Derek Popkes

As the Chief Operating Officer, Derek Popkes is responsible for the group’s life reinsurance marketing, pricing, underwriting, and administration operations.

Derek joined Great-West Life in 1996 and held a number of actuarial roles before joining the reinsurance group in 2001. Over the following years Derek held a number of actuarial, pricing and marketing roles in the group’s London and Dublin offices including overall leadership of the group’s European reinsurance operations based in Dublin. From 2012-2017 Derek held the role of Great-West Life’s European Chief Risk Officer with responsibility for the effective operation of the group’s risk management system across its European insurance and reinsurance operations. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (1999) and the Irish Institute of Actuaries (2007).