QBE Group has appointed former IAG CEO Mike Wilkins as chairman, effective from next month.

Mr Wilkins takes over from Marty Becker, who will retire from the board on April 30, ahead of the AGM in Sydney on May 7.

“I believe the time is now right for me to step down and for a new chairman to bring fresh ideas and perspectives to QBE,” Mr Becker said. “I am delighted the board has chosen Mike Wilkins to succeed me.”

Mr Wilkins led IAG for seven years and has more than 30 years’ experience in financial services. He has been a QBE board member since November 2016, chairs the insurer’s people and remuneration committee and sits on the audit, operations and technology committees.

He retired from the AMP board last week after playing a key role in steadying the financial services group during its tumultuous post-Hayne royal commission period.

Mr Wilkins joined AMP as a non-executive director a year after leaving IAG, and briefly became interim executive chairman when Acting CEO Craig Meller and chairman Catherine Brenner stepped down in 2018 due to scandals examined by the royal commission.

His business acumen first came in for widespread attention in 2003 when, as CEO of Royal & SunAlliance Australia-owned life insurer Tyndall he convinced his UK-based directors to let him float a new company keeping all the group’s business units together, rather than sell it piece by piece. The result was Promina, which Mr Wilkins sold to Suncorp three years later for $7.9 billion.

Mr Wilkins is also on the Medibank Private board and has previously served as a director of Alinta, Maple-Brown Abbott and The Geneva Association.