Management shake-up at Talanx as top exec reveals career change

Christopher Lohmann, the board of management member responsible for  Talanx’s retail business Germany, including its property/casualty insurance, is stepping down at his “own request to pursue a career change” triggering a leadership reshuffle at the top.

Lohmann, who is also Talanx’s CIO and CEO of HDI Deutschland AG, has “decided to take my career in a new direction” while remaining a supervisory board member of Neodigital AG. Lohmann will hand over his responsibilities at Talanx to Jens Warkentin (Pictured).

Warkentin will join Talanx AG’s board of management, becoming head of the retail Germany division and CEO of HDI Deutschland AG from January 1, 2023. Thorsten Pauls will become CFO of HDI Germany.

Warkentin will also become the Talanx board of management’s chief information officer with responsibility for IT at its primary insurance operations within Germany. He has been CFO for the Talanx Group’s retail Germany division since October 2018, and has also performed certain CEO duties on an interim basis. Prior to joining Talanx, he was chief operating officer at AXA Germany.

Pauls has previously been CFO of the Talanx Group’s bancassurance companies – TARGO Lebensversicherung AG, TARGO Versicherung AG, neue leben Lebensversicherung AG, neue leben Unfallversicherung AG, PB Lebensversicherung AG and PB Versicherung AG – since 2018. He has been head of HDI Germany’s risk management operations since 2014.

Before joining the Talanx Group, Lohmann was CEO of Gothaer Allgemeine Versicherung AG and a member of the management boards of Gothaer Versicherungsbank VVaG and Gothaer Finanzholding AG. Prior to that he worked for Allianz for 18 years, where he was head of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty’s industrial lines business in Central and Eastern Europe, and managed Allianz Deutschland AG’s Cologne branch operations and its Munich sales office, including its banking partnerships.

“After nearly 24 years in operational management, as a board of management member and CEO at major insurers in the German-speaking regions of Europe, I would like to pursue a career change”, Lohmann declared. “I am grateful for the wealth of experience I have been lucky enough to acquire in the management positions I have held. I am now looking forward to contributing and passing on my knowledge of areas such as corporate transformation and digitalisation in a different role. I would like to thank the Talanx Group for its trust in me and for the entrepreneurial freedom that I had. It was a real pleasure to manage a motivated team and to work with Jens Warkentin on developing it further. The last three years were extremely satisfying.”

Herbert K. Haas, Talanx AG’s supervisory board chairman, thanked Lohmann for his service: “Dr Lohmann has enhanced the Retail Germany Division as a unit and given it a new strategic direction. This applies to both property insurance and life insurance. We would like to thank him for this and wish him all the best for the future, both professionally and personally.

“I would like to wish Jens Warkentin every success in his new role. He has extensive experience in all areas of the insurance business and will use this to achieve the division’s ambitious goals.”

Torsten Leue, chairman of the board of management of Talanx AG and chairman of the supervisory board of HDI Deutschland AG, said: “Christopher Lohmann has grown our share of the property insurance market and established innovative partnerships such as the one with Neodigital. We would also like to thank him for ensuring that our life insurance business is fit for the future. I wish him all the best, both for the exciting period that is now starting as he examines his future career opportunities, and for the period after that.

“I am also very much looking forward to working together with Jens Warkentin. He will continue to progress the realignment of the division launched with our GO25 strategy and further add to it with his substantial strategic, operational and sales expertise. Equally, I would like to wish Thorsten Pauls every success in his new role. He will make an important contribution to profitable growth at the division.”

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