People: Rodney Cook
Lifting the skirt at AMP.
Sunday, March 21st 1999, 12:00AM
Outgoing head of AMP New Zealand Rodney Cook is proud of the renovations and of his ground floor office (he traded in a harbour view for city scenes and a stud height of well over 15 feet), and yet he stops well short himself of the traditional. General manager since May 1996, he has succeeded in revitalising the old dowager in a relatively short space of time - or, as he puts it, getting Mother Amicus to lift up her skirts.
Sporting an elegant dark suit resplendent with tiny red dots the day I interviewed him, Cook played down his own achievements in favour of the team effort and was anxious not to imply criticism of the company’s previous general manager Alan Harwood.
However, the fact remains that he moved swiftly to overhaul the senior management team and to revamp AMP’s whole approach to customers.
" For me, I saw the great potential that Mother Amicus had. While she was mature and matronly, we all knew she had great potential to lift up her skirts and really make an impact in the New Zealand market."
The challenge was to revitalise a massive organisation which had been in New Zealand since 1849. As a first step towards achieving that cultural shift, Cook injected new talent from outside AMP into senior management positions.
"Mike O’Donnell (communications) came from the forestry industry, the marketing manager was from electricity, head of sales was from probation and hydro-electric dams.... They were people with different backgrounds but all with a strong focus on the customer, and I’ve been able to watch them develop the new culture."
That has involved turning around the way the financial services company manages and markets itself. In broad terms, that meant thinking of customers by segment rather than as an amorphous mass and viewing customers as experiencing life stages and events that create changing needs - then tailoring products and services to suit.
Last year’s demutualisation and listing also went a long way to shake up not only the internal culture but also the public perception of AMP.
"While all the large amount of work behind demutualisation was hidden from the public, we couldn’t have had a more exciting ’98," Cook says.
"To be the head of AMP when you are generating new wealth for 274,000 New Zealanders is great, even if the phones did go wild!"
He maintains that the way to lead a company through dramatic change is to have "an absolute focus on communication".
"But in the end, it’s delivering on your promises to customers that’s the only way to win."
Just how those customers are serviced is the next issue. AMP had mixed success with its offshoot Ergo, ‘a newborn’ when Cook took charge, finding that people were happy to buy mortgage and term deposit-type products over the phone but to purchase more complex investments.
Asked what distribution channels he envisages for AMP in future, Cook turns the question round.
"In the future, we will sell business whatever way customers want to buy it.
"We will expand into other methods of distribution, but not by giving away our face-to-face nationwide network of around 350 advisers. Obviously we continue to explore the Internet: our site has been established since my time here.
"The other (avenue) is to start dealing with brokers and independent financial planners: we now have 50 broking companies signed up with us.
"A branch network we won’t have. We will have Internet, telephones, direct mail, and face to face through advisers and brokers."
Having shaken but not stirred, Cook will shortly hand over the top job and head for London in time for an April 12 start as Director Group Finance and Development in the UK.
AMP currently has a small office in London and a cluster of businesses including Pearl; Virgin Direct (a joint venture with Richard Branson); insurance company London Life, Hendersons and recent purchase National Provident Institution. Cook is charged with overseeing the demutualisation and integration of NPI and with developing some extra synergies between the businesses.
"In time, I’ll look at other operations in the UK and Europe. Potentially, there’ll be more acquisitions, but my plate is pretty full with managing the NPI demutualisation."
He will also continue to serve as a member of the government’s Superannuation 2000 Taskforce, which was only formed in December.
"It’s very exciting news from my perspective, that the Government and the taskforce chairman Angela Foulkes would like me to continue in London. I wish to remain an active contributor, giving an international perspective."
During Cook’s 20 years with AMP he has held a number of positions connected with superannuation, the most recent being as Chief Manager AMP Corporate Superannuation based in Sydney. He has already been sought out for comment on New Zealand’s compulsory retirement savings debate.
"The important message I would give is that we do have an opportunity to develop a stable, long-term process that the community can respond to. I don’t think that the community realises that, if we don’t do anything, in 15 years’ time there’ll be some nasty surprises for the next generation of taxpayers.
"The exciting difference between this (taskforce) and all the people that have thought about this before is that we have been given a blank piece of paper to come up with a solution. We’ve not just been asked whether New Zealand Super is sustainable.
"Our focus is on fairness between generations, and we’re looking at five different things: what is the role of the individual, the family, the whanau, of businesses and of the community. So far, everyone has focussed on the community (ie: taxpayers) so there are four other categories to consider."
"New Zealand has a real problem, and we have a responsibility to help people with the solution," Cook says.
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