TR Ramachandran, head of Citi’s retail bank, will take over as the chief executive of Aviva India Life Insurance. Mr Ramachandran will be the first Indian professional to head the joint venture as till now, the India operations were headed by senior executives on deputation from Aviva.

Mr Ramachandran will take over from Bert Paterson whose term comes to an end shortly. The challenge before him would be to leverage brand awareness and translate it into growth in business. The move has surprised both insurance and banking circles as Mr Ramachandran is a high-profile banker and Citi has the largest retail portfolio among foreign banks in India. He put in his papers in Citi few days ago.

Mr Ramachandran has been a career Citibanker who joined the bank in 1989. Before taking over as head of retail bank, he was the head of cards. Incidentally, he is the second Citibanker to head a local insurance company.

Rajiv Jamkhedkar, who was the head of personal lending and Citibusiness, SME segment, is now the CEO of Aegon Religare Life Insurance.

Two other insurance CEOs, Nitin Chopra of Bharti Axa Life and Ajay Bimbhet of Royal Sundaram, earlier were retail bankers at ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank, respectively. In recent months, with more than half a dozen new players coming in, salaries in the insurance sector have been moving north.

Although Aviva is UK’s largest insurer, it has been lagging behind in the Indian market as it chose a strategy that was different from other players. While most leading joint ventures are leveraging the strength of their joint venture partners, Aviva has decided to run the business on its own with Indian partner Dabur playing a dormant role. The company also chose to retain only the UK parent’s name and has made huge investments in promoting the global brand in India.

However, its sales received a setback after the insurance regulator banned complex unit linked products which were the mainstay of Aviva’s business until the ban. Last fiscal, the company also suffered because its main strategy of selling insurance through bancassurance partnership took a knock.

One of its main distributors, Canara Bank, chose to get into the insurance business on its own, while another — Centurion Bank — was acquired. Since then, the company has increased focus on agents. Improving the company’s distribution will be a challenge for the new CEO.