She had a decade of experience at Aviva and was part of the team who launched equal parental leave
Aviva has announced that its global inclusion director, Jan Gooding, is leaving to pursue a non-executive career.
Jonny Briggs, global talent acquisition lead, will continue to look after the inclusion team on an interim basis.
A spokesperson for the firm said: “We are sorry to say goodbye to Jan and we wish her well for the future. Diversity and inclusion remain an absolute priority for Aviva.”
Equal parental leave
Gooding told Insurance Times that she “hugely enjoyed” the role, but overall she is ”most proud” of being part of the team that introduced equal parental leave in five markets a year ago which included Canada, Ireland, UK, France and Singapore.
She explained that Aviva ”deliberately launched equal parental leave for markets because it gives fathers exactly the same pay at mothers and that includes same sex parenting, surrogacy.”
And she thinks this might just be the “silver bullet” when it comes to closing the gender pay gap.
Gooding said of her time working in insurance: ”It’s a very interesting area otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed in it so long.”
She has undertaken a number of roles including group brand director from 2008 to 2015 and lead its diversity and inclusion agenda since 2016 spanning.
Prior to this she held a marketing director role at British Gas and a communications position at BT.
Plural career
In a LinkedIn post today Gooding shared a status which said: ”Yes its true that I have left Aviva after ten fulfilling years in order to pursue my dream of a ‘plural’ career.
”I already miss my wonderful and committed colleagues but I am excited about what the future may hold.”
She elaborated on “plural career” expalining that it meant she hoped to broaden three buckets. The first being to continue to speak and write on diversity and inclusion amongst other things, secondly to go back to working within in brand strategy and marketing and lastly to expand her non-executve director portfolio.
Gooding will also continue as chair of the board of Pamco and as president of the Market Research Society.
It was revealed recently that Aviva is investing heavily in its claims division to pioneer the supposed ’Lemonade model’ of instant claims payment into the mainstream.
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