Legal & General revamps retail leadership with key appointments

UK insurer  Legal & General has restructured its executive ranks with a number of key appointments as part of its fresh growth strategy.

L&G Retail, which was established earlier this year with Bernie Hickman as its chief executive officer, aims to better leverage its expertise and resources to enhance customer experience and service, removing pain points particularly through the use of new technologies and its investment in innovative fintech businesses.

Lorna Shah (Pictured) has been appointed to the role of managing director of Retail Retirement. Shah will have the responsibility for Legal & General’s retirement income business, which will become ‘Retail Annuities’. She will also have commercial oversight of the workplace savings and personal investing businesses alongside UK and international mortgage expansion.

Katharine Photiou will move to the role of managing director of Retail’s workplace savings business. She will focus on developing and delivering the workplace and personal investing product and proposition, servicing the existing 4.7 million members and growing customer bases.

Steve Davis has moved to be chief operating officer of the Retail division. He will spearhead the introduction of a collaborative operational function across all of the Retail businesses to leverage best practices and enhance customer experience. His role will also see him responsible for driving the overall strategy of the Retail division and for increasing adoption of agile ways of working.

Finally, Paula Llewellyn, chief marketing officer & direct MD, in addition to managing the direct protection business and being CMO for Retail as a whole, takes responsibility for Legal & General Financial Advice, which offers advice on later life lending.

The insurer hopes these changes will help deliver better outcomes for customers, advisers, distribution partners and shareholders.

Hickman said: “As the UK’s number one workplace savings, protection and retirement brand our strategy is focused on providing peace of mind and financial confidence for every generation, whatever the future holds. Legal & General has a strong heritage, having served customers for almost 200 years, and these changes set us up to accelerate the growth of our business, putting our customers front and centre, and ensuring we can continue to provide easy to understand products, that will help people find financial security for themselves and their families. With our talented new executive team in place, we can focus on making positive progress to reimagine how we help customers create brighter financial futures.”

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