David Harney

Director since August 2020

David Harney was appointed Chief Operating Officer, Europe for Great-West Lifeco in 2020, overseeing the Irish Life and Canada Life organisations in the UK, Ireland and Germany serving over 5m customers and employing 5,000 people.

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 Interim CEO of Canada Life UK from December 2020 until Lindsey Rix joined Canada Life as CEO in September 2021.

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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