Aviva Investors' Versey: 'You cannot say 'the talent does not fit the role'

The Big Interview

When Euan Munro moved on from Aviva Investors last year after seven years at its helm, he left behind some big boots to fill. But successor Mark Versey felt more than ready to take over the role of CEO when the opportunity arose in January 2021.

"I was delighted," he tells Investment Week. "I had a really good view of what we needed to do for the business, and I had been on the executive committee here for seven years before this role. "It is very nice to be able to become a CEO when already knowing the business in its entirety, and having strong views on what we needed to change." Versey says his fresh ideas for the business had the full backing of group CEO Amanda Blanc and the PLC board, although he adds it was "very much billed as evolution, not revolution, because a lot of things were already going extremely well here". ...