Commercial Portfolio Director

Our purpose is to give everyone real confidence to put their money to work. With a heritage dating back more than 175 years we have a long history of innovation in savings and investments combining asset management and insurance expertise to offer a wide range of solutions.

Our two distinct operating segments Asset Management and Life work together to provide access to balanced long-term investment and savings solutions.

Through 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 work place accommodations to ensure you have what you need to effectively deliver in your role.

The Role:

M&G Life covers over 5 million customers with more than 300 Bn invested across all of its products and wrappers and has an ambitious growth plan for 2025 and beyond. M&G Life operations work with a number of partners including Equiniti Diligenta Waystone Paragon Willis Towers Watson as well as M&G Global Services supporting our in-house operation.

The Commercial Portfolio Director will lead the strategic oversight execution and commercial performance of the Individual Life & Pensions transformation portfolio. This senior leadership role is accountable for ensuring all change initiatives are commercially viable strategically aligned and fully compliant with risk and regulatory requirements. Empowered by the Managing Director of Individual Life & Pensions the Director will act as the single point of accountability for portfolio reporting ensuring direct unfiltered communication and insight without reliance on intermediaries. The role demands a highly self-sufficient and confident transformation leader comfortable with ambiguity complex stakeholder environments and driving execution at scale.

Key Responsibilities:

Portfolio Leadership & Execution

• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of the Individual Life & Pensions portfolio ensuring initiatives are strategically aligned commercially sound and deliver measurable outcomes.

• Act as a senior change and transformation leader embedding agile and hybrid methodologies and ensuring high-quality execution across a large multi-disciplinary team.

• Partner with Technology to shape and deliver digital and data-enabled transformation ensuring solutions are scalable and future-ready.

Risk Regulatory & Commercial Accountability

• Own all risk compliance and regulatory aspects of the portfolio ensuring robust governance and proactive issue management.

• Drive commercial discipline across the portfolio including:

• Development and challenge of business cases for new initiatives and product launches.

• Oversight of commercial reporting across new and existing products.

• Monitoring and optimisation of key financial and operational metrics such as flows assets under management (AUM) cost-to-serve persistency and customer lifetime value.

• Championing the development of a robust data ecosystem to support real-time portfolio insights and decision-making.

• Ability to challenge product viability and commercial outcomes.

• Leveraging CFA-level financial analysis to support investment prioritisation capital efficiency and performance benchmarking.

Portfolio Visibility & Governance

• Strategic Level Monitoring: Ensure the portfolio aligns with M&Gs long-term goals through strategic portfolio reviews balanced metrics and risk/opportunity monitoring.

• Orchestration Level Monitoring: Coordinate cross-project alignment optimise resource allocation manage dependencies and run regular portfolio alignment meetings using integrated reporting frameworks.

• Delivery Level Monitoring: Oversee individual project execution ensuring timelines budgets and value delivery are met with timely issue resolution and escalation.

Stakeholder Engagement & Leadership

• Act as the direct 1:1 conduit to the MD of Individual Life & Pensions ensuring clear consistent and transparent reporting across the entire portfolionot filtered through individual programme leads.

• Build and maintain strong relationships across Finance Technology Risk Compliance and Product influencing at executive and ExCo levels.

• Lead a high-performing team fostering a culture of accountability innovation and continuous improvement.

• Navigate ambiguity with confidence acting as a trusted advisor to the Chief Transformation Officer and senior leadership.

Key Skills and Experience:

Skills & Experience

• Extensive experience leading large-scale transformation portfolios in financial services ideally within life and pensions.

• Proven track record of commercial delivery including cost optimisation revenue growth and operational efficiency.

• Deep understanding of regulatory frameworks risk management and governance in a financial services context.

• Strong technology awareness with experience delivering digital and data-enabled change.

• Demonstrated expertise in business case development commercial modelling and performance reporting.

• Familiarity with actuarial principles and financial modelling including experience working with actuarial teams or holding actuarial qualifications.

• CFA Charter holder or equivalent financial analysis experience is highly desirable.

• Exceptional stakeholder management skills with confidence influencing across complex matrixed environments.

• Demonstrated ability to lead large teams and drive execution in high-pressure ambiguous settings.

• Growth mindset with a relentless focus on outcomes and value creation.

Qualifications

• Degree-level education in Business Finance Actuarial Science or related field (MBA CFA Charter holder or actuarial qualification desirable).

• Professional certifications in portfolio management (e.g. MoP PfMP) change delivery (e.g. AgilePM SAFe) or risk management are advantageous.

Key Behaviours:

• Brings a self-starting & adaptable approach to change proactively identifying opportunities and responding to evolving priorities with pace precision and purpose.

• Build trust by putting people at the center of decisions fostering a collaborative and empowering environment enabling teams to thrive through delivery uncertainty and transformation.

• Takes ownership of outcomes anticipates risks and initiates solutions without waiting for direction.

• Apply critical thinking to assess risks and interpret data to drive evidence-based decisions to support and protect delivery of value.

• Demonstrate integrity in handling sensitive data upholding trust and transparency.

Work Level: Integration Leader

Recruiter: Mandy Whitlock

Location: London Scotland Location Independent

Closing Date: Friday 7th November

What we offer:

At M&G were committed to helping you thrive and supporting your wellbeing both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life while planning confidently for your future. Our UK benefits include:

• As a savings and Investments firm we are proud to offer a valuable pension scheme of 18% with 13% made up of Employer Contributions and 5% Employee Contributions. We also offer Share Save and our Share Incentive Plan together with access to financial wellbeing and support services - to help give you real confidence to put your money to work.

• Enjoy 38 days annual leave including bank holidays with the opportunity to purchase up to 5 extra days and additional flexibility through our Time Off When You Need It policy to balance your work and personal commitments.

• Our market leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity adoption surrogacy and paternity leave - as supporting families is a core aspect of our inclusive culture.

• Health & Protection cover including Private Healthcare Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you with family options - for peace of mind.

To explore more about life at M&G and our full benefits offering visit Life at M&G

We have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture at M&G 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.

Ifyou need assistanceor an alternative means of applying for a role due to a disability or additional needpleaselet usknow by contacting us at: