Three senior appointments at Just Retirement

Equity release specialist Just Retirement has added three senior directors to its books. Mark Hawthorne has been named commercial director, Steve Lowe is the new director of external affairs and Peter Borley has been appointed director of change management.

Mr Hawthorne joins the company from Alico, where he was assistant general manager. He will focus on the design and development of all aspects of the group’s commercial offerings. Mr Hawthorne is a qualified actuary with around 15 years’ experience in all aspects of product development, pricing, distribution and marketing.

Mr Lowe joins Just Retirement from Living Time, where he was marketing director. He previously worked for Prudential as marketing director for intermediated business across Europe and the Middle East. Mr Lowe will take responsibility for public relations, public policy, industry coordination and knowledge leadership.

Mr Borley joins the firm from Skandia, having also served at Barclays Wealth. He will take responsibility for coordinating the development of the group’s business strategy and delivering the change investment programme.

Commenting on the appointments, group marketing and distribution director at Just Retirement, David Cooper, said: “Just Retirement continues to grow its already sizeable appetite to lead and improve financial services and solutions available to those at and in retirement.

“We will continue to drive innovation and set new standards for product design and solution development, both for intermediaries and their customers. This continues to form the core of Just Retirement’s strategy and to this end these three appointments are critical to achieving this.

“The three new appointees have been selected via a vigorous and in some cases lengthy process, deliberately so, to ensure that we have secured the best of the best.

“We are delighted to have been able to attract such talent which will assist us significantly in continuing to develop the business and meet our own stretching objectives and targets.”