The Allianz marketing chief's departure follows a restructure of the marketing, customer, and insights teams under the group’s recently installed consumer chief, Shez Ford, who officially took up the reins as Allianz chief general manager of consumer in August. 

Ford’s remit extends across Allianz’s Consumer Division, and focuses on the distribution of consumer products through direct and intermediated channels, together with organisational centres of excellence for marketing, digital and customer insights. She replaced Mick Winter, who had held the newly created for just over two years but had over 20 years’ experience at Allianz Australia. At the time, Allianz Australia, Managing Director, Richard Feledy highlighted Ford’s deep industry experience as well as data credentials as particularly useful to the task at hand. 

In a statement, Allianz confirmed to Mi3 that it had made changes to the consumer division that had realigned functional capability and resulted in Davidson’s departure. 

Effective 4 December, Ford has now appointed another experienced financial services marketing and data executive, Laura Halbert, as general manager for customer strategy and marketing. Like Ford, Halbert comes from CommBank, where she spent more than three years, including the last 18 months as general manager of data and analytics across the retail banking portfolio. 

Prior to this, Halbert was with ANZ, where she spent two-and-a-half years as GM of strategy, marketing, and personalisation.

“We recently made changes to our Consumer Division at Allianz bringing together our marketing and customer strategy, insights, and programs teams into one team, known as our Customer Strategy and Marketing Centre of Excellence,” Allianz told Mi3 in a statement. “This is an important step in our ambitious journey delivering great customer outcomes, driven by customer obsession, data-led insights, and digital innovation. 

As a result of this change, Renee Davidson recently left Allianz after an exceptional 18 months as general manager, marketing. During her time with Allianz, Renee was instrumental in the rollout of various successful brand and marketing initiatives across Allianz Australia. We thank Renee for her phenomenal leadership and significant contribution at Allianz and wish her all the best of luck in the future.”

Davidson’s tenure saw her instigating several brand programs, including the launch of Allianz Swim Club this year, a program aimed at helping adults learn how to swim in Australia. The first round commences on 12 February 2024. Davidson has also been at the helm during the FIFA Women’s World Cup at Allianz Stadium and bringing Sydney’s Moor Park under the Allianz Stadium moniker, and the debut of the Ready brand positioning and campaign in June this year. The latter campaign was created in partnership with Howatson+Company as the creative agency and Spark Foundry as its former media partner and ran across three hero films, broadcast, digital, print, and outdoor media advertising. 

Davidson told Mi3 she’s now taking the opportunity to find a role back in her hometown of Brisbane. Prior to joining Allianz, she spent seven years at RACQ, including the last 18 months as general manager of marketing and membership. 

The news of Davidson’s departure comes off the back of news that GroupM has now become Allianz’s new global and local media partner, with its division, Wavemaker, the lead agency at an Australian level.