The Asteron Life team

Geoff joined Suncorp in his current role in May 2008 following more than 20 years of property and financial services experience at Lend Lease, MLC and NAB. Prior to joining Suncorp he held senior executive roles in distribution and product management in NAB’s Business Bank, Strategy and Business Development for NAB’s Australia and Asia Region and was prior to that, CEO Retail Investments at MLC.

Geoff has refocused Asteron Life as a life insurance specialist and is driving shareholder value by becoming the leading life insurer to IFAs.

Sean was appointed Executive General Manager (EGM) of Product & Service for Suncorp Life in February 2012. In his role, he heads up the delivery of Product and Service within Suncorp Life’s Life and Superannuation and Investment functions. Those products are sold through two fully-focused channels: Adviser Distribution and Direct Customer. Product & Service also includes pricing, claims, underwriting, administration, call centre and reinsurance functions across the Suncorp Life business.

Sean was previously EGM of Suncorp Life New Zealand, responsible for the NZ based activities of the respected Asteron Life and AA Life brands. In that role, Sean’s focus was to strengthen the position of those brands in the Intermediated and Direct Risk markets, in a rapidly evolving and increasingly regulated market. Prior to that role, Sean was Managing Director of Asteron Life New Zealand, where he establed Asteron Life as a leader in the New Zealand market, building on a philosophy of mutually profitable relationships, integrity and strong customer focus.

Sean has a long history with Asteron Life and its predecessor companies, originally joining Sun Alliance in UK in 1988, before re-locating to Sydney in 1995 as Product Development Actuary. Since that time, Sean was Director, Life & Funds Management, Asia for Royal Sun Alliance, and from 2000 to 2004, General Manager, Life Risk for Asteron Life in Australia.

An actuary by training, Sean holds a Bachelor of Science with Honours (in Mathematics) and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (UK), Institute of Actuaries of Australia, and the New Zealand Society of Actuaries. 

Vicki Doyle leads Suncorp Life’s Direct Customer division. In her role, she is accountable for the value proposition and channel strategy to direct customers of both Life and Superannuation & Investment products.

Most recently, Vicki was EGM of Superannuation & Investments, responsible for Suncorp’s Super and Investments product and service offering, with $8bn Funds Under Advice (FUA) and more than 300,000 customers. Under Vicki’s stewardship the business has won several awards. The Suncorp Wealthsmart platform was ‘Best New Product’ finalist at the 2010 SuperRatings annual awards and winner of Best Public Relations campaign at ASFA’s 2010 Communication Awards.

Vicki has worked in senior roles at Commonwealth Bank, Colonial and Suncorp where her broad generalist experience covers Strategy, Distribution development, Product, e-Commerce and Process Re-engineering within both Wealth Management and Retail Banking.
Vicki holds an Executive MBA from Australian Graduate School of Management and a Diploma AICD Company Directors.

Jordan Hawke was appointed Executive General Manager, Adviser Distribution at Asteron Life in February 2012. In his role, he has responsibility for driving Intermediated distribution for Asteron Life, Guardian Advice, Standard Pacific and channel and dealer support services.

Jordan joined Asteron Life as General Manager in April 2008.

Jordan is a qualified accountant and has been in the Financial Services Industry for 26 years. He joined the industry with Legal & General, and held positions with a number of large financial services firms, including MLC and Tower, before joining Asteron Life.

Jordan is extremely passionate about the life insurance industry and since joining Asteron Life has grown the Asteron Life business and set a number of important initiatives in motion which promise to enhance this trend. 

Mark started with Asteron Life as Executive Manager Service and Innovation in January 2008. In his role Mark manages a large team of people including Life Customer Service and New Business, and has responsibility for a variety of service innovation projects.

Previous to joining Asteron Life, Mark held a number of senior service management roles in financial services firms, including AMP (1985-1995) and Tower Australia (2001-2007).

John joined Asteron Life in January 2004 as Underwriting and Technical Development Manager. He was appointed to the role of Executive Manager of Risk Assessment in May 2005.

John is responsible for Asteron Life’s underwriting functions within the Risk Assessment teams, located in each of Asteron Life's state branches. John is also responsible for managing Asteron Life’s Technical & Development teams, which researches and develops Asteron Life's underwriting guidelines and philosophies.

John has more than 20 years underwriting experience with the last 10 years spent in senior technical and managerial roles.

Donald joined Asteron Life in December 2009 in the role of Executive Manager Life Risk Marketing and Customer Strategy. In his role, Donald manages a team, which looks after marketing communications to support the Asteron Life distribution business, brand marketing and customer strategy. This involves data and analytics as well as the strategic management of the inforce book of business.

Donald’s background has been in consumer marketing over the last 20 years. He has also had extensive experience in using these skills in a number of financial services organisations to develop strong partnerships with distribution channels that place the customer at the centre and recognise the shared role in managing them from initial contact through to ongoing relationship development.

He has a passion for placing the customer and their needs at the core of business decisions and strategies.

Robyn joined Asteron Life in April 2006. She has more than 10 years experience in the financial services industry and brings to the role strong experience in sales development, helping develop sales strategies to grow advisers’ wealth and risk businesses.

Most recently she was Senior Manager of Dealerships for Asteron Life from April 2010, where she oversaw Asteron Life’s development of relationships with AFSLs, and implemented Asteron Life’s strategy at both a national and state level. Prior to that, she held the role of National Manager, Sales Strategy at Asteron Life, helping the group develop its online application service, Lifeguard EQ, and risk product Lifeguard.

Robyn has predominantly worked in Sales Development leading Asteron Life’s National Sales team, and was responsible for working closely with Asteron Life’s key AFSL groups to build strong relationships and help advisers grow their business.

She holds a Bachelor of Commerce, a Diploma of Financial Planning and is a Certified Financial Planner.

Mark Vilo has worked in the insurance and financial services industry for over 20 years, and has held a number of senior executive roles across product, marketing, underwriting and sales during this time.

Mark was appointed Executive Manager, National Sales in September 2010. He is an integral part of Asteron Life‘s management team, responsible for leading the organisation’s state sales teams to align Asteron Life’s activities to ASFLs’ strategies, and delivering on the overall adviser experience.

Prior to joining Asteron Life, Mark was Head of Key Account Management for ING, where he oversaw ING’s key account relationships and service-offering development for aligned and open market licensees. In that role his specific focus was on superannuation, investments and insurance. He joined this business in 2005 as head of their life risk product and marketing team.

Mark’s depth of experience across all aspects of the life risk market has equipped him with the focus and discipline needed to execute Asteron Life’s strategy aligned to independent financial advisers (IFAs).