David Harney

David Harney was appointed President and CEO, Great-West Lifeco and The Canada Life Assurance Company on July 1, 2025. 

David is a non-executive director of Canada Life Limited and Canada Life UK Holdings Limited, executive director of The Canada Life Group (U.K.) Limited and served as Chief Operating Officer, Europe for Great-West Lifeco from 2020, overseeing the Irish Life and Canada Life organisations in the UK, Ireland and Germany serving over 5m customers and employing 5,000 people. 

Prior to that, David spent 4 years as Chief Executive Officer of Irish Life Group, in which he led the Group’s Financial Services, Financial Advisory, Health Insurance and Investment businesses in Ireland. Before that David worked in Irish Life for over 30 years and has held a number of senior roles over that time including Director of Finance, Director of Marketing, Director of Sales and Managing Director of Irish Life Corporate Business.

Mr Harney holds an MSc. in Financial Mathematics from DCU (Dublin City University), is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland and is a past President of Insurance Ireland. He is a member of the Dublin City University Governing Council and  serves on a number of other European Boards within Great-West Lifeco.

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