AXA Commercial has appointed Carolyn Rich as marketing and broker development director, as AXA Insurance UK also launched a leadership programme for staff at its delegated authority partners.
Rich (pictured) succeeds Al Stewart, who retired in July. She joins from Allianz UK, where she spent more than 13 years in senior roles across brand, marketing, sponsorship, digital and social media. Most recently, she was director of brand, leading Allianz's brand strategy and marketing, including its partnership with England Rugby and the Olympic and Paralympic movements. Her experience also covers broker marketing and engagement, corporate communications and customer experience.
At AXA Commercial, she will lead marketing and broker engagement strategy, with a focus on improving the broker experience and strengthening relationships.
“For me, it’s all about listening to our brokers, understanding what matters most to them and finding new ways to support their businesses and the customers they serve,” said Rich.
AXA Insurance UK’s Delegated Authority Partnerships (DAP) business has run its first Emerging Leaders Programme, bringing together 20 rising leaders from its partner businesses across the UK.
The three-day programme, held at Woodlands Park Hotel in Cobham, covered communication and influencing skills, critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork, emotional intelligence and personal development. It combined expert-led sessions, peer learning and practical exercises, and gave delegates the chance to build relationships with peers from other partner firms.
Joel Markham, director of delegated authority partnerships at AXA Insurance UK, said the programme was designed to give talented people in the partner community the skills, confidence and networks to become the next generation of industry leaders.
Both moves reflect how much carriers are investing in relationships with brokers and delegated authority partners. Talent attraction and retention is UK brokers’ top priority, as Insurance Business reported in June, and smaller partner firms often lack the scale to run leadership training of their own.
For brokers and MGAs in AXA’s delegated authority network, the programme is a rare example of an insurer investing directly in partners’ people rather than their products. It could help partners retain promising staff by giving them a development route their own firms might struggle to offer.
For brokers trading with AXA Commercial, Rich’s appointment, with its emphasis on listening to brokers, signals that AXA wants to sharpen its broker engagement as competition for commercial business intensifies in a softening market.
