Senior Actuary

Location: London

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.

We are looking for an Actuary to join the Asset & Liability Management (ALM) Reporting Team, a strong team of four actuaries, two actuarial trainees and an actuarial analyst. Your role will be to lead the production of Matching Adjustment reporting, embedding of Solvency UK initiatives, as well as to support European ALM reporting across the Great-West Lifeco group, including diverse portfolios of bond, finance lease, real estate and commercial and equity release mortgage investments, and individual/bulk annuities, protection and wealth products. The successful candidate will possess strong inter-personal, communication and analytic skills as well as a strong technical background.

The key stakeholder relationships include: Finance leadership team, Reinsurance Division (CLRe) and Irish Life actuarial leadership teams including Chief Actuary, Investment Reporting, Front Office Actuarial and fund management teams.

Key Accountabilities

• Provide accurate financial analysis, advice and support to a specific area of the business, making recommendations with support from more senior colleagues.
• Analyse risk factors to demonstrate understanding and management of risk exposure to the organisation, supporting appropriate action to manage and, where appropriate, mitigate risk exposure.
• Operate cross-functionally across the business on BAU and project activities, with the key to success being the ability to collaborate and influence senior stakeholders in the function.
• Produce regular reports and reviews, providing insight and commentary for senior managers to ensure compliance with legislation and internal control requirements.
• Support the analysis for regular reports taking into account up-to-date industry developments and issues to help inform decision making by senior managers across the business.
• Support the continuous review and improvement of department processes and procedures, implementing recommendations and taking ownership for their implementation.
• Make considered and commercially astute recommendations to immediate line management about the pricing, valuation and/or design of new and existing products, to ensure that new business is written on profitable terms and that activities comply with relevant corporate and regulatory standards.
• Review work performed by actuarial colleagues, providing feedback and mentoring as part of their development.
• Mentor and coach part-qualified actuaries and other actuarial support colleagues to support their development, role modelling our values at all times, acting with integrity and representing the function with pride and passion.

Desired Knowledge / Experience / Skills

• Technical Expertise: Developing expertise in 1 or more areas within the function, demonstrating sound understanding of complex statistical methods and models with the ability to interpret financial information and controls to accurately advise stakeholders to inform their decisions.
• Validating the work of non-qualified and other recently qualified actuaries.
• Good knowledge of a variety of actuarial models and controls and their commercial application/implication.
• Advanced MS Excel skills demonstrating efficient use of spreadsheets and basic data manipulation skills.

Communication:

• Excellent analytical and report writing/drafting skills.
• Can explain complexities in a straightforward and accurate way to audiences of differing levels of understanding, with some coaching or support from senior managers.
• Proven communication, influencing and negotiation skills whereby they can adapt their message to the audience, demonstrating their ability to share knowledge with the business in a format that is easily understood, balancing the need for required detail where necessary and higher level information.

Relationship Building:

• The ability to develop and maintain strong relationships across the actuarial function, acting with integrity and role modelling the company values at all times, in order to support the organisation in achieving its goals and mitigating the organisation's exposure to risk.
• Being able to flex their style and approach to different individuals, with occasional support, in order to achieve a successful outcome.

Planning And Use Of Initiative:

• Willing and capable of taking decisions independently in order to progress issues, and able to exercise sound judgement and commercial sense to understand the importance of different issues and assess when matters need to be escalated.
• Able to effectively plan, organise and execute their own work with minimal supervision, using their sound judgement to spot conflicting priorities and readjust their workload accordingly, with escalation to management only when appropriate.
• Identify opportunities for improving processes and propositions and competently analyse and communicate these to line management.

Developing Self:

• An interested and inquisitive individual who is committed to their own ongoing professional and personal development.
• Strong commercial awareness and understanding of the needs of the business.
• Will be able to apply technical actuarial techniques and understand business/commercial implications.
• Fellow of Institute of Actuaries (or equivalent).

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.

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.