Suncorp New Zealand’s new look leadership team
4 July 2022
Suncorp New Zealand has announced changes to its senior leadership team to reflect an even stronger commitment to its customers. Alongside changing the accountabilities of several of its standing senior leaders, the insurer is also welcoming technology leader, Chris Robb to a senior leadership role.
Over the past year, Suncorp New Zealand has introduced scaled Agile to focus on designing and delivering change better and faster. Following on from this, a review of the operating model has identified opportunities to realign the business, for the benefit of customers.
Chief Executive Jimmy Higgins says the realigned organisation is about making decisions easier and creating greater focus on customers at every level of the organisation.
“We’re working with the philosophy that decisions should be made as close to the customer as possible.
“After adopting scaled Agile in 2021, we’ve taken an end-to-end approach to the customer journey, and made sure that all aspects of this can be delivered, and continually improved, by the one team.
“As an example of how we’re doing things differently, this new look leadership structure was co-designed by my team. This is the structure that we all believe will allow us to continue to deliver to our customers across consumer, business and life insurance.”
Our new look leadership team is effective immediately:
Higgins says the new look SLT retains all the talent and, with the addition of Chris Robb, positions his team for the best possible start to FY23. “Chris comes to us from Salesforce NZ, where he has held the role of Chief Customer Transformation Officer for the Banking and Insurance Sector – primarily focused on Digital Transformation, Agile Practices, Technology Roadmaps and Strategy development.”
Chris Robb also has a strong foundation across the full CIO function, from early experience in architecture and infrastructure leadership through to many years in roles leading digital transformation and solution delivery. He has led a wide range of initiatives, from core platform modernisation to the rollout and digitisation of customer systems, products and services.
Other business areas remain largely unchanged, with some small accountability shifts. Higgins says, though, this announcement is much more than just names in boxes.
“These changes are a continuation of Suncorp New Zealand’s transformation journey. It’s a culture shift right across our business, and a very different way of working together so we can deliver even more for our customers.
“We’ve worked with our Kaiarahi cultural leadership team to create ‘mahi ngātahi’, our Kiwi way of collaborating across teams to get the right work done.”
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