Legal & General is making changes to the senior leadership of its Home Finance division, after current chief executive, Claire Singleton, decided to step down from the role after 10 years with the Group.
Craig Brown, currently the director of intermediary for Legal & General Insurance, will take over as chief executive of Legal & General Home Finance on 28th February.
Singleton has decided to return to a Group General Counsel position.
Brown joined Legal & General in 2012 and has held several senior commercial and operational roles during that time, most recently leading the distribution of protection products via intermediaries.
In this role he has established a multi-award-winning team and strengthened many relationships across the Intermediary channel, which comprises of over 19,000 firms.
Brown brings a breadth of experience leading sales, procurement, operations and transformation in a wide variety of industries and functions, having previously held roles at Aviva and Lloyds Banking Group.
Added to his track record, he is two-time British Mortgage Awards winner of the ‘Insurance Business leader of the year’ and winner of a coveted British Insurance Award for operations transformation strategy achievements.
Since entering the market in 2015, Legal & General has focused on growing the market by driving competitive rates, better customer outcomes and innovation, as well as developing a suite of best-in-class products.
Today, it’s an award-winning business, which supports one in six new lifetime mortgage originations in the UK, has over 100,000 customers, and has released £5.6bn in total lending. In his role as chief executive, Brown will look to build on this success and bring home equity into the core asset pool considered by retirees, alongside their pensions and other savings.
Singleton will also step down from her role on the Board of the Equity Release Council, with Brown taking up this position.
Bernie Hickman, CEO, Legal & General Retail, said: “Having co-founded Legal & General Home Finance in 2015, I remain passionate about the potential value of property to achieving better retirement outcomes for people in later life.
“Lifetime and RIO mortgages can help meet a diverse range of challenges across customer demographics, from interest-only mortgage capital repayments to wealth planning.
“Craig brings both an essential understanding of the intermediary landscape and broad commercial experience, making him ideally placed to grow our market share. ”
Brown said: “I’m absolutely delighted to be continuing my career at Legal & General with this new position, and I’m looking forward to working with a talented team of individuals to develop and grow what is already an excellent business.
“I think there is a huge opportunity with the growing relevance of property to people’s long-term planning, to move later life lending into the mainstream – and I believe Legal & General can play a key role in leading this transition.”
Further leadership changes
In further changes, Legal & General Homes Finance has appointed Andrew Gilbert as product director and Paula Hughes as head of business development.
Gilbert joins from JUST where he worked in Growth & Innovation and was previously proposition director of savings & retirement at LV.
He is an actuary by background, has sat on the Board of the Equity Release Council and has experience in many aspects of later life lending – including securing funding, product innovation & development, pricing sophistication and product governance.
Hughes has re-joined Legal & General, having left in 2017, after 17 years in the business. Her new role follows periods spent at Nationwide as its Corporate Development Director, and at Key Group.
When Brown moves to his new role, Julie Godley will take up the position of director of intermediary on an interim basis with effect from 28 February.
