IAG's digital chief Claire Rawlins departs

The insurer's group executive, digital and technology, makes sudden departure

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IAG’s group executive, digital and technology, Claire Rawlins has left the company after a year and a half, it was announced today.

Rawlins, who has held CIO and digital transformation roles at NBN Co, Woolworths and Air New Zealand, was appointed head of IAG’s Digital Labs in December last year as part of a restructure. She first joined IAG as CTO in July last year and by August was appointed to the position of group CIO.

No reason was given for her departure in the company statement released this morning.

As head of IAG’s Digital Labs division, Rawlins had been tasked with building digital apps and ecosystems and simplifying the organisation’s existing core platforms.

In March, Rawlins shared a two year plan to consolidate back offices processes which included reducing the company’s 32 policy and claims systems in Australia and New Zealand down to two, as well as the founding of digital teams for each business function.

“We are going to look at how we are going to consolidate that to take money out of the back office and put it into innovation and our digital customer experience,” Rawlins told CIO Australia in March, “We have a model where we have autonomy with alignment. Over the years we have seen a lot of centralised and federated functions – I want the business lines to have their own digital teams co-located so they are really react quickly to changes in the market and customer needs.”

In its full year results released in August, the insurer recognised a non-cash, pre-tax charge of $198 million for accelerated amortisation and impairment of capitalised software.

Before coming to Australia in 2009 to join AAPT as technology transformation advisor Rawlins held senior management and technology roles in the United States, UK, and Germany at BNP Paribas, DrKW, Qwest, Fidelity Investments and BT.

Peter Bonney, who reported to Rawlins before her departure, will be leading the Digital Labs team until a replacement is found, the company said. Bonney joined IAG from Deloitte Digital Technology in 2015 to head up disruptive technology and architecture within IAG Digital Labs.

IAG CEO Peter Harmer said: “I look forward to working with Peter to further refine our digital offering and to develop new and innovative ways to connect and engage with our customers and partners”