Snyders takes reins at Mutual & Federal

Todd‚ who has run the company since February 2011‚ is the second top executive to leave Mutual & Federal in about four months.

In February this year the company's then finance director Dheven Dharmalingam‚ who had been appointed in September 2011‚ resigned.

Todd who leaves to "pursue other business interests" is expected to stay on for three months to ensure a smooth handover to Snyders.

Mutual & Federal chairman Mike Harper said that Todd had played a key role in bringing in good people who helped strengthen the information technology platform. He credited Todd for simplifying the organisational structure and for building a customer centric culture.

Mandate

Harper said that Snyders‚ the had a good understanding of the broker market and was the ideal person to "lead the Mutual & Federal business into its next phase of growth"‚ which included expansion into the rest of Africa alongside parent company Old Mutual.

Snyders was the chief operating officer and head of distribution for Old Mutual's Africa operations. He has been with Old Mutual for about 23 years.

Harper said the mandate of the new Mutual & Federal chief executive was to ensure the company continued to invest in the commercial market and work with the South African broker market.

Harper said there was a need for Mutual & Federal to build its personal lines business as this had shrunk over the years.

Harper will also have to meet Old Mutual's expectation that iWyze‚ Mutual & Federal's direct insurer‚ breaks even by 2015.

In order to bolster its operations‚ Harper said that Mutual & Federal was appointing three internal people to its executive committee to head the personal‚ commercial and corporate divisions‚ a move aimed at creating more control of the respective divisions.

"This enables us to give a much stronger focus on getting quality growth‚" Harper said.