SMO Manager (Contract & Performance)

This job is with Canada Life UK, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community. Canada Life UK looks after the retirement, investment and protection needs of individuals, families and companies. We help to build better futures for our customers, our intermediaries and our employees by operating as a modern, agile and welcoming organisation.

Part of our parent company Great-West Lifeco, Canada Life UK has operated in the United Kingdom since 1903. We have hundreds of respected and supported employees committed to doing the right thing for our customers and colleagues. Canada Life UK is transforming to create a more customer-focused business by providing our customers with expertise on financial and tax planning, offering home finance and annuities propositions, and providing collective fund solutions to third party customers.

Job Summary

The Contract & Performance Manager is responsible for leading the oversight and governance of service delivery performance and commercial management for outsourced operations delivered by WNS. The role ensures that services are delivered in line with agreed SLAs, KPIs, quality standards, customer outcomes, and contractual commitments.

While the role operates at an oversight level, it requires strong practical experience of supplier management, enabling the postholder to apply informed judgement, provide credible challenge, and interpret performance and commercial data in the context of real service delivery. The postholder maintains the contract baseline and plays a key role in ensuring that supplier performance is effectively evidenced, scrutinised, and managed through robust governance, operational insight, and performance reporting. They ensure that emerging risks, performance issues, and delivery challenges are clearly understood and addressed through appropriate governance channels.

The role is also responsible for commercial oversight activities, including billing validation, service credit assessment, contract compliance, and supporting change control. This includes reviewing and challenging supplier inputs, applying an understanding of operational delivery models and commercial drivers.

Working in close partnership with the Performance Analyst, the postholder provides analysis and insight to interpret performance trends, assess root causes, and identify opportunities for service improvement, ensuring that insight is grounded in a practical understanding of how outsourced services operate.

The Contract & Performance Manager ensures that the organisation's commercial interests are protected, contractual requirements are met, and performance data is accurate, reliable, and decision ready. They work closely with the Service Management Office and Risk & Controls teams to deliver a cohesive and effective oversight framework, ensuring the outsourced arrangement operates efficiently, remains compliant, and continues to deliver expected outcomes.

The role operates strictly as an oversight function and does not perform operational service delivery activities. This ensures appropriate separation between supplier execution and internal governance, maintaining independent and effective control of outsourced services.

What You'll Do

• Lead the oversight of supplier performance across all outsourced services, ensuring delivery aligns with agreed SLAs, KPIs, quality standards, customer outcomes, and contractual commitments.
• Own and interpret supplier performance reporting, validating SLA/KPI data and translating management information into clear, actionable insight to support governance and decision-making.
• Apply informed, experience-based challenge to supplier performance, using practical knowledge of service delivery to assess credibility of explanations, assumptions, and recovery plans.
• Identify emerging performance risks and service issues, ensuring they are clearly understood and escalated through appropriate governance forums with proportionate and timely action.
• Oversee operational issue management, ensuring root cause analysis is robust and that remediation actions are realistic, deliverable, and effectively tracked to resolution.
• Chair or contribute to supplier governance and service review forums, ensuring discussions are focused on delivery, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
• Maintain and oversee the contract baseline, ensuring contractual obligations are clearly defined, accurately captured, and consistently applied in practice.
• Deliver commercial oversight activities, including billing validation (volumes, rates, and charges), service credit assessment, and contract compliance review.
• Review and challenge supplier financial and operational inputs, applying practical understanding of delivery models, cost drivers, and commercial constructs to ensure accuracy and value for money.
• Support change control and contract variation activity, assessing operational, financial, and contractual impacts and providing informed recommendations.
• Support strategic change and transformation initiatives impacting outsourced services, ensuring impacts to performance, cost, and risk are fully understood and governed.
• Monitor and highlight commercial and contractual risks, including cost pressures, scope changes, and non-compliance, ensuring appropriate visibility and action.
• Partner with internal stakeholders (Operations, Finance, Procurement, Risk & Controls, IT & Change and Business Lines) to ensure a joined-up, consistent approach to supplier oversight, providing clear, experience-informed insight into performance, risk, and commercial implications.

Who You Are

Knowledge

• Strong understanding of service performance management within outsourced/third party environments, including how operational delivery translates into contractual and commercial outcomes.
• Strong working knowledge of outsourcing contracts, commercial governance, and financial validation, grounded in practical application.
• Deep understanding of SLA/KPI frameworks and how contractual terms are applied and enforced in operational settings.
• Knowledge of commercial governance processes including change control, billing validation, and service credit mechanisms, with awareness of how these operate in practice.
• Good financial acumen, including cost drivers within outsourced models and financial impact of performance outcomes.
• Awareness of financial services operating environments, including customer outcomes, risk considerations, and regulatory expectations.

Skills

• Ability to apply practical supplier management experience to provide informed judgement and credible challenge, rather than relying solely on reported data.
• Strong analytical capability, with the ability to interpret performance data in the context of real service delivery conditions and identify meaningful insights.
• Confident communicator, able to engage constructively and challenge both supplier and senior stakeholders with credibility and authority.
• Strong attention to detail, particularly in interpreting reporting, validating billing, and assessing performance outputs.
• Effective facilitation skills, with confidence to lead governance forums and maintain focus on accountability and outcomes.
• Ability to translate complex performance, operational, and commercial information into clear, actionable insight.
• Strong problem-solving capability, including assessment of root causes and evaluation of realistic, deliverable solutions.
• Ability to manage competing priorities and operate effectively within a complex stakeholder environment.

Experience

• Significant, demonstrable hands-on experience of managing third-party suppliers or outsourced service providers, with direct responsibility for performance, delivery, and/or commercial outcomes. (Essential)
• Experience of holding suppliers to account for service delivery, including performance management, issue resolution, and application of contractual mechanisms. (Essential)
• Experience working within outsourced or offshore service delivery models, with understanding of the practical realities and challenges of supplier operations. (Highly desirable)
• Proven experience of working with SLA/KPI frameworks, operational MI, and performance governance, grounded in real delivery environments.
• Practical experience of commercial processes such as billing validation, service credits, or contract compliance, ideally from a role with direct supplier interaction.
• Experience contributing to or supporting contract changes, negotiations, or commercial assessments.
• Experience operating within financial services or a regulated environment (desirable).

Benefits of working at Canada Life

We believe in recognising and rewarding our people, so we offer a competitive salary and benefits package that's regularly reviewed. As a Canada Life UK colleague, you'll receive a competitive salary and comprehensive reward package including a generous pension and bonus scheme, along with income protection, private medical insurance and life assurance. We have a fantastic number of other benefits and support services as well as regular personal and professional development.

How we work at Canada Life

Our culture is unique and incredibly important to us. We care about doing the right thing for our people, customers and community and helping others to build better futures. Our blueprint behaviours shape and influence how we work, and are central to the relationships we have with others. Every day we are encouraged to be more curious, own the outcome, face into things together and find a way forward. We want colleagues to have rewarding careers with us so we invest in the development of our people, technology and workplaces. That's why we offer a range of training, flexible working and opportunities to grow and develop.

Diversity and inclusion

Building an inclusive workplace with a diverse workforce where everyone can feel they belong and achieve their potential regardless of gender, ethnicity or any other characteristic is a key commitment for us. We are proud of the progress we're making in DEI, and we continue for it to be a significant focus. At Canada Life we believe in the power of great people from different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives coming together to build better futures. Emerging talent is crucial to our growth and creating an environment that continues to inspire us all.

We appreciate that everyone has different work and life responsibilities. We're happy to discuss flexible working arrangements, including part time, for any of our roles should this be a requirement for you.