Terzariol at Generali: the CFO shifts to insurance management
Giulio Terzariol (pictured), centre stage to arguably the biggest job move in European insurance in 2023, may shift from beancounter to business process manager as he takes the reins at Generali’s new streamlined insurance division, but need not drop his CFO credentials entirely in a business focused on cash generation while major accounting transitions still reverberate.
“Generali has a lot to gain in the next years by applying a more centralised approach to the way we run our businesses and the way we steer our businesses” with a “simpler” organisational structure and improved business processes, underpinned often by new technologies, Terzariol told his company’s investor day less than four months after announcing the move to Generali.
Comments come only months after Terzariol broke from his post as CFO at Allianz, arguably the heaviest hitting job move in Europe in recent memory. Generali sold the move to a unified insurance division as a major step to improve coordination, effectiveness, and strategic alignment across geographies, streamlining and simplifying the group organisational model.
There’s room for the CFO to be a CFO: the ongoing industry integration and recognition of new accounting standards, including the epochal jump to IFRS17 earnings, requires a financer’s touch to make sure the full organisation “understands the impacts,” Terzariol said.
“Insurance is a very technical bus that demands a very strong understanding of its economics ... and different accounting standards,” Terzariol added of his pending role. Amid the still-pressing challenges, Generali has positioned itself “quite uniquely” by putting a former CFO atop insurance leadership, he said.
Job priorities in the Terzariol view: maintain focus on “technical excellence” in P&C and speed in product adaptation in life; growing the customer base on a strong product and service base; “pushing the productivity agenda” with a close eye to effective and consistent business process; and optimising cash conversion within the group.
Terzariol steps in right as the strategic planning stage heats up. Generali is in the final year of its multi-year strategy ‘Lifetime Partner 24’ and is sitting down now to whip up plans for a strategy to be released early in 2025, officials indicated.
Terzariol admits a greater emphasis on delivery above strategy.
“We have the quality of people, the culture, the balance sheet, the discipline and we are hungry and we are a team,” he said.
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