TAL makes big staff changes

TAL Insurance chief executive Brett Clark has promoted three people within its life and retirement businesses.

In a series of big changes to the leadership, Jenny Oliver has been appointed chief executive of group life and retirement.

Oliver will lead TAL's partnerships with the superannuation community in providing life insurance solutions to superannuation fund members.

In her role as TAL's chief claims officer, Oliver's team has transformed the insurer's claims capabilities by investing in skills and capabilities, further strenthening risk and governance practices, and delivering an ambitious technology program.

TAL hasn't found a replacement for Oliver yet so Oliver will continue to oversee the claims function.

Meantime, Fiona Macgregor has been appointed as chief executive of individual life, replacing Tim Thorne.

After a decade with TAL, Thorne has decided to swap an executive career for a non-executive one.

Thorne has led the individual life business through a period of significant change and growth, including the acquisitions of Asteron Life and Westpac Life.

Since joining TAL more than nine years ago, Macgregor has held several leadership roles in innovation, customer, brand and technology.

In particular, as chief information and innovation officer for the last five years, she has worked on strategy formulation and delivery, the acquisition and integration of Asteron Life and Westpac Life, and enabling business growth and performance through the connection of technology and business capabilities.

Under Macgregor's leadership, the individual life business will focus on customer outcomes and delivering value to financial advisers and strategic alliance partners.

Her appointment will also see an emphasis on digital delivery to meet the needs and expectations of customers and partners.

Finally, TAL executive general manager of technology Hinesh Chauhan is promoted to chief information officer.

Since joining TAL in 2018, Chauhan has helped strengthen TAL's technology function, digital culture and capabilities.

He will remain focused on working with TAL's technology partners to support business operations, meet rising information and cyber security expectations, and enhance how TAL supports its customers and partners through existing and new technologies, such as generative AI.

Clark thanked Thorne for his contribution and added that the internal appointments were a testament to TAL's commitment to fostering strong leadership and succession planning within the company.

"These leadership appointments ... reflect TAL's unwavering commitment to our customers and partners, and I am delighted that it has been an obvious choice to appoint these roles from within TAL, reflecting our commitment to leadership development and succession planning.

"I would also like to thank Tim for his valuable contributions to TAL over a decade and his leadership of the Individual Life business through a period of significant growth and change."