Meet the team leading Tower day-to-day
Blair Turnbull
Chief Executive Officer
Blair has 20 plus years’ experience in the financial services industry, largely focused on insurance in New Zealand, Asia Pacific and the United Kingdom.
Most recently, Blair was Managing Director, UK Digital, UK & International with Aviva Group, and prior to that, was Executive General Manager, Wealth and Insurance at ASB Bank.
Blair brings extensive international experience to Tower’s business, with a proven global track record in large-scale digital and data innovation, and delivering disruptive, customer-focused models.
Paul Johnston
Chief Financial Officer
With 25 years’ experience across multiple industries, particularly in the insurance and financial services sectors, Paul brings extensive international, strategic, and operational finance expertise to Tower.
Before joining Tower, Paul was based in Tokyo as the Chief Financial Officer and Far East Region Director for Chubb, one of the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance companies.
Prior to this, Paul spent almost sixteen years in in the UK with Chubb, AIG, Nomura Investment Bank and Deloitte.
Sharyn Reichstein
Chief Risk Officer
Sharyn joined Tower in July 2023. She is an experienced executive who brings a wealth of knowledge in enterprise risk management, corporate governance, financial regulation, financial risk, and risk management to Tower.
Prior to taking up the Chief Risk Officer role, Sharyn held the position of General Manager, General Insurance, for the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), where she was responsible for the regulation and supervision of the general insurance industry in Australia. She was also the Chair of APRA's General Insurance Industry Group, scanning the risk environment and setting strategic responses to industry issues.
With extensive experience in supervision of the financial sector, spanning banking, insurance, and superannuation, Sharyn is highly skilled in stress testing, policy development, supervision frameworks, and corporate strategy.
Michelle Finch
Chief Revenue, Marketing & Brand Officer
Michelle has a strong background in financial services comprising marketing, product, digital, and growth roles over 23 years, in both New Zealand and South Africa. Michelle joined Tower in 2021, prior to her appointment as Chief Revenue, Marketing & Brand Officer, she led Tower's marketing and customer experience design initiatives, which have cemented Tower as a progressive and customer focused brand.
Before Tower, Michelle led Westpac NZ's consumer segment's tribe, an agile business unit (100+ team members) focused on creating and delivering end to end customer solutions. Prior to that, Michelle held a number of senior product and marketing leadership positions with Westpac, IAG, and First National Bank South Africa.
Andrew Hambleton
Chief Administrative Officer
Andrew has more than 20 years' HR and financial services experience, both in New Zealand and globally. Prior to joining Tower, Andrew held a number of senior HR and business roles with Blackrock in New York and Hong Kong.
As Chief Operating Officer of Blackrock Asia Pacific, he provided executive leadership across all operations, technology, major projects, business continuity, and transformation. Previously he held a number of global and regional human resource executive leadership roles leading a global HR transformation and played a key role in helping to embed and develop Blackrock's talent, culture, and values, with a strong focus on diversity and inclusion.
Prior to this, Andrew held a number of senior HR leadership roles for ANZ in Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Steve Wilson
Chief Claims Officer
Steve brings more than 20 years’ of insurance experience to Tower, specifically in large operations throughout Australia and Asia. He joins Tower after five years at QBE Insurance, where he served as the Regional Head of Claims for Asia, across Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Pacific Islands.
Prior to working at QBE, Steve worked for IAG for over 17 years, in both the Australian and Asian markets.
Ron Mudaliar
Chief Underwriting Officer
Ron joined Tower as Head of Underwriting in October 2016 with more than 30 years' experience in the insurance industry in New Zealand, London and India. Ron's previous roles include executive management of large operational teams (150+), risk and compliance overview of operational and sales teams, NZ Integration Lead for merger of two large Australian general insurers and managing large portfolios of intermediated and partner businesses.
Ron has led business ownership of large transformation programmes predominantly for migration of legacy business to new products and platforms.
Anna Kooperberg
Chief Customer Experience Officer
Anna brings experience in marketing, digital, customer and growth to Tower, primarily from the telecommunications and entertainment industries. Prior to her Chief Customer Experience Officer appointment, Anna was instrumental in enhancing Tower's digital customer experience, having spent time leading Tower's marketing function and developing our purchase and self-service experiences.
As Chief Customer Experience Officer, she now leads our digital and telephony customer experiences, from sales right through to claims.
Before Tower, Anna held a number of senior brand, marketing and partnership roles in New Zealand, Australia and the UK, with the likes of Netflix, Spark Sport, Spark, and Virgin Media.