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Ireland’s Women in Finance Charter

At Irish Life, we place great importance on driving a more gender balanced and inclusive working environment. We are an early signatory to Ireland’s Women in Finance Charter and our ambition is to drive increased participation of women throughout our organisation. We aim to address our gender pay gap through targeted initiatives and recognize that sustainable change requires a long term and multi-pronged approach.  


Gender Balance Ambitions

We continue to hold ourselves accountable for driving gender balance. Our parent company, Great-West Lifeco Inc., has set representation ambitions reflecting a focus on real progress by providing support and opportunities to foster a more diverse and inclusive team. Great-West Lifeco Inc.’s ambition is to grow representation of women in management roles to 50% across its business segments by 2030. The Irish Life Group shares the goal of 50% representation across all management and also has the ambition to achieve the following by end of 2025:  

  • There is a minimum 30% of either gender ambition for the Boards of Irish Life Group, Irish Life, Irish Life Health, ILIM and Setanta. 
  • In addition, there is an overall aggregate ambition of at least 40% representation of both genders across the totality of these Boards. 
  • 40% women in Executive and Senior Management roles in Irish Life Group by end 2025. 

As of 1 January 2025, our progress is as follows: 


Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This webpage contains forward-looking information. Forward-looking information includes statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as “will”, “intends”, “plans”, “believes”, “objective”, “target”, “commitment”, “goal” and other similar expressions. These include statements about Irish Life and its affiliates ILIM and Setanta and Great-West Lifeco’s diversity-related objectives, goals and ambitions, including “statements with respect to growing representation of women on our boards and in management”.

Forward-looking statements are based on expectations, forecasts, estimates, predictions, projections and conclusions about future events that were current at the time of the statements and are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Any commitments, objectives, goals or ambitions discussed here, including but not limited to Irish Life and its affiliates ILIM and Setanta and Great-West Lifeco’s diversity-related goals and ambitions, are aspirational. We are continuing to develop our diversity-related data. There is a possibility that our expectations, forecasts, estimates, predictions and conclusions may not prove to be accurate, and our assumptions may prove to be incorrect, and there is a risk we will not achieve our diversity-related objectives, goals and ambitions. Our objectives, goals and ambitions may also need to change or be recalibrated to meet our other strategic objectives and the reasonable expectations of our stakeholders.

We caution readers not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements because numerous factors (many of which are beyond the control of Irish Life and its affiliates ILIM and Setanta and Great-West Lifeco) may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking information and impact our ability to achieve our diversity-related objectives and goals. These factors include, without limitation, our ability to gather and verify diversity-related data, our ability to effectively monitor progress against our diversity-related goals, and our ability to recruit and retain key personnel in a competitive environment for talent. This list of assumptions and factors is not exhaustive, and there may be other assumptions and factors listed in filings made by Great-West Lifeco, including in Great-West Lifeco’s 2023 Annual MD&A under “Risk Management and Control Practices” and in Great-West Lifeco’s annual information form dated February 14, 2024 under “Risk Factors”, which, along with other filings, is available for review at www.sedarplus.com. The reader is also cautioned to consider these and other factors, uncertainties and potential events carefully and not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information.