New Sovereign Chief Executive Appointed

Sovereign has appointed international life insurance executive Charles Anderson as its new head, effective as from 1 November 2009.

Mr Anderson replaces Simon Blair as Chief Executive, following Mr Blair’s transfer to the International Financial Services arm of parent company Commonwealth Bank of Australia at the beginning of July. 

Announcing the appointment, the Managing Director of ASB Group, Mr Charles Pink said an international search for the Chief Executive role at Sovereign had been conducted, with a strong field of both internal and external candidates being considered. 

Charles Anderson brings broad international financial services experience and skills to the Sovereign role, having spent the past 10 years in the life insurance industry.  From 1999 onwards, Mr Anderson held leadership positions with the United Kingdom based Aviva Financial Services group, firstly with responsibility for the Norwich Union Life personal finance and partnerships businesses.  He then moved to Singapore for 6 years, and as Managing Director of Aviva’s Financial Services Asia group, led 5,000 staff to establish and develop six new life business joint ventures with over 40,000 agents across Asia.  Returning to England in November 2007, Charles has spent the past two years running his own consultancy business. 

Mr Anderson holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) degree in mathematics from the University of Birmingham and a Master of Business Administration from the University of London. 

ENDS

For more information, please contact:

John Barclay
Chief Human Resources Officer
Mobile: 021 630 821

Released on behalf of Sovereign by Network PR (Silke Marsh) Ph 09 306 5805. silke.marsh@networkpr.com

About Sovereign

Sovereign Assurance Company Limited (Sovereign) is New Zealand’s largest life insurer; protecting the lives of more than 600,000 people through the provision of personal insurances (such as life, income protection, and disablement and trauma, and major medical policies) and employer sponsored compulsory and voluntary workplace schemes.  Sovereign is also New Zealand’s; third largest provider of health insurance; largest non-bank lender of home loans; and sixth largest retail fund manager with over $3bn in funds under management.  Sovereign is part of the ASB group of companies, which is in turn part of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia group.