AIA has recently announced the appointment of Rob McDonald to the Board of Sovereign, a business which it has recently acquired from Commonwealth Bank Group, following a search conducted by SEQEL Partners.

Sovereign is the leading life insurance business in New Zealand and has recently been acquired by AIA, the largest life insurance business in the Asia Pacific region. Sovereign has the strongest financial strength rating of any New Zealand insurer – A+. Rob will join a Board chaired by Theresa Gattung.

Prior to moving into the Non Executive Director space, Rob was one of New Zealand’s most high profile Chief Financial Officers, spending five years holding this position at Air New Zealand which covered information technology, strategy, core financials, legal, risk and compliance. He was an employee of Air New Zealand from 1993 until his departure in December 2017. Rob’s early career was as a senior manager at Coopers & Lybrand. As a Non Executive Director he sits on the boards of Contact Energy, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, and the Asia Pacific Advisory Board for Mastercard.

Rob holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Auckland, is a Chartered Accountant and also attended the Programme for Management Development at Harvard Business School in the late 90s.