Social Impact Lead
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.
Job Summary:
Canada Life UK's Social Impact Lead will be responsible for shaping, driving, and delivering our social impact strategy - creating meaningful positive change in the communities that we live, work and do business in.
This is a senior, visible role requiring an experienced, strategic operator who can lead our social purpose agenda end-to-end, maintain momentum across multiple initiatives and work with colleagues, senior leaders and external partners to drive long-term impact. You'll need to be hands-on in delivery - comfortable moving between planning and execution, and capable of navigating risks and opportunities with sound judgment.
You'll be accountable for setting direction, and building the relationships and infrastructure that ensure our social impact programme delivers against our wider ambition to be a force for good - translating vision into action, and bringing our story to life through clear, compelling communication and sustained engagement.
What will you be doing:
1. Lead the strategic implementation and ongoing evolution of our social impact initiatives
• Evaluate Canada Life's social impact programme and deliver a strategy that:
o Maximises impact and drives colleague engagement
o Addresses challenges around declining participation in certain social impact initiatives
o Ensures a clear link to our commercial, brand and social purpose objectives.
• Work collaboratively with senior leadership and colleagues across the business, ensuring that leaders and teams are engaged, informed, and inspired to participate in and champion our social impact initiatives.
• Strengthen our volunteering offering by overseeing inclusive, high-quality, and accessible opportunities and integrating them into our wider colleague experience.
2. Stakeholder engagement and strategic influence
• Manage relationships with strategic charity and community partners to ensure strong, collaborative partnerships that deliver mutual value and drive positive community outcomes.
• Act as a trusted adviser to the Executive Team, ensuring they are engaged with and champion our social impact programme by providing strategic guidance, clear reporting, and recommendations for active involvement in key initiatives.
• Identify and develop a network of engaged social impact advocates across our offices, supporting and empowering them to drive social impact activities.
• Partner with our Brand and Communications, Social Media and Internal Communications teams to increase awareness and understanding of our social impact among colleagues and our external audiences through compelling storytelling.
• Partner with DEI, Talent, and Colleague Experience teams to embed social impact into the colleague journey, identifying opportunities to deepen colleague involvement and drive engagement.
• Manage the Social Impact SharePoint Hub, ensuring it is an effective resource for colleagues to self-serve and engage with initiatives.
3. Lead the planning, execution, and communication of seasonal and topical social impact campaigns, such as our festive giving initiative and environmental volunteering drive, to engage colleagues and deliver meaningful community impact.
4. Management of the social impact budget and evaluation of programme performance
• Accountability for the day-to-day management of the social impact budget, ensuring resources are allocated effectively, spend is tracked accurately, and value for money is achieved across all initiatives.
• Systematically track and assess key performance indicators, ensuring all social impact initiatives are delivering against objectives.
• Proactively spot potential challenges and emerging opportunities, developing mitigation strategies and capitalising on areas for growth.
• Deliver clear, compelling insights and evidence-based recommendations to senior stakeholders, adapting style and content to suit different audiences and ensuring complex information is accessible and actionable.
What Experience will you have for the position:
Technical Expertise
• Extensive experience in social impact, ESG, corporate responsibility, or a related field, with a strong track record in both strategy development and hands-on delivery
• Proven experience leading the design and delivery of organisation-wide programmes and campaigns with clear KPIs, including managing complex, multi-year initiatives and working with multiple teams.
• Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams and keep stakeholders aligned and informed.
• Corporate brand awareness and risk sensitivity, with experience advising senior leaders in reputational risk scenarios.
• Budget management experience, with responsibility for substantial budgets and a proven ability to optimise spend for maximum impact.
• Data analysis skills, including the development and reporting of social impact metrics to Executive-level audiences, and the ability to measure and communicate impact effectively.
Proficiency in using platforms such as SharePoint, Viva Engage, or similar collaboration tools,
Relationship Building
• Exceptional leadership and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to engage and influence senior leaders and external partners.
• Experience building and sustaining strategic partnerships with third sector organisations and industry groups.
Communication
• Excellent communication skills, with a flair for strategic storytelling and the ability to create clear messaging and compelling narratives across a range of channels and internal/external audiences.
This position is ideal for someone who is a self-starter that thrives in autonomous roles, brings confidence, initiative and creative thinking to challenges, and is keen to make a difference by shaping the future of our organisation's social impact efforts.
Qualifications:
Specialism in Social Impact, ESG, Corporate Responsibility, Communications, Public Relations, Marketing, or related business field is desirable.
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.