Chief Distribution Officer
Kieran Forde will commence in the role of Chief Distribution Officer at the end of the month. Kieran joined Zurich from ANZ in 2018 and has held roles as Head of Bancassurance & Direct and Head of Zurich Propositions. This experience within Zurich is backed by more than 20 years’ experience at ANZ, including as Head of Wealth Solutions & Partnerships and Head of ANZ Financial Planning.
Head of Customer & Digital
Jacqui Lennon will join our business in February 2021 as Head of Customer & Digital. Jacqui is incredibly experienced in leading product design and strategy in financial services. She will be well placed to drive Zurich’s product strategy as we respond to the challenge in disability income insurance and seek to offer truly differentiated and sustainable products to customers, in a digital world.
I look forward to introducing you to the team over the coming months. They will help to drive Zurich’s commitment to offering high quality, differentiated products in market, which is core to our strategy and the reason we continue to invest in the OnePath and Zurich retail brands.
It was wonderful to connect with some of you during last month’s AFA Conference, we hope you were able to enjoy the virtual experience, and pick up some great advice on how you and your practice can thrive now and into the future. A big thank you to Darren Burgess from Melbourne Football Club who delivered an outstanding keynote focused on high-performance and resilience, and a reminder that our upcoming thought leadership presentation “The Client Connection” delivered by Risk Strategy Specialist Adam Crabbe, can still be viewed as on-demand content by clicking here.
A key theme of the conference was the sustainability of life insurance. We are committed to growing sustainably, and ensuring we continue to protect your clients now and into the future. In this edition, you can find details of our extended affordability solutions for clients who have experienced financial hardship.
Now more than ever, financial services technology is improving at a rapid pace and we have reinvented business processes that allow us to be more agile, customer-focused, innovative and accessible, and we want to ensure you are receiving these benefits.
We are on a continuous journey in improving the way advisers do business with us and I encourage you to jump into the Zurich Adviser Portal or speak to your BDM to ensure you and your clients contact details are up to date. This will help keep you informed as we continue to roll out our latest innovations, make important updates to our product offering, continue to expand our education services through _ZONE and enhance our customer value services such as Zurich LiveWell and My Zurich.
I am proud to share that Zurich has launched our inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which coincides with recognition of NAIDOC Week.
The inaugural RAP is the culmination of many months of work with Reconciliation Australia and Zurich’s community partners (Link). It is an important step in Zurich’s journey towards driving positive, progressive actions to celebrate, connect and collaborate with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their unique contributions to the communities Zurich serve in Australia. We look forward to sharing this journey with our partners.
Finally, as we head into December, we can now start to see the finish line to what has been a challenging year. I want to thank you for the care and support you have provided to your clients and the community. Now is the time they need our guidance and advice the most.
Nathan Taggart