New role for Trevor Matthews as Aviva does the boardroom shuffle

INSURANCE giant Aviva unveiled a boardroom shake-up yesterday that will see UK head Trevor Matthews taking charge of the group’s major developed markets and another high-profile director leaving the company.

The major casualty is the highly regarded Igal Mayer, who loses his job as head of the insurer’s European business, which generated nearly 40 per cent of Aviva’s operating profit last year.

“That is bearish. Igal is a loss,” Kevin Ryan, insurance analyst at broker Investec, said. “He has always been viewed as a very safe pair of hands who was very good at operational things.”

Among a raft of other changes, Aviva group chief executive Andrew Moss has replaced the regional management layer of its structure with a new dual template based around developed and higher-growth markets.

Matthews, who joined Aviva as chief executive of its UK business last December, will become directly responsible for Canada, Italy and Spain. He will also chair the UK and Ireland board and be responsible for group-wide underwriting, pricing and claims management.

Aviva, which employs 2,500 in Perth and Bishopbriggs, said Matthews, formerly head of UK insurance operations at Friends Provident and Edinburgh-based Standard Life, would become executive director, developed markets.

“This reorganisation plays to Trevor’s strengths. He has great expertise in managing scale businesses, and so we are leveraging on his background,” a company spokesman said.

Aviva said its developed markets also include France and the United States, while its higher growth markets are Asia, Poland, Turkey and Russia.

As part of the changes, the chief executives of the company’s three major businesses will join the group executive committee. They are David Barral, chief executive of UK and Ireland life insurance, David McMillan, head of UK and Ireland general insurance, and Philippe Maso, chief executive of the French division.

Chris Littlefield, chief executive of Aviva USA, will also report to Moss. Simon Machell becomes chief executive of higher growth markets.

Alain Dromer, head of Aviva’s fund management arm, and Richard Hoskins, who runs North America, are leaving, the company said. Mayer will leave the company next month, but Aviva declined to say yesterday whether he would receive a year’s pay-off. His basic salary in 2011 was £606,000.

Moss said a priority in more mature markets like the UK, Canada, Italy and France would be to boost profits and cash generation through operational efficiencies and advantages of scale.

The group said markets like Asia, Turkey and Russia had “higher growth characteristics due to their economic growth potential and relatively low penetration of insurance products”.

Moss said: “The changes will result in a simpler and more efficient organisation which will deliver further operational benefits, accelerate delivery of our strategy and provide opportunities for profitable growth.”

Aviva posted a 6 per cent lift in its 2011 profits to £2.1 billion last month. UK life and pensions profits rose 8 per cent to £920 million, while profits at the UK general insurance and health business, which is largely based in Scotland, rose 7 per cent to £520m.