Phoenix Group, a leading savings and retirement business, announces the appointment of Sara Thompson as Group HR Director Designate with immediate effect.

Sara will be taking over from Stephen Jefford, who is stepping down from the Group HR Director role having been with Phoenix Group for four years.

Sara has spent her entire career in HR and has worked for many large multinationals, initially in the IT and telecom sectors, before building up considerable experience in Financial Services, including roles with Royal Sun Alliance, Barclays and, more recently, Aviva, where she was People Director of UK Insurance. She has also run her own consultancy.

Although the UK is now her base, Sara has worked in Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Latin America and the US. Between 2005 and 2009 Sara lived and worked in South Africa where she led the people aspects of the integration of Absa Bank in to Barclays.

Sara will report in to Phoenix Group CEO Andy Briggs who comments:

“Sara brings a wealth of experience to our business and is particularly passionate about our inclusion agenda and shaping our workforce for the future. I am delighted she has chosen to join our organisation as we become the UK’s largest provider of life and pension products once our acquisition of ReAssure is complete.

“Our people are our priority and they are what make a successful business. That’s become especially evident as we have worked to respond to Covid-19. Our HR function has been an important enabler in our strategic approach, and I’m very proud of how all our people have responded to the challenge, to support each other and to ensure we can continue to serve our customers.

“Stephen Jefford was due to step down last year, but stayed with the business to see through senior succession, delivery of our new colleague proposition, and the HR aspects of the anticipated ReAssure transaction. I’d like to thank Stephen for everything he has helped us achieve since joining Phoenix and wish him all the very best with his future plans.”

Commenting on joining Phoenix, Sara Thompson says:

“With a fundamental role in society, supporting the needs of our savings and retirement customers, Phoenix has a clear strategy and an exciting agenda that I’m looking forward to driving forward. I’m passionate about the role that HR will continue to play in delivering this strategy and future growth. Phoenix is already consistently recognised as a top performing employer. At this time of Covid-19, the priority is making sure employees are fully supported in a very different environment. As a business we have an opportunity to learn from this experience and continue to evolve our model to be the best place for people to work in the future too. I’m looking forward to this challenge and what we can achieve.”

Sara will begin working with Stephen on a handover in the weeks ahead, before taking up the role as Group HRD

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Enquiries

Rachel Esland
Phoenix Group
07892 705093
Rachel.esland@thephoenixgroup.com

Notes to editors

About Phoenix Group

Phoenix Group is the largest specialist consolidator of heritage life assurance funds in Europe. Its main focus has traditionally been on closed life fund consolidation where it specialises in the acquisition and management of closed life insurance and pension funds (its heritage business).

Alongside this, it has an open business which manufactures and underwrites new products and policies to support people saving for their future and when they come to retire. This open business is underpinned by a strategic partnership with Standard Life Aberdeen following the Phoenix Group’s acquisition of Standard Life Assurance Limited in 2018. Standard Life Assurance is a long-established expert in workplace pensions, personal pensions, long term savings and retirement solutions, and its customers and clients include individual savers and some of the largest employers in the UK, as well as professional advisers. Phoenix Group also has a market leading brand - SunLife - which sells a range of financial products specifically for the over 50s market.

Phoenix Group is a member of the FTSE 100 index, and has 10 million policyholders and £248 billion of assets under management (as at 31St December 2019). It has four operating life companies and operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany