Medibank customer chief promoted to CEO

Medibank Private has promoted its chief customer officer, David Koczkar, to the top job following the retirement of Craig Drummond.

Koczkar has been with the ASX-listed health insurance fund for seven years, joining as chief operating officer before taking on the group executive, chief customer officer post in September 2016. He was briefly acting CEO between April and June 2016.

As customer officer, he’s been responsible for Medibank’s consumer businesses, including the health and diversified insurance portfolios, Live Better and the ahm business.  This has encompassed Medibank’s member health programs, all customer touchpoints, including retail, phone and digital channels, and the sales and marketing, customer analytics and portfolio management functions.

Prior to joining Medibank, Koczkar was the group chief commercial officer of Jetstar and spent over a decade with the airline. His 25 years’ experience also includes strategy and management roles with Arthur Andersen Business Consulting and ING.

Koczkar officially steps up to CEO on 17 May 2021 on an annual salary package of $1.5 million. Medibank chairman, Mike Wilkins, said as chief customer officer, Koczkar has played an instrumental role in the growth and repositioning of Medibank.

Over the last four years, Medibank has been working to broaden its healthcare offering and improve its customer experience credentials. Key to this quest have been delivering differentiated products and services for customers; continuing to improve healthcare value for customers; and expand the offering for customers and grow the business.

Along the way, these strategies have seen Medibank launch a loyalty program, overhaul digital self-service capabilities and channels, hand back $20 million to customers in a one-off customer giveback and elevate data management and insight.

“This has enabled Medibank to implement some of the largest changes undertaken by the private health insurance sector in Australia,” Wilkins said in a statement. “These changes have resulted in improved advocacy, retention and growth of customer numbers, significant improvement in the products and services experienced by our customers and enhanced performance for our shareholders.

“David’s experience and customer focus ensures that Medibank will continue to capitalise on the strength of its position.”

For his part, Koczkar said he was honoured to be appointed CEO as Medibank continues efforts to improve its customer experience credentials and transforms to become a broader healthcare company.

“For the last seven years, I have had the privilege of working to improve our relationship with our customers, their experience and enhancing the value that we provide them,” Koczkar said.

“Medibank plays an important role in our community, and my commitment is to ensure that we continue to meet these needs, with our people and our broad network of partners, in a manner that anchors to our values and purpose – Better Health for Better Lives.”

Read more: Medibank asks what is better when it comes to health

Koczkar also thanked Drummond for his leadership of the company over the last five years.  Drummond officially finishes up at Medibank on 30 June 2021.

“He leaves our company in a stronger position, and we all remain committed to realising the ambition outlined for our customers, our owners and our people,” Koczkar added.

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