Four executives go as CGU reshuffles its top team

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Breaking News, 6 August 2008

CGU has revamped its senior executive team, with CEO Duncan West this morning announcing five new executives and the retrenchment of four others. The appointments are:

• John Evans, GM Retail;
• Darren Maher, GM Corporate;
• Donna Walker, GM Technical Services;
• Ben Bessell, GM Claims; and
• Anna Lowe, GM Business Services.

They will run the company alongside the four GMs announced last month: Craig Olsen, GM Workers’ Compensation; Stuart Chapman, GM Swann Insurance; Malcolm Freeman, GM Financial Institutions and Affinity; and Lee Heycox, GM Human Resources.

Four former senior managers who were appointed under former CEO Mario Pirone will leave the company over the next few weeks. They are Head of Corporate Jared King, Head of Operations Linda Dewar, Head of Product and Underwriting Paul Cassidy and Head of Claims & Strategy Phil Gare.

Head of Commercial Warren Hutcheon’s job no longer exists, with Mr West saying he will “explore other suitable opportunities within CGU that utilise his skills and experience”.

Only one of the new appointments is from outside CGU. Anna Lowe worked with Mr West at Vero, where she was Chief Information Officer. She was most recently EGM Commercial Insurance Business Technology at Suncorp.

Darren Maher was formerly COO at Vero and joined CGU in February.

The new company structure is organised around five strategic business units – Retail, Corporate, Workers’ Compensation, Financial Institutions & Affinity and Swann Insurance – and four support units – Claims, Technical Services, Human Resources and Business Services.

Mr West says the new GMs have until the end of September to finalise the structures of their business units.

It’s understood the new GMs who are presently based in Sydney will move to Melbourne, ending rumours that Sydney-based Mr West would use the reshuffle to move CGU’s head office to Sydney.

“The head office is staying in Melbourne,” he told insuranceNEWS.com.au. “It’s very much business as usual.”