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Tribute to Paul Mahon
A Tribute to Paul Mahon
On May 1, 2025, Great-West Lifeco announced that its President & CEO Paul Mahon would retire. During the company’s annual meeting, held on May 8, 2025 in Toronto, Canada, Jeffrey Orr, Chair of the Board of Directors delivered the following address as tribute to Paul for his long and successful career with the company, including the past 12 years as CEO.
Jeffrey Orr, Chair of the Board of Directors:
As we announced recently, Paul Mahon will retire as President and CEO, effective July 1, 2025.
Paul has been with the company for 39 years, including the last 12 years as CEO.
Under his leadership, the company has been repositioned and strengthened, and is experiencing strong growth and producing record results.
His contributions to our organization have been extraordinary, and the transformation quite remarkable.
When Paul became CEO, the company operated in Canada under three brands: GreatWest Life, London Life, and Canada Life. In 2019, the businesses were combined under Canada Life, which is now one of the most recognized brands in the country.
In the United States, Empower was created, initially out of a three-way combination of the U.S. retirement businesses of Great-West Life, Putnam and J.P. Morgan. Following the acquisitions of Personal Capital and the retirement businesses of Mass Mutual and
Prudential, Empower has literally changed the landscape of the U.S. retirement industry, and as you have heard, is now the second largest retirement provider in the U.S.
In Europe, Paul became CEO just a few months before the Irish Life acquisition closed, and so was CEO while Canada Life’s Irish business was successfully integrated into Irish Life. Elsewhere in Europe, Canada Life’s U.K. business was expanded, and its activities were
more tightly focused while the business in Germany was also strengthened.
During Paul’s tenure, the company’s re-insurance activities produced strong growth, remaining highly profitable, innovative and client-focused, while actively managing risk.
Paul also oversaw the transformation of Great-West Lifeco from a highly decentralized group of regional, in-country businesses, to one with a much stronger center, and a better balance. Numerous capabilities were built at the center, many virtually from scratch, to
complement those in the local businesses. The build-out of the risk function, the advancement of Lifeco’s human resources capabilities, the creation of a centraltechnology capability, and the move from separate in-country investment operations to a more hybrid model - all of this was built under Paul’s leadership.
And of course, the environment was not what you would call stable. Great-West Lifeco had to manage significant change with the introduction of new regulatory capital regimes in both Canada and Europe, and the transition to an entirely new accounting standard for life insurance companies.
Paul also steered the company through the COVID pandemic, where his focus on the wellbeing of our clients and our people was always his top priority.
By the numbers, Great-West Lifeco has also been transformed.
Assets under administration at Great-West Lifeco while Paul was CEO grew almost six-fold, from $546 billion at the end of 2012 to $3.3 trillion at year-end 2024.
In 2012, earnings were $1.9 billion, with Canada representing 53% of the total, and 16% coming from the United States.
In 2024, base earnings were $4.2 billion, with the U.S. contributing 31%, now surpassing Canada’s contribution.
Great-West Lifeco shareholders earned annually compounded total shareholders returns of 10.7% over Paul’s term, which is very attractive and ahead of benchmarks such as of the TSX composite index.
Shareholder returns under Paul’s leadership are a tale of two periods.
Heavy investments in people and capabilities necessary to set the company up for long-term success during the 2013-2019 period set the stage for the strong growth and momentum that we are currently enjoying, and positioned the company strongly for future success.
Total shareholder returns over the past five years, for example, have exceeded 16% per year and have beaten all relevant benchmarks by a wide margin.
Paul is also passionate about strengthening our communities, and is actively involved in many important organizations.
One community that Paul is particularly passionate about is Winnipeg.
Paul and his wife Anne have been active at the United Way of Winnipeg for many years and in 2026, they will co-chair the annual fund-raising campaign.
Paul was a key driver behind Canada Life funding, along with Power Corporation of Canada and IG Wealth Management, the creation of the James W. Burns Leadership Institute at the University of Manitoba, to support the next generation of leaders from Winnipeg. He is an
ongoing and active contributor with his time and presence.
The National Indigenous Residential School Museum of Canada, The Lake Winnipeg Foundation, which Paul supports with a 130 KM bike ride each year, the collaborative Housing Alliance – there are many others. I am only scratching the surface!
Paul shares his passion of helping other people with Anne, who in addition to being an award-winning author of three books focused on marginalized communities, is the Chancellor of the University of Manitoba, and is also engaged in numerous other community organizations.
Anne, Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life have benefitted greatly from the work you do in the community, and as Paul’s life partner through the many challenges and stresses that come with being a CEO.
On behalf of all of us at the company, thank you for your contributions to our success. I think Paul’s greatest contributions to Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life, and his legacy, will be people and culture.
Over his tenure, Paul has significantly strengthened and deepened the pool of talent across the company. He has developed great people from within, and he has attracted great people from outside to join our company.
Most importantly, he has fostered a very powerful culture. It is a culture of achievement, based upon respect and transparency.
People want to be part of it. How has he done this? By being Paul!
Paul is intelligent, thoughtful, strategic, dedicated and disciplined. He works incredibly hard, and focusses everyone on making fact-based and forward-looking decisions.
He pushes hard to drive the company forward, but is equally committed to managing the business responsibly, so that the company can honour the long-term commitments it
makes to its clients.
But while Paul drives hard for success, he is always honest, humble, respectful, and caring.
He never takes himself too seriously, and his sense of humour is always waiting to emerge at any moment.
Paul, the human being, is always in the room.
As a result, people and culture are our greatest strengths.
Paul, may those contributions to our people and our culture carry forward indefinitely, and be your greatest legacy.
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me on congratulating Paul Mahon on his contributions to Great-West Lifeco and Canada Life!
Jeffrey Orr
Chair of the Board of Directors