IAG nabs News Corp innovation head as chief digital officer

IAG has poached New Corp Australia’s head of innovation and product chief, Mark Drasutis, as its new chief digital officer to over digital strategy and experience.

The newly created position sits within the insurance giant’s Customer Labs and covers a broad range of brands, including NRMA, CGU, SGIC and WFI. Drasutis will report directly to IAG’s chief customer officer, Julie Batch, and starts officially in October.

Drasutis has spent the past four-and-a-half years with News Corp, initially as its head of innovation, before being promoted to chief product officer of Digital in February last year. Prior to this, he led consumer products development for Yahoo!’s European, Middle East and Africa teams, based out of the UK. His 20-year resume in media and digital product work also includes roles with AOL, Sportal and the Economist.

In a statement, Batch said Drasutis will lead efforts to build IAG’s digitally enabled customer experiences, working to anticipate what’s next for customers.

“Mark is an innovator, consumer product expert and strategic visionary who cares deeply about building high-performing teams, working in agile environments and focusing on the needs of customers,” she commented.

Drasutis said he was looking forward to helping set the course for customer-focused growth ac ross all IAG brands.

“Digital is now central to insurance services and sets new levels of customer expectations for IAG and its brands to make peoples’ lives safer,” Drasutis said. “This opportunity to combine the great teams, data, platforms and technologies at IAG was one I couldn’t miss.”

Drasutis is the second high-profile executives appointed in Customer Labs, and reflects a wholesale re-organisation of the IAG business to become more customer-led. In February, IAG also appointed its first group-wide chief marketing officer, former Saatchi & Saatchi boss, Brent Smart, who also reports to Batch.

IAG introduced Customer Labs as part of a restructure of the business in 2015. The division incorporates digital and marketing teams and takes the lead on customer experience. Other capabilities include data and insight, pricing, brand architecture, human-centred design and new business incubation and venturing.

Further changes to the IT function not long after the new structure was announced also saw digital innovation shift into the Customer Labs division.

As part of these efforts, a digital marketing transformation is underway at IAG to centralise core marketing technology to better align to a new customer approach while improving campaign efficiencies.  

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