollar, and $3 billion in excess capital.

Merger experience sounds like it might be a plus for a new chief executive. We'll find out if it makes the difference.

Steven Syre is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at syre@globe.com.