A fresh take on change management and succession
Change management and succession planning are integral to building resilient, sustainable financial services businesses. In a volatile operating environment, these practices help firms take economic, financial or political disruptions in their stride, regardless of sector or size.
Changes at the top
Tandiwe Cimela, who recently stepped into the role of executive at Elite Risk Acceptances following the retirement of Tarina Vlok, offered some valuable leadership and risk management insights during a presentation at the recent #InsureTalk 61 webinar. “Succession planning has to be done with intent, continuously,” she said. “The organisation, our markets, our intermediaries and our partners need to understand that there is a business continuity plan.”
A successful leadership transition involves an ongoing balance between the legacy built by a departing executive and confidence that a replacement has been identified and stands ready to carry the brand into the future. This enables the firm to manage a leadership transition, whatever event sets it in motion. “The change management process is not something that happens as a reaction to a pending retirement,” Cimela said. “It is part of the business plan that allows us to fulfil a strategy over the long-term.”
Elite was able to sidestep some of the biggest risks in succession planning by following an open, transparent process that was sensibly communicated throughout the business. The high-net-worth (HNW) insurance solutions provider has the added benefit of institutional support from Old Mutual Insure and, more broadly, Old Mutual. The sheer size of the operation perhaps gives it an edge in identifying and nurturing future leaders; but this should not deter smaller businesses from a similar approach.
Leaning into the King Codes
Cimela singled out governance and risk management as tools in daily use in her leadership role before crediting the King principles of sustainability and continuity for the smooth leadership transition at Elite.
Specifically, principles seven and eight deal with delegation of authority, leadership development pipelines and succession planning. Those themes carry through into King V, South Africa’s latest corporate governance code, which frames good governance around ethical culture; performance and value creation; conformance and prudent control; and legitimacy.
“The King codes remind us that leadership goes beyond continuity of people to continuity of purpose, values and decisions,” Cimela said. She added that leaders who were able to anticipate change, create pipelines of skilled people and focus on the softer ‘art’ of resilience were integral to building businesses that could withstand change. The trick is to create an institutional default steeped in business continuity ideals, freeing up business decision-makers to consider operational opportunities and threats.
There are threats aplenty circa 2026, notably in an ever-changing geopolitical world. As your writer penned this piece, the US and Iran were still trying to thrash out a solution to the weeks-long blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, while in an unrelated turn of events, there was another shooting in close proximity to US President Donald Trump. The fact that we simply mention this in passing illustrates how messy the current macroeconomic environment is.
Far-reaching geopolitical impact
Cimela said that each geopolitical event had a potential impact on the global economy and on insurers. Against the backdrop of the Russia-Ukraine war, the Iran-Israel-US conflict or ‘insert the next crisis here’, insurers are left asking: How will this impact us? How will this filter through to our operations? How does this affect our third-party suppliers and our relationships with them? And how will this impact our service to policyholders?
Elite and Old Mutual Insure have already started to feel inflationary pressures across the short-term insurance supply chain, resulting in higher claims and claims servicing costs. But the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) alongside other emerging technologies is also reframing insurers’ operational postures. “We are conducting business in a world that is experiencing rapid change,” Cimela said, later adding that the adoption of AI and automation by insurers was almost a foregone conclusion.
Management teams must leverage their leadership transition and succession planning know-how to anticipate and respond to future developments. The key message here: Change is a constant, as is uncertainty.
Human empathy, ethics and judgement
“The human touch must be at the forefront of our AI push,” Cimela said. “We cannot change the mass adoption or implementation of AI, but we can show that the related decision-making, ethics and judgment are driven by humans.” The win-win for advisers, customers and product providers is to allow AI and automation to deliver efficiencies at scale while freeing up humans to do what they do best, which is to establish and reinforce trusted relationships at each point in the value chain.
The presenter celebrated #InsureTalk, now in its sixth year, as an example of how opportunities grow from adversity. Founded out of a need for ‘business as usual’ during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and consequent national lockdown, this initiative has grown to offer relevant insurance content, virtually, to a growing cohort of insurance sector employees. Change, albeit uncomfortable or unfamiliar, presents opportunities.
Promoting from within has its benefits in that new leaders are familiar with the history of the business. Cimela joined the business as chief operating officer (COO) in May 2022, allowing her four years to work closely with the MD and other executives through an extremely trying period. Insurer margins were under pressure in the years following the pandemic. Aside from dealing with slow economic growth, most insurers had to take tough remedial action as loss ratios weakened due to climate volatility.
Operational stability
Cimela offered a long list of factors that helped the insurance business back to operational stability, including aligning with best market and regulatory practices and leveraging group data to achieve price optimisation. “We have seen the benefits of pricing optimisations [including] improvements in both our new business and renewal pricing,” she said. Access to data allows for faster decisions and claims turnaround times, and gives insurers an edge in risk profiling and anticipating future challenges.
Elite endured the hard insurance cycle of 2020-2023 before posting a record performance in 2024, and again in 2025. The presentation carried the audience through the storms and volatility of COVID, civil unrest and climate volatility to the relative calm of a profitable sector waiting for the next disruption, whether that be the unanticipated shock of higher oil prices due to the Middle East conflict or the forecast impact of AI and automation across economies and industries over the coming years.
Confidence to act
“Stability creates confidence to act,” Cimela concluded. “We have gone through climate volatility, and we are anticipating AI adoption; but because we have already invested in automation and data, we have the confidence to act.”
Writer’s thoughts:
Change management and succession planning are often treated as boardroom issues, yet they should be part of the daily discipline of running a resilient financial or risk advice practice. How confident are you that your business could absorb a leadership change or market disruption? Please comment below, interact with us on X at @fanews_online or email us your thoughts [email protected].
