Our Executives

Toby Strauss joined Lloyds Banking Group as Group Director for Insurance on 3 October 2011. Toby will lead Insurance as a whole and take the role as MD of the Life, Pensions and Investments business.

Toby was UK Life CEO at Aviva and prior to this he was Chief Operating Officer for UK Life, having joined Aviva in 2008. 

He previously worked at Charcol, becoming Managing Director before moving to JS & P as Chief Executive. Before to 2002, Toby spent a number of years at McKinsey, specialising in the financial services and technology sectors.

Robert Fletcher joined Scottish Widows in January 2007, prior to this he spent 26 years with Aviva where he held a range of senior commercial marketing and distribution roles. Robert’s previous experience includes working across a range of different distribution models which allowed him to have a good understanding of the retail financial services market.

Robert has managed significant sales teams in his previous roles in both direct and intermediated markets, developed profitable distribution and marketing strategies both direct and in partnerships with other organisations.

He’s been an active member of the Chartered Insurance Institute for several years and has recently been appointed as Chair of the Faculty of Life and Pensions.

Robert is married with two daughters currently attending university and a 15 year old son.

Simon Massey has a 23 year track record in IFA sales, joining Commercial Union as a trainee consultant in 1986. During his career he has managed sales teams around the UK relocating to Belfast, Manchester, London and York to further his career. A common theme through all of his previous roles is a strong track record of leadership and delivery.

He has experience of two Life company integrations and on both occasions he was involved specifically in IFA sales force integration and post integration launch activity.

He has led the due diligence work on a platform acquisition and subsequently directed the strategic approach to market entry and day to day sales delivery of the platform

More recently, he has built strong multi-level corporate relationships with key strategic partners as well as a building a good personal reputation within the accounts.

He is a member of Personal Finance Society (PFS) by Diploma (Advanced Financial Planning Certificates (AFPC) .

Donald Mackechnie joined Lloyds TSB Group in January 2006 as the Financial and Operational Risk Director for I&I Division.

In his new role as Risk Director, Donald is responsible for leading the team that provides support and challenge across our business to ensure that we manage risk in a manner consistent with our objectives and risk appetite.

Prior to Lloyds TSB, Donald worked for Ernst & Young in a risk management consulting role which involved working on corporate transactions, providing regulatory advice and managing risk related process improvements across a variety of institutions. Donald has also worked for Arthur Andersen and the FSA.

Donald is married with two young children.

Kate is a career HR Professional with over 20 years experience across four different industrial sectors in six companies.  She began her career with M&S in retail, spent 12 years in the drinks industry including 20 years with Diageo.   She has since worked in Global Pharmaceuticals before moving to LloydsTSB.

Kate has extensive experience across all HR disciplines including talent management, resourcing, organisation development, learning and reward.  She combines this with a very commercial approach to aligning HR strategy to business strategy.

Paul Penney is ultimately responsible for IT provision across the whole of the Lloyds Banking Group’s Insurance division. In addition Paul will extend his current reach to include the Business Strategic Change organisations across Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical / Halifax Life.

Paul joined HBOS in February 2005. For the past three years he has been IT Director for Insurance & Investments Division, supporting the HBOS General Insurance, Investments & Bancassurance businesses.

His focus throughout has been four-fold; establishing a strong reputation for delivering to time, cost and specification; providing a consistently excellent level of production stability; continuously improving IT’s value for money; and ensuring total alignment between the IT & Business strategies. In all of these ambitions he has been hugely successful.

Prior to HBOS, Paul was Vice President, International Platform Delivery, with American Express. Based in Singapore, he was responsible for the technology development across a large number of international markets focussed on the growth of the American Express Consumers Financial Services business.

Gregor is Divisional Finance Director for the Insurance Division. He joined the Group in 2009 after 24 years with Ernst & Young, 10 of these as a partner, where he developed a deep and broad understanding of financial services businesses.

Gregor specialised in insurance and asset management, auditing some of the largest FS groups in the UK, and was a member of the firms’ UK Financial Services Advisory Leadership team. In addition to his focus on the local FS marketplace, Gregor has lived and worked in London (1999–2004) and Sydney (1996–1997). Gregor’s time in Sydney was focused on the demutualisation and listing of AMP, Australia’s largest FS group. He has supported many corporate finance transactions including acquisitions, disposals and IPOs.