Melissa Cantell announced as new Fidelity Life CEO
Media release
29 October 2020
New Zealand’s largest locally owned life insurer Fidelity Life has announced the appointment of Melissa Cantell as its new Chief Executive Officer.
Fidelity Life Chair Brian Blake says Melissa was the standout candidate following a robust recruitment process.
“Melissa’s strong executive leadership experience running successful commercial operations and building high performing customer-centric cultures, across a range of industries, is impressive.
“Combined with her passion for the role insurance plays in the community, her experience leading business transformations and building great customer and people experiences, especially in times of change, are very relevant for the journey we’re on at Fidelity Life.”
Melissa joins Fidelity Life from IAG NZ where she held the role of Chief Operating Officer, and prior to that was the Executive General Manager Transformation.
Says Melissa: “I’m really looking forward to joining Fidelity Life, an independent New Zealand-owned company with a great heritage, a strong financial base and a vision for a very exciting future.”
Fidelity Life is making great progress with its customer-focused transformation which commenced in 2019 and aims to deliver sustainable growth.
“Melissa will look to build on that momentum, even as we continue to deal with COVID-19 and the economic uncertainty ahead. The year ahead is really important: successfully completing our digital transformation project, evolving our customer and adviser experiences and moving to brand new offices are just the start of an exciting new era for the whole Fidelity Life team”, says Brian.
Chief Distribution Officer Adrian Riminton and Chief Financial Officer Simon Pennington will continue as joint acting CEOs until Melissa starts on 25 January 2021.
“Adrian and Simon have done an excellent job over the past five months ensuring we’ve maintained our strong momentum and the Board thanks them for their continued efforts”, Brian says.
