Head of Valuation

Challenger Limited is an ASX-listed investment management firm managing $128.2 billion in assets (as at 31 December 2025). Life with us is fast moving and always exciting. Together we’re driving to deliver our vision to provide our customers with financial security for a better retirement.

We achieve this goal by providing a work environment where people from diverse backgrounds, with a range of skills and experiences can contribute and succeed.

Head of Valuation

• This is a senior actuarial leadership role at the heart of Challenger Life Company, offering a mix of core valuation ownership, team leadership and exposure to a broader and more complex balance sheet than typically seen in traditional life insurers

• A newly created role and a rare opportunity to join a small, high-quality and impactful actuarial team with a wide range of responsibilities 

• Challenger operates in a non-traditional life environment, meaning the team is regularly involved in non-standard problems and evolving regulatory considerations 

About the Opportunity

Reporting to the Appointed Actuary, you’ll take ownership of valuation and capital for the life business, ensuring the integrity of the balance sheet and supporting how the business understands and manages its capital position.

You and your team will be involved in a broader range of work than typically seen in a traditional life insurance environment, with exposure to more complex asset structures, new business initiatives and evolving regulatory considerations.

You’ll also play a role in how Challenger manages more complex areas of the balance sheet, including oversight of actuarial reporting and monitoring for Calix Re, the Group’s offshore reinsurance platform. While there is actuarial capability offshore, this role ensures those outputs are understood, challenged and appropriately reflected within the Australian business.

The role centres on three core areas:

1. Owning the actuarial engine
You’ll take accountability for the monthly valuation of policy liabilities and capital position, ensuring outputs are robust, well understood and clearly communicated to senior stakeholders.

2. Leading reporting and external engagement
You’ll oversee the half-year and year-end reporting cycle, including key regulatory deliverables, and support engagement with auditors, APRA and other external stakeholders.

3. Supporting business decisions through capital insight
You’ll contribute to capital forecasting and provide input on the implications of business initiatives and structural decisions.

Alongside this, you’ll lead a small Sydney-based team and play a role in how Challenger manages more complex and evolving areas of the balance sheet, including Calix Re.

Key responsibilities

• Own the monthly calculation of policy liabilities and capital position, including analysis of movements and reporting to senior management

• Lead the half-year and year-end valuation and capital reporting cycles, including ICAAP and other regulatory deliverables

• Oversee the experience investigation cycle, including monitoring of key assumptions (mortality, lapses, etc.)

• Lead actuarial input into capital forecasting and business planning

• Provide advice on the capital implications of business initiatives and structural decisions

• Maintain robust methodologies, policies and documentation, ensuring outputs are defensible and well-governed

• Lead and develop a Sydney-based team of actuaries and analysts, setting a high bar for quality and judgement

• Support engagement with APRA, auditors and other external stakeholders

• Support the Appointed Actuary across statutory responsibilities, Board papers and regulatory interactions

• Oversee actuarial reporting and monitoring associated with Calix Re, ensuring appropriate integration into Group capital and reporting outcomes

The team

You’ll join a small, high-quality actuarial team that plays a central role across Challenger Life Company, working closely with Finance, Risk and senior stakeholders. The team has broad responsibility across valuation, capital and regulatory work, and operates in a non-traditional environment where actuarial input feeds directly into business decisions.

It’s an intellectually rigorous, detail-focused environment where people are expected to contribute actively and take ownership of outcomes.

What we’re looking for

You’ll be a qualified actuary (FIAA or equivalent) with significant post-qualification experience with strong experience in life insurance valuation and capital, and a track record of owning or leading these processes within a complex or large-scale environment. 

You’ll be comfortable operating in a highly visible environment, including engagement with auditors, regulators and senior stakeholders

More broadly, you’ll bring:

• Experience leading or owning valuation and capital processes within a life insurance business 

• Exposure to audit and regulatory processes, with the confidence to support external review 

• The ability to explain complex actuarial outputs to senior, non-technical stakeholders 

• Strong technical judgement and attention to detail, with a high bar for quality 

• Experience leading and developing others within an actuarial team 

• A proactive and commercially aware mindset 

• Experience with reinsurance structures, offshore arrangements or more complex balance sheet activity would be an advantage but isn’t essential.

Why consider this role

This isn’t a steady-state valuation role. It’s an opportunity to take on genuine ownership, work closely with the Appointed Actuary, and gain broader exposure across the balance sheet including areas that are evolving and not typically part of a traditional life insurance role, in a company laser-focused on the growing retirement income market.

If you’re looking for a role with more visibility, more variety, and more direct connection to how the business operates, this is likely to be a meaningful step forward.

Why Challenger?

Working at Challenger means being part of a connected team that enjoys what they do. We’re small enough to move quickly, and big enough to make meaningful change.

We support your growth and development, offer flexibility, and value the unique contributions people bring.

We provide access to a range of exclusive employee benefits that will support you both personally and professionally and a hybrid work environment including. 

• Discretionary bonus scheme. 

• Employee share plan. 

• Eighteen weeks paid leave for all new parents. 

• Flexibility on when, and how, parental leave is taken. 

• Challenger Day – one extra day off every year in recognition of the effort our people make. 

• Subsidised on-site café and fantastic central location a stone's throw from Martin Place Metro 

• Additional support leave (fertility treatment leave, gender affirmation leaves). 

• Extra superannuation contributions. 

• Access to Fitness Passport

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Challenger's employee value proposition guides how we work: Grow and realise your potential, supporting each other, stronger together and making things happen. Our culture encourages curiosity, considered thinking and meaningful contribution, with opportunities to build a broad and rewarding career.

We are committed to fostering a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace where people of all backgrounds, identities and ways of thinking can thrive, and promoting flexible working to support work-life balance. 

Challenger is proud to be a Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) Employer of Choice for Gender Equality, a Family Friendly Workplace and recognised as a Bronze Employer in the Australian Workplace Equality Index (AWEI), the national benchmark for LGBTQ+ workplace inclusion.

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