Board Digest - December 2024
Publication date:
17 December 2024
Last updated:
03 January 2025
Our final Board meeting of 2024 began with the transfer of Presidential office, from Ian Callaghan to Nicola Stacey. Every CII President chooses a theme for their year, and we thanked Ian for all he had done to give member voices additional resonance during his tenure – including through the dozens of domestic and international events in which he participated and through his column in The Journal.
Nicola has chosen to extend Ian’s theme during her tenure as the 113th President of the CII, and she will actively engage with members to encourage career development among younger members and those new to the profession.
On that note, the first item of Board business on this occasion was to approve our new People Strategy, consistent with achieving our purpose-led mission. The plan is comprehensive and ambitious and will ensure the CII is able to attract and secure the talent we need to support our values and strategy. Its agreement was the precursor to signing-off our business plan and budget, which establish how we will prioritise our activities and most appropriately deploy our resources in 2025, consistent with the themes set out in our five-year Strategic Plan.
An important element of our plan is how we intend to grow internationally. Raising professional standards is important for building and maintaining public trust in insurance and financial planning around the world, and we discussed how we could choose to flex our offer to meet the needs of local markets. We also received an update on the regulatory decisions and legal developments in the Middle East, where the value of professional qualifications – particularly those of the CII – is being emphasised in several countries across the region. Ensuring that our technical content and qualifications remain world-class was the subject of our next paper, with our intent to build stronger relationships with our students and learning providers over coming years. We will scope changes to our provision during the first half of 2025 that will ensure we maximise the benefits that flow from our Professional Map and so that we deliver even better experiences for our members and customers in future. We subsequently received an update of our ongoing review of Corporate Chartered status rules. We discussed the importance of ensuring broad consultation with stakeholders and agreed that this should begin in the New Year.
In other business, the Board was informed of appointments to our two new Executive Director positions – for Markets and Opportunities, and Strategy, Advocacy and Professional Standards – after a rigorous recruitment process. We will introduce them to members as they take up their positions in 2025. We also reflected on this year’s AGM, and how we might encourage greater member participation in subsequent events. We concluded by hearing the reports of our Board committees and agreeing some necessary changes to our governance framework to ensure it continues to reflect best practice.
With Board business complete for another year, it just leaves me to thank all our 120,000 members for their continued support and to wish you all a very pleasant Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The CII Board will hold a Strategy Day in February, with our first Board meeting in late March.
Dr Helen Phillips
Chair, CII Group Board