TAL announces Executive Team changes

Leading Australian life insurer, TAL, today announced key appointments to its Executive Team. Group CEO and Managing Director, Brett Clark announced new executive leadership appointments within the Group Life & Retirement business, Individual Life business, and Technology.

Jenny Oliver has been appointed to the role of Chief Executive – Group Life & Retirement. Ms Oliver will be responsible for leading TAL’s partnerships with the superannuation community in providing market-leading life insurance solutions to superannuation fund members, and leading TAL’s work in the development of solutions that support Australians to retire with confidence.

In her current role as TAL’s Chief Claims Officer, Ms Oliver has led the transformation of TAL’s claims capabilities, building a strong claims leadership team, investing in the broader claims team skills and capabilities, amplifying strong risk and governance practices, and delivering an ambitious technology transformation program.

TAL will undertake a recruitment process to fill the vacant Chief Claims Officer role. In the interim, Ms Oliver will continue to provide executive oversight for TAL’s Claims function.

After a decade with TAL, Chief Commercial Officer – Individual Life, Tim Thorne has decided to retire from his executive career and pursue a non-executive portfolio. Mr Thorne has led the Individual Life business through a period of significant change and growth, including the acquisitions of Asteron Life and Westpac Life. Mr Thorne has brought a culture of innovation and strong customer focus to TAL during a period of significant disruption in the Australian life insurance industry.

Fiona Macgregor has been appointed as Chief Executive – Individual Life, replacing Mr Thorne.

Since joining TAL more than nine years ago, Ms Macgregor has held a number of leadership roles across innovation, customer, brand and technology. In particular, as Chief Information & Innovation Officer for the last five years, Ms Macgregor has worked deeply 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 Ms Macgregor’s leadership, the Individual Life business will be focused on industry leadership in outcomes for customers, delivering value in TAL’s partnerships with financial advisers and strategic alliance partners, and providing Australians with access to high-quality life insurance solutions through their channel of choice. Ms Macgregor’s appointment will also see an emphasis on market-leading digital enablement and delivery to meet the needs and expectations of customers and partners.

Executive General Manager, Technology, Hinesh Chauhan has been promoted to the role of TAL’s Chief Information Officer, with responsibility for the company’s technology function.

Since joining TAL in 2018, Mr Chauhan has made a significant contribution to strengthening TAL’s technology function, and digital culture and capabilities. Mr Chauhan remains focused on working with TAL’s technology partners to support business operations, meet rising information and cyber security expectations, and to enhance the way TAL supports its customers and partners through both existing and new technologies, such as generative AI.

In communications to employees and partners, TAL Group CEO and Managing Director, Brett Clark on behalf of the Executive Team thanked Mr Thorne for his valuable 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 to Group Life & Retirement, Individual Life and Technology 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,” said Mr Clark.

The Executive Team appointments take effect immediately.