Legal & General’s CMO exits 12 months into role after orchestrating huge agency consolidation
Legal & General's first chief marketing officer Dominic Collins has left the company after just 12 months and is not likely to be replaced.
In an email sent to staff last week (30 July) – which The Drum has seen – Collins announced his departure and said he had recommended a restructure to more closely align the core marketing functions of Legal & General’s insurance and investment management arms.
It aims to accelerate the company's efforts to give its business divisions more autonomy, a move designed to give it better oversight of data as well as allow for faster digital development.
If such a strategy is implemented, Collins said he would unlikely be replaced.
Collins joined Legal & General last August from EE, where he was director of digital.
The role was new to the financial company, introduced by then chief executive John Pollock. He retired earlier this year.
In addition to harnessing Collins’ digital experience, Pollock wanted to introduce a ‘customer-centric strategy’ having predominantly focused on driving brand awareness with the long-running 'Every day matters' proposition.
At the time of Collins' arrival, Legal & General's marketing spend was split across 90 agencies. He was quick to consolidate the advertising and media into two agency groups; WPP and Periscopix. Specifically, J Walter Thompson London, Wunderman and Mindshare were appointed to the creative and media accounts in May.
The Drum also understands that internal changes also saw a team formed around Collins which comprised a number of his former colleagues from EE.
Among them, David Bomphrey, formerly head of digital customer experience and operations at EE joined Legal & General in February this year as group digital and customer experience director. In May, Liz Harrison-Flynn was brought in to head up Legal & General’s digital operations, and finally Graham Lewis joined as digital programme manager after three years as programme manager at EE.
Those who reported directly to Collins will now fall under Mark Zinkula, chief executive of the investment management division, and Duncan Finch, managing director of insurance.
It is not known if Collins has another role to go to. He is currently board advisor at employee advocacy start-up SoAmpli which recently won a competition run by BT to present at TC3 conference in Silicon Valley later this year.
The Drum contacted Legal & General and was awaiting comment at the time of writing.