Leading portfolio manager for life insurance portfolios recruits top-class IT and transformation expert for second development stage of the business model
Scaling and digitalisation will systematically open up the potentials of the growth-oriented model
After successful completion of the set-up phase, former CIO Markus Deimel at his own request has decided to take on a new challenge in his home country of Austria
The Viridium Group, a leading specialist in the efficient management of life insurance portfolios, has appointed Dr Martin Setzer (52) with effect from 1 April 2018 as its new Chief Information Officer (CIO). He succeeds Markus Deimel (51) who is leaving the Group at his own request when his contract comes to an end on 31 March 2018 and the set-up phase will have been successfully completed. He has decided to take on a new professional challenge in his home country of Austria. Viridium has attracted an expert in Martin Setzer with a proven track record and comprehensive experience in transformation who possesses a wealth of creative power to shape the next development phase of the Group. This phase will be defined by further scaling and digitalisation of the business model.
Markus Deimel guided the set-up of the group-wide platform architecture
Markus Deimel joined the Viridium Group (at the time known as Heidelberger Leben Group) when Skandia was acquired in October 2014 where, amongst other responsibilities, he had been the Board Member responsible for the national companies in Germany and Austria. In January 2015, he took over the position of Chief Information Officer at the Viridium Group. In his function as CIO, he set up a modern, future-proof IT infrastructure at Group level and guided several end-to-end migrations of life insurance portfolios to the new portfolio management platform based on standard software operated. Alongside IT, for some time Markus Deimel was also responsible for site administration and central purchasing.
“We would like to thank Markus Deimel for his significant contribution to the farreaching reconstruction of the Viridium Group, which has become established as a leading portfolio manager for life insurance portfolios. He has been working in a highly dynamic environment and has carried out enormously important set-up work for our growth-oriented business model with the integrated IT and portfolio management landscape. Markus Deimel leaves our Group by mutual agreement. We regret his departure and would like to take this opportunity to wish him all the best for his professional career and personal life,” commented Rolf-Peter Hoenen, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Viridium Holding AG.
Martin Setzer brings with him a proven track record of transformation experience
The future CIO Martin Setzer has many years of experience in senior management and a proven track record of expertise across the entire sphere of information technology and in managing complex digital transformation processes. Prior, he worked for Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW) where, as Chief Operating Officer (COO), he was responsible for a number of areas for several years, including information technology, banking operation, payment transactions, securities settlement, transformation management and most recently digitalisation strategy. Previously, Martin Setzer held various management positions at the Deutsche Bank Group over a number of years until the beginning of 2012. Most recently, he managed IT integration at Postbank as Head of IT Transformation. The future CIO of Viridium completed his university studies in Germany and France, and obtained a degree in industrial engineering and a Master of Science in Economics. He then obtained a doctorate with Professor emeritus Bert Rürup at the Institute for Finance and Economic Policy, Darmstadt Technical University.
“Together with my team on the Executive Board, I am looking forward to cooperating closely with Martin Setzer on our ambitious and exciting journey. Over the coming years, the focus will be specifically on systematically developing the potentials offered by digitalisation for our efficiency-based portfolio management model and purposefully leading our Group into its second development phase. The customers of our insurance companies are intended to benefit specifically through the establishment and expansion of web-based service offerings over the medium and long term, explained Dr Heinz-Peter Roß, Chief Executive Officer of the Viridium Group.
