Senior Risk and Controls Officer

6 Month Maternity Cover

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 Purpose

To assist the Head of Finance Governance, Risk & Controls in Risk and Control Self Assessment (RCSA) with the following activities and responsibilities:

• Risk related activities are implemented and reported in accordance with the Canada Life Risk and Control framework, with a particular focus on robust and insightful RCSA activity across Finance.
• Ensuring RCSA outputs are clearly documented, maintained and reported, and that strong relationships and challenge are maintained across the Finance function and wider stakeholders.

Duties/Responsibilities

RCSA, Risk Management and Reporting across Finance

• Lead and co-ordinate the completion and ongoing refresh of RCSAs for each specific Finance team function, including arranging and facilitating workshops, documenting risks and controls, and agreeing actions.
• Develop and maintain strong relationships across Finance and with key stakeholders (Risk, Compliance, Operations, IT, Customer Services) to ensure RCSA outputs reflect the true risk profile of Finance activities.
• Compile, analyse and report RCSA results and related risk insights for Finance management, Risk Committees and other governance forums, highlighting themes, emerging risks and areas requiring management attention.
• Support Finance leadership in using RCSA outputs to inform decision-making, control enhancement and remediation plans, and ensure agreed actions are tracked to completion.
• Act as a subject matter expert on RCSA methodologies, ensuring consistency of approach, high-quality documentation and continuous improvement of the RCSA process within Finance.
• Oversee Risk Event Reporting within GRC/MetricStream, including monitoring remediation action plans through to completion and linking learnings back into RCSA assessments.
• Support GWL EUC Standard compliance across the Finance functions including: overseeing the use and management of EUC assets; ensuring that assessments are performed in accordance with the Standard and that the CLUK EUC Inventory is kept current.
• Develop and enhance current controls and processes and work with the business to implement best practices, ensuring that procedures are kept up to date and aligned to RCSA outcomes.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

• Deep expertise and hands-on experience in RCSA, including design, facilitation, documentation and reporting, is essential for this senior governance role.
• Commercial awareness and understanding of the needs of the business.
• Ideally a certified accountant or actuary.
• Willing and capable of making decisions independently 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.
• Strong communication skills, demonstrating a clear and articulate standard of written and verbal communication in a complex environment, tailored for all levels of management.
• Strong ability to adapt messages to the audience in a format that is easily understood by colleagues.
• The ability to develop and maintain strong relationships across the Finance function, acting with integrity and role modelling the company values at all times.
• Strong interpersonal/networking skills, with the ability to maintain a variety of relationships with multiple stakeholders.
• Ability to flex their style and delivery, in the moment, depending on the individual and/or audience.
• Sound problem solving skills and attention to detail with demonstrable ability in spotting issues, interdependencies and challenges to ensure work is produced to an accurate, commercial and informed standard.
• Self-motivated, well-organised, pragmatic and able to perform tasks independently.
• An interested and inquisitive individual who is committed to their own ongoing professional and personal development.

Qualifications

• Risk or Compliance-related qualifications, or willingness to progress towards any such qualifications, would be an advantage although are not essential for this role.

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.” Nick Harding, Chief People Officer, Canada Life UK

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.