Grace unveils his 'top team' to drive forward Aegon strategy

NEW Aegon UK boss Adrian Grace has promoted Simon Skinner to succeed himself as chief operating officer of the life and pensions firm.

Grace succeeded long-serving Otto Thoresen as chief executive on Friday and in a briefing to staff yesterday he unveiled his new leadership team.

Skinner, previously customer services director, will be charged with completing the firm's controversial cost- reduction programme, which will see it axe 600 jobs in Scotland and slash 80 million from its operating expenses.

He will join Grace's newly-formed "insurance executive committee", whose other members will include chief financial officer, Clare Bousfield and chief risk officer, Charles Garthwaite. Also on the committee will be sales director Duncan Jarrett, and incoming UK group marketing director, Paul McMahon, who joins from Axa in August.

Grace informed staff of his plans at the Edinburgh headquarters yesterday. The announcement of his top team came just a few days after the firm, which is the UK branch of the Dutch Aegon Group, unveiled plans to move into the "wrap" market. Wrap platforms allow financial advisers to view all of their clients' investments online in one account.

Aegon is planning two platforms, one focused on "at retirement" investments and pensions and the other at the workplace savings market.

Grace said of his leadership team: "I'm confident that we now have the right balance of strategy, commercial focus and operational delivery at the top table, together with the key areas of finance and risk. This will enable us to move quickly to cement our position as one of the UK's leading providers."

He told The Scotsman's sister paper Scotland on Sunday at the weekend that he planned to place less emphasis on building a big UK brand and instead grow the company behind other brands.