International Financial Group Limited (IFGL) has made some changes to its management structure, seven months after it completed the acquisition of Friends Provident International.
With effect from 1 January 2021, Mike Crellin became managing director of IFGL’s insurance division; which includes FPI, RL360 and RL360 Services.
It does not include Ardan International, which remains under the leadership of Sarah Dunnage.
Crellin was previously finance and commercial director at IFGL.
He has assumed overall day-to-day responsibility for the operations of the insurance division and oversight of the key corporate projects.
He continues to report into David Kneeshaw, who has taken on the role of group chief executive of IFGL.
Kneeshaw remains chairman of the executive committee and will retain overall responsibility for group strategy and market-facing activities.
Further, Alistair Brogden has been appointed IFGL’s finance director, with Donald Macleod taking on Brogden’s former role as RL360 appointed actuary.
Beefing up the team
Speaking to International Adviser, Kneeshaw confirmed that the changes are aimed at strengthening the depth and breadth of the management team and not a precursor to him stepping back from the business.
“This has been in the ether for quite some time. If you go back to when we were a smaller business, just after the clerical medical acquisition, there was a slight concern among the non-execs that, while we had a strong management team, we were a bit thin on the ground.
“So, the first thing we did was beef up the management team in areas where we needed to be stronger. We brought in Sue-Ann Ind as our group risk director and Simon Barwell on the marketing and product development proposition.”
While the appointments broadened the team, there was also a question of depth.
“We realised that we have only one senior person with general management experience, and that was me. There was only one senior finance person, and that was Mike Crellin, and one actuary who was Alistair Brogden.
“The questions became: what happens if one of us gets hit by a bus? Who is our replacement? Who takes over the running of that function the next day?”
Kneeshaw said these planned changes were “brought to a head” by the pandemic, as he has been unable to travel to the Isle of Man from his home in England for almost an entire year.
“We’re an Isle of Man business. While nobody had anticipated covid, it brought home the risk of me not being able to go to the island. These changes give up more resilience and run parallel to the building up of expertise in the business.”
Crellin is based on the Isle of Man.
“I’m still running the overall business, but I’m less involved in the day-to-day operational matters. It’s all about making sure that the island hub is humming, because it is our base.”
