Business Manager

Canada Life; Dublin; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Bonus scheme

Learning & Development

Defined Contribution pension

Wellbeing initiatives

Job summary

Canada Life Group is seeking a CITO Business Manager to provide structured business management support to the Chief Information & Transformation Officer and the CITO leadership team. This senior role will shape and maintain the executive office operating rhythm, strengthen governance and reporting, and ensure actions, risks and decisions are followed through with pace, judgement and professionalism.

You will coordinate cross-functional strategic initiatives across Europe, including technology

Qualifications

• Strong strategic leadership and influencing skills.
• Proven ability to support executive governance and reporting cycles.
• Excellent written and oral communication with senior stakeholders.
• Experience coordinating cross-functional programs and initiatives.
• Commercial and financial awareness with KPI-focused reporting.

Responsibilities

• Own and continuously improve the CITO operating rhythm and governance cadence.
• Coordinate cross-functional strategic initiatives across Europe, including AI adoption and cloud activity.
• Oversee regular CITO reporting, financial and security reporting, and executive packs.
• Ensure timely preparation of papers, logs, and action tracking for leadership reviews.
• Build relationships across technology, finance, risk, procurement and data to drive collaboration.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Stakeholder management

Executive governance

Communication & storytelling

Job description

• Hybrid role based in our Dublin or London offices

What we offer

We have embraced a hybrid working model for most of our positions, which means that you can enjoy a balanced approach of working from home for part of the week and working from the office for the remainder of the week.

We offer a comprehensive benefits package including competitive salaries and bonuses, robust Learning and Development support, excellent Defined Contribution pension and comprehensive Wellbeing initiatives and support to name but a few.

Further details on our benefits package can be accessed here Benefits (life-careers.com)

Role Overview

We are hiring a CITO Business Manager to provide structured business management support to the Chief Information & Technology Officer and the CITO leadership team. This senior role will help shape and maintain the executive office operating rhythm, strengthen governance and reporting, connect priorities across the leadership team and ensure actions, risks and decisions are followed through with pace, judgement and professionalism.

What you will help us to achieve

Executive office leadership and operating rhythm

• Own and continuously improve the CITO operating rhythm, including key meetings, planning cycles, reporting timelines, action logs, decision logs and executive follow-up.
• Maintain a forward-looking view of the CITO calendar, ensuring paper deadlines, pre-reads, dependencies, travel, annual leave and critical decisions are visible and managed.
• Ensure the office runs with discipline through periods of leadership change, recruitment, transition or increased delivery pressure.

Strategy execution and transformation support

• Support the CITO strategic agenda, leadership onboarding, strategic narrative and communication of priorities.
• Coordinate cross-functional strategic initiatives across Europe, including technology transformation, AI adoption, cloud platform activity, procurement and supplier priorities, and other initiatives as required.
• Help leaders define success criteria, decision points, ownership, benefits, risks and trade-offs at the outset of major pieces of work.

Governance, reporting and management information

• Coordinate regular CITO reporting, including quarterly CITO reporting, financial reporting, security reporting and group reporting requirements.
• Review and quality check executive packs and papers, ensuring content is concise, accurate, audience appropriate and clear on the decision or action required.
• Work with content owners to improve weak or incomplete inputs and convert them into clear, coherent executive materials.

More specific responsibilities will include

Stakeholder management, communication and influence

• Act as a trusted point of contact between the CITO office, Europe, Lifeco and other senior stakeholders, ensuring queries and executive requests are managed with pace and judgement.
• Build strong relationships across technology, finance, risk, procurement, data, AI, security and business stakeholders to resolve issues and improve collaboration.
• Translate complex or technical topics into simple, business-ready messages for senior leaders, committees and wider colleague audiences.

Risk, control and operational resilience

• Promote a strong risk and control mindset across the CITO rhythm, making material risks, audit actions, security matters, resilience activity and governance dependencies visible.
• Support executive preparation on disaster recovery, patching, security metrics, vulnerability management, operational resilience and board-level technology matters.
• Track open issues, recommendations and control actions with relevant risk, audit and technology colleagues so that ownership and progress are clear.

EA team leadership and office operating model

• Provide direction and standards for the CITO Executive Assistant team, ensuring a professional, consistent and forward-looking operating rhythm.
• Ensure the EA team maintains a ten-week forward plan covering calendars, meeting preparation, reminders, papers, actions, annual leave, travel and critical deadlines.
• Clarify handoffs between Business Manager and EA responsibilities for agendas, minutes, actions, follow-up, escalation and calendar discipline.

What you will need to be successful in the role

• Strong business management experience in a senior, complex, cross-functional or matrix environment.
• Excellent judgement, with the ability to interpret imperfect or complex information, identify the real issue, build a clear story and elevate where needed.
• Strong written communication, storytelling and presentation capability, including concise executive papers and leadership communications.
• Proven ability to support executive governance, senior meeting cycles, performance reporting, management information and action follow-through.
• Good understanding of technology, data, cloud, AI, cyber/security, operational resilience and technology transformation. Deep technical expertise is not required.
• Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the confidence to challenge constructively, connect activity and follow up with senior leaders.
• Commercial and financial awareness, including experience with KPIs, financial reporting, benefits, budgets or managed service reporting.
• Experience leading or coordinating a small team, function or operating rhythm, including setting standards and creating clarity for others.

About us

Canada Life Group is the top-level European holding company for Great-West Lifeco’s European insurance, reinsurance, and asset management companies, with business operations in the UK, Ireland, Germany, and the Isle of Man.

European Technology sits within Canada Life Group and encompasses the technology community across all European entities - Irish Life Group, Canada Life UK, Canada Life Europe, as well as Central Technology Services - Europe. European Technology supports the business strategy and collaboration of technology across all European divisions. There are multiple IT units within European Technology, each with its own individual set of technology platforms.

European Technology has evolved significantly and is now focused on bringing market-leading speed, agility, cost efficiency, and risk mitigation to enable the delivery of strategies across the European businesses. To meet these challenges, a new strategy has been established, driving forward our commitment to innovation and excellence.

The Chief Information & Transformation Office (CITO), Europe, leads technology, transformation, data and AI initiatives across Canada Life’s European businesses. Working across multiple markets and business functions, CITO is driving a more connected, digitally enabled organisation, helping modernise how we operate, accelerate innovation and deliver better outcomes for customers and colleagues.

This is an exciting time to join CITO as we build the capabilities, platforms and partnerships that will support the next phase of our European transformation journey. From technology strategy and architecture to data, AI and change delivery, CITO offers the opportunity to work on high-impact initiatives that shape the future of Canada Life across Europe.

Canada Life reserves the right to shortlist candidates as part of the selection process. Where agency support is required, Canada Life's Recruitment Team will engage directly with approved suppliers. Unsolicited CVs submitted by recruitment agencies will not be accepted.

Canada Life Group Services is proud to be an Equal Opportunities employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and supported to achieve their potential.

If you require any reasonable accommodation during the recruitment process, please contact [e-mail].

Canada Life Group Services supports Equal Opportunities and is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.