David Harney

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

David is a non-executive director of Canada Life Limited, Canada Life UK Holdings Limited and The Canada Life Group (U.K.) Limited. He 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  serves on a number of other Boards within Great-West Lifeco.

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