Portfolio Lead (Business Change) in London

Role Overview

The Portfolio Lead is accountable for establishing and running a mature, enterprise-wide portfolio management capability within Pacific Life Re’s Business Change function, understanding how initiatives align to strategic priorities and ensuring they are delivered effectively. Within this function, the role enables the Executive Committee and senior leadership to make data-driven, prioritised, and strategically aligned investment decisions. Reporting to the VP, Business Change, the role leads the development of the Project Portfolio pipeline for one or more Lines of Business or DBS (Divisional Business Services) Functions, delivering integrated portfolio insight, governance, evaluation and prioritisation of projects based on business value, organisational capacity, and risk. This role is critical in the evolution of the Business Change function to a fully integrated, insight-led portfolio model.

Stakeholder Engagement & Business Partnering

• Act as a trusted advisor to various divisional leadership, senior stakeholders and committees.
• Drive alignment across often competing priorities (LoBs, DBS Functions, Technology).
• Build strong relationships across Change, Finance, Strategy, Risk and Technology.
• Provide clear, concise updates to leadership teams.

Planning & Capacity Management

• Implement integrated planning processes across strategy, budgets and delivery, ensuring pipeline demand is clearly communicated and agreed.
• Challenge and shape demand to ensure alignment with business priorities.
• Manage the intake, assessment and prioritisation of change demand.

Portfolio Strategy & Operating Model

• Translate business strategy into a coherent and prioritised change pipeline, ensuring all initiatives are clearly linked to strategic objectives and value outcomes.
• Establish a clear portfolio taxonomy, definitions (e.g. BAU vs strategic change) and a consistent lifecycle framework.
• Support investment planning, business case development and funding decisions.
• Align portfolio processes with Finance, Strategy, Technology, Risk and other enabling functions.

Enterprise Portfolio Oversight & Insight

• Manage and prioritise a portfolio of change initiatives aligned to business strategy.
• Create and maintain a single integrated view of the change portfolio (strategic initiatives, regulatory, BAU change).
• Provide portfolio governance: help redefine the governance framework(s) for prioritising, sequencing, and occasionally pausing change initiatives based on capacity and combined business impact – with clear alignment with other Executive Committees.
• Strengthen governance to ensure transparency, auditability and alignment to strategy.
• Ensure clear visibility of delivery status, risks, issues and interdependencies.
• Deliver forward-looking portfolio insights including:
• Delivery health and performance
• Strategic alignment
• Capacity and resource constraints
• Interdependencies and risk hotspots
• Drive consistency in delivery standards, methodologies and documentation.
• Shift leadership conversations from project reporting to portfolio decision-making.

Build Organisational Capability

• Upskill the Business Change function and business areas in portfolio thinking and disciplines.
• Embed consistent standards, tools and ways of working.
• Continuous improvement: find ways to make Change more effective.

Skills & Experience

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in portfolio, transformation or change leadership within Insurance (Life, Reinsurance preferred) or Financial Services (Banking, Asset Management).
• Proven track record of establishing or maturing Portfolio / Transformation Offices (PMO++, EPMO, Portfolio Office).
• Deep expertise and qualifications in portfolio management frameworks (e.g. MoP, P3O, enterprise PMO models), investment prioritisation and business case evaluation, portfolio analytics, reporting and tools (e.g. Planview, Clarity, Power BI).
• Strong understanding of delivery methodologies (Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid).

Competencies and Behaviours

• Strong Leadership Skills, including:
• Strong strategic thinking with ability to connect portfolio to business outcomes.
• Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing at ExCo level.
• Ability to challenge constructively and facilitate difficult trade-off decisions.
• High credibility, resilience and enterprise leadership presence.
• Data-driven mindset with ability to translate analysis into insight.
• Commercial awareness and value focus, with ability to understand how change initiatives drive the right commercial outcomes and returns on investment.

Working For Pacific Life Re

Every person in our global team is valued for the unique qualities they bring to our business and we seek to build their expertise and support their individual ambitions at every step. We work hard, thrive on achievement, and also know how to have fun and relax. We regularly host a range of team-building days to strengthen our team's connection and reflect on their successes. Providing employees with a healthy work-life balance is very important to our culture. We have a wide range of employee benefits and we host regular social activities and well-being initiatives. We support our employees’ involvement in their communities through fundraising, hosting charity events and overseeing volunteering opportunities.

Benefits (Only for Permanent and Fixed-Term Employees)

• Leave – 25 days of annual leave with option to buy/sell more days
• Adoption and fertility leave
• Generous enhanced parental leave
• Healthcare – comprehensive private insurance coverage for employee and dependents
• Group Life Insurance – coverage of 9x basic annual salary
• Group Income Protection – up to 75% of basic annual salary
• Optical benefits
• Savings & Retirement – 15% combined employee/employer contributions
• Wellness – subsidised gym membership
• Access to Employee Assistance Program
• Cycle to Work and Electric Car Salary Sacrifice Scheme
• Time off for volunteering
• Charitable matching of employee donations

You Can Be Who You Are

We are committed to a culture of diversity and inclusion that embraces the authenticity of all employees, partners and communities. We support all employees to thrive and achieve their fullest potential. As part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion we will provide reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process to ensure equal access to applicants with disabilities. Please contact us about your needs so that we can discuss these with you to make sure suitable adjustments are made where possible.

Pacific Life Re Values

Please click here to view our company values. At Pacific Life Re, our vision is to bring an innovative and dynamic approach to the marketplace. Our global team is not afraid to disrupt and challenge industry thinking to provide the best life and health reinsurance services possible. With over 1000 employees across the globe we take pride in an inclusive culture underpinned by our values and behaviours, providing an environment where everyone can grow and develop.