Debra Hazelton steps down as AMP chair

Debra Hazelton will leave the AMP board after nearly five years, including as chair since  2020.

She will be replaced by former Bendigo Bank chief executive Mike Hirst.

The outgoing chair was also a non-executive director of the AMP Capital board between 2018 and 2022.

She currently serves as chair of Export Finance Australia and sits on the boards of Australia Post and Treasury Corporation of Victoria.

As for her executive career, Hazelton worked at Mizuho Financial Group for 11 years,  most recently as senior adviser for global talent development.

She also held senior roles at the Commonwealth Bank for 19 years.

For his part, Hirst has over 40 years of board and executive experience, mostly in banking and financial services.

He has been a non-executive director at AMP since July 2021 and was appointed chair of the risk and compliance committee in October 2022.

Following the Hayne royal commission, the financial services giant sold its life insurance in 2020 to Resolution Life and AMP Capital to Dexus and Macquarie Asset Management two years later so management could sharpen its focus on the core wealth management business.

The commission found that it had charged clients millions of dollars in fees without providing a service in return.

Hazelton and chief executive Alexis George led AMP in the fallout from the probe into the banking and financial services sector.

AMP said Hazelton steered the company through a successful transformation, including stabilising the business through culture improvement and governance, renewal of the executive leadership team, portfolio simplification and strategic reset, and the return of over $750 million in capital to shareholders.

Hazelton said the time was right to hand over to Hirst as the company embarks on a new chapter focused on growing as a retail bank and leading fund manager in Australia and New Zealand.

"Mike Hirst will be exemplary as AMP's chair, with his deep financial services knowledge and experience and having already contributed significantly to the AMP board since his appointment as a non-executive director in July 2021," she said.

"I want to wish Mike, CEO Alexis George and the entire board every success as AMP consolidates on its rebuild, and to acknowledge their exceptional commitment and contribution during this challenging past three-plus years.

"We have a strong CEO [Alexis George] and management team in place, the board has been renewed, the business repositioned, the strategy reset, the AMP portfolio is simplified, the capital base is strong, and substantive legacy issues are resolved," Hazelton concluded.