Griffiths proves prize catch for Norwich
THE 'COLONIALISATION of Norwich has continued with more appointments being filled by former members of the senior management team at Colonial.
Former head of the franchised financial planing operation at Colonial Alan Griffiths is joining Norwich Union as managing director of the life business.
Griffiths, with his extensive distribution background, is regarded as a fine catch for Norwich. He joined Colonial in 1991 and has held a number of senior positions.
The other ex-Colonial associate joining Norwich Union is Grant Salmon who will be heading up Norwich's IT operations. Again, this is another significant appointment, as Norwich is investing more than $20 million in upgrading Navigator in the next few years, the bulk of that spend being on IT.
Salmon has worked as an IT consultant to Colonial, as well as being involved in the development of Norwich's Project Eclipse, a new risk insurance platform.
Norwich Union chief executive officer Rob Garnsworthy says the new appointments were to enable the company to grow its sales and distribution through e-commerce. He sees Griffiths' appointment as a key part of this push for growth.
"Griffiths will be responsible for aggressively building our presence across our risk, superannuation and retirement businesses," he says.
"He has a great deal of credibility within the industry and is a valuable addition to the management team."
In a further shake-up of the distribution side of the company, Norwich has combined superannuation, retirement and risk product development, marketing and distribution into one operation.
Doug Sumner has been appointed general manager products and marketing, while Shaun Williams becomes general manager sales and distribution. Both positions report to Griffiths.
With the reshuffle, a number of managers are now leaving Norwich. These include Michael Laing who ran business development, Phil Hill who was life risk manager and Sue Homewood who was general manager investment products and services. Some of these appointments were from the MacKenzie era, the previous chief executive officer.
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