Investment Proposition Manager

At M&G our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. As an international savings and investments business with roots stretching back more than 170 years, we offer a range of financial products and services through Asset Management, Life and Wealth. All three operating segments work together to deliver attractive financial outcomes for our clients, and superior shareholder returns.

Through our behaviours of telling it like it is, owning it now, and moving it forward together with care and integrity; we are creating an exceptional place to work for exceptional talent. We will consider flexible working arrangements for any of our roles and also offer workplace accommodations to ensure you have what you need to effectively deliver in your role.

The Role: M&G Life is a division of M&G plc and runs the Prudential Assurance Company, responsible for the manufacture and review of all insurance products including our legacy back book and life and pension products open for new business within the UK retail market. Reporting into the Head of Investment Propositions in M&G Life, this role manages and develops the M&G Life investment propositions to provide great customer outcomes, aligned to M&G’s growth and sustainability strategy, keep pace with changing regulatory requirements and deliver commercial objectives.

This is an exciting opportunity to join a small and very well-regarded team, providing proposition expertise across a range of investment solutions at the heart of a growing business. To do this you’ll build strong working relationships across the business and externally with our outsourced providers and collaborate to deliver propositional change. Being able to lead or be part of cross-functional project teams to deliver complex solutions at pace is definitely a benefit to this role.

You’ll need a good knowledge of life and pension products particularly in the UK retail adviser market. Along with this you’ll have worked with a variety of investment structures (e.g. unitised collectives, insured funds, with-profits / smoothed funds, and guaranteed products). To work effectively in this role we’d expect an understanding of the target market, regulatory framework and competitor landscape as well as investment propositions and financial instruments. This will allow you to use your strong communication skills, ideally with some experience in delivering presentations to senior internal and external audiences in a variety of formats.

Key Responsibilities for this role:

• To manage and develop our investment propositions so they continue to deliver great outcomes for our customers, comply with regulatory expectations and meet our commercial objectives. This role will be particularly focused on our retail investment propositions (MPS, Risk Managed Funds, PruFund range of funds and Retirement Account).
• To help design investment solutions and form recommendations and communicate these clearly and concisely to colleagues on projects, senior stakeholders and governance committees up to senior executive level.
• To collaborate with colleagues across the business and third party suppliers to deliver change and engage with our distribution strategy.
• To ensure that controls are in place to comply with regulatory requirements, risk appetite and relevant frameworks.
• Contribute as an investment SME towards the creation and ongoing review of marketing collateral across our retail investment propositions.

Key Knowledge, Skills & Experience:

Essential

• Knowledge and experience of a variety of fund structures and their use within product structures and investment propositions, particularly in the UK Retail Adviser market. This should include knowledge of risk profiling tools, back office integration and centralised investment propositions (CIPs).
• Knowledge and experience of the financial services industry, its regulators and the current regulatory environment, including risk management frameworks and processes.
• Experience of leading delivery and collaborating across cross-functional teams (including third party business partners).
• Experience in building and developing relationships across the business and stakeholder management at all levels including senior management.
• Ability to qualitatively assess investment outcomes of funds with a focus on the customer. This should include experience in reporting of outcomes & decisions to senior committees.
• The ability to effectively prioritise and work on multiple initiatives simultaneously at pace with energy, enthusiasm, resilience and pragmatism.

Desirable

• Knowledge should ideally cover retail individual savings propositions and the dynamics that drive these including accumulation and decumulation strategies, and the relationship between the manufacturer, advisers and customers.
• In-depth technical investment knowledge, particularly in the UK retail OEIC, life and pensions universe. This should include experience of financial instruments and markets, economic and market dynamics, and fund structures that operate in this market.
• Experience would ideally include being knowledgeable of the various aspects of funds from development and fund operations through to marketing and distribution.
• Knowledge of Environmental, social and governance factors and regulation impacting our investment propositions.
• Have gained experience in presenting on investment matters both internally and externally in a variety of formats (senior governance committees, adviser meetings, internal sales teams etc.)
• Working towards or completed relevant professional qualifications (e.g. IMC etc.)

We have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture at M&G plc, underpinned by our policies and our employee-led networks who provide networking opportunities, advice and support for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. Regardless of gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, nationality, disability or long term condition, we are looking to attract, promote and retain exceptional people. We also welcome those who take part in military service and those returning from career breaks.

M&G is also proud to be a Disability Confident Leader, and we welcome applications from candidates with long-term health conditions, disabilities, or neuro-divergent conditions. Being a Disability Confident Leader means that candidates who meet the minimum criteria of a job, will be offered an interview if they 'opt in' to the scheme when applying. If you need assistance or an alternative means of applying for a role due to a disability or additional need, please let us know by contacting us at: careers@mandg.com