Head of Diversity, Inclusion & Wellbeing at M&G Plc · London

At M&G, 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 offer workplace adjustments to ensure you have the support you need to succeed in your role.

Role Purpose:

To enhance and execute on our current strategy to foster an inclusive, diverse, and high-performing culture.

Operating within a highly regulated UK financial services environment, this role will ensure M&G plc’s adherence to statutory compliance, including full ownership and responsibility for meeting legal, regulatory and reporting requirements, whilst working within our HR Centre of Expertise for Leadership, Learning and Talent to continue to embed diversity and inclusion (D&I), and wellbeing into everyday practices. This will require close collaboration with HR colleagues, business leaders, and relevant teams across the organisation.

The overall aim of this role will be to help shape a more integrated people agenda that delivers sustainable D&I and wellbeing solutions to achieve better business and performance outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategy & Execution

• Lead D&I and wellbeing strategy as an enabler for innovation, growth and resilience aligned to strategic priorities.

• Review infrastructure and operating model to enable effective delivery on agreed strategic priorities, leveraging wider HR centre of expertise / excellence resources and capabilities to help execute on the overall agenda.

• Provide visible leadership and subject matter expertise to further strengthen this agenda across M&G plc.

• Ensure overall approach will support an evolving workplace environment, with ongoing industry benchmarking activities to identify emerging trends that may inform new strategies or recommend improvements to practices.

• Partner with key business areas to identify opportunities that will improve customer and client outcomes.

• Enhance current dashboards and metrics reporting, maintaining clear standards, governance, and measures for D&I and wellbeing activity, ensuring progress tracked and communicated effectively.

• Keep all D&I and wellbeing information that is accessible internally or externally updated and in line with strategy.

• Manage relationships with external organisations, suppliers, and partners to ensure their contribution supports agreed D&I priorities and business outcomes.

Regulatory Compliance & Governance

• Oversee reporting, governance, and regulatory requirements for D&I and wellbeing e.g. gender pay gap, including targeted action plans to meet requirements with ongoing monitoring and reporting on progress.
• Ensure adherence to evolving legislative and regulatory requirements on D&I.
• Monitor and proactively adapt M&G policies to stay in line with employment law changes.
• Maintain core documentation for regulatory or internal audits and to support GEC and plc Board updates.

Talent Focus

• Partner within the leadership, learning and talent centre of expertise to further embed diversity, inclusion and wellbeing in our leadership, learning, performance, and talent management practices.
• Partner with our resourcing team to review external hiring, internal promotion, and career progression practices to offer advice on continuing to eliminate bias and widen talent sourcing pools for diversity.
• Promote ongoing awareness and education around key topics such as psychological safety, micro-behaviours, and systemic bias within workplaces to foster a more diverse and inclusive culture.

HR Focus

• Partner effectively across HR to guide continued integration of D&I and wellbeing into people policies, processes, change activity and all internal communications, as applicable.
• Partner with HRDs to provide advice and support to promote diversity, inclusion and wellbeing initiatives in leadership forums and business townhalls, as and when opportunities arise.
• Share external expertise and ongoing insights to strengthen D&I and wellbeing capabilities across HR.
• Work collaboratively with HR colleagues and take personal accountability for maintaining effective controls, improving outcomes for our business, and reducing operational risk.

Stakeholder Management & Networks

• Act as a trusted advisor to the HR leadership team and GEC on sensitive cultural and societal topics.
• Represent M&G in industry forums and panels where applicable e.g. Women in Finance Charter and take a lead on managing our external accreditations and initiatives e.g. NES qualification.
• Inspire senior leaders, HR colleagues, and business stakeholders to build commitment, ownership, and momentum behind agreed D&I and wellbeing priorities.
• Provide direction and support to D&I focused business committees, forums and colleague-led networks to help them deliver meaningful activity aligned with overall business goals and D&I priorities.

Key knowledge, skills, and experience:

• Understanding of M&G plc’s business, legislative, regulatory and market environment, and ability to link D&I and wellbeing activities to longer term business performance and organisational outcomes.
• Ability to challenge and influence senior leaders to deliver on agreed D&I and wellbeing priorities.
• Understanding of governance, oversight, risk, and controls within D&I and wellbeing activities.
• Ability to execute on strategies, programmes, and lead workstreams across the organisation, role-modelling collaboration and delivering with and through others.
• An active networker, with awareness of external trends and best practices in the D&I and wellbeing space.
• Confident in using data to inform decisions and drive meaningful insights - experienced in equal pay and gender pay gap reporting, ensuring agreed action plans and commitments are delivered in line with business strategy.
• Experience in preparing formal papers for Board, executive and leadership meetings and committees.
• Able to connect D&I and wellbeing activities to a wider people agenda including enhancing colleague experience, building leadership behaviours, and strengthening organisational culture.
• Proactive, organised, able to solve problems, make recommendations and deliver high-quality work.
• A confident and clear communicator, able to influence and collaborate well with people at all levels.
• Experienced in representing the organisation at external business forums and industry events.
• Strong attention to detail, while understanding the wider external and organisational context.

Qualifications:

• Relevant degree and/or professional qualification (e.g. CIPD).

What we offer:

We’re dedicated to supporting your wellbeing and helping you thrive, both at work and beyond. Our benefits are designed to help you balance your professional and personal life**,** and financially plan for the future. Our UK benefits include:

• A valuable pension scheme of up to 18% (13% made up of employer contributions and 5% employee contributions).
• Access to our Share Save and Share Incentive Plan, alongside 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 five extra days. Our Time Off When You Need It policy gives you the flexibility - to balance work and personal commitments.
• Our market-leading Inspiring Families policy includes comprehensive support and paid parental leave covering maternity, adoption, surrogacy, and paternity leave - because supporting families is an important part of our inclusive culture.
• Health & Protection cover includes Private Healthcare, Critical Illness cover and Life Assurance for you, with additional family options - for peace of mind.

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

At M&G we strive to have a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture, underpinned by our policies and employee-led networks that offer networking, support and development opportunities for the diverse communities our colleagues represent. We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds – across gender, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation and more – including neurodivergent individuals, career returners and those with military service experience.

M&G is proud to be Level 3: Disability Confident Leader under the UK Government Disability Confident employer scheme, and we welcome applications from candidates with disabilities and long-term health conditions. If you would like to participate in the initiative, you will have the opportunity to indicate this on your application.

We are committed to providing an inclusive recruitment process. All candidates have the opportunity to request reasonable adjustments when applying. If you need any additional support at any stage, please contact us at: careers@mandg.com