Stuart Blake

Chair

Stuart has over 30 years’ experience in Financial Services and was Chief Executive at IAG Australia’s largest insurer and a Chief Executive at Wesfarmers accountable for brands including NRMA, RACV, SGIO, SGIC, Berkshire Hathaway, Myer, Steadfast, CGU, JB-HIFI, WFI and Coles.

Growing businesses

At Wesfarmers, Australia’s largest conglomerate with 200,000 employees, Stuart was Chief Executive of Coles Insurance; the fastest international insurance start-up in Australia going from 200,000 to 400,000 customers during Stuart's management. This Insurtech disruptor was ground-breaking and is the most successful non-traditional insurance brand in Australia.

Boards and Chairs

Stuart has also completed an Executive Leadership Program at Harvard Business
School and has been a board member on numerous Financial Services businesses. He chairs CCSI and an Australian owned FinTech operating in North America.

Leading business and cultural transformation

Stuart has transformed large scale operations with over 2,000 employees, been accountable for 4 start-ups totalling $1B in revenue and has extensive P&L, pricing and underwriting, distribution, strategy, risk and compliance and distribution experience including call centres, BPO, digital, branches and agencies.

Stuart specialises in cultural and business transformation, turnarounds, start-ups and low-cost value based disruptive business models, as well as evolving large incumbent organisations by driving purpose driven cultures that need to compete harder in an increasingly competitive environment.