Monique Shivanandan leaves Aviva

Monique Shivanandan has left her position as CIO at Aviva after just over three years with the insurance company.

Computer Weekly understands Shivanandan left recently, and an Aviva spokersperson confirmed she was no longer with the firm.

Shivanandan joined Aviva as iCIO in 2014 when she took over from Cathryn Riley, who was CIO and chief operating officer. 

During her time at Aviva, Shivanandan worked on digital disruption and adopting an agile strategy at the company.

In an interview with Computer Weekly in 2015 at the company’s then recently opened digital garage, Shivanandan said adopting agile was the first step in turning the company around and changing the way it used digital  to keep up with its evolving customer base.  

“The idea is, this is more about a culture shift than it is about coming up with great ideas,” she said. “We have a legacy environment, and the products and services that we sell are complicated. We can’t change some of the things about our products and services, but we can change how we interact with those back-ends and how we offer them to our customers.”

Last year, Shivanandan was also part of the driving force behind Aviva’s partnership with Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Plug and Play to gain access to innovative startups. 

The partnership’s aim is to enable Aviva to tap into the innovation of digital startups. In return, it will help the startups realise their product and service concepts through advice, networking and mentorship.

Before her role at Aviva, Shivanandan was CTO at US bank Capital One for four years, having previously been CIO and managing director for BT’s retail division.

She is also a non-executive director of JP Morgan Securities, and has featured on Computer Weekly’s Most Influential Women in UK IT list, as well as UKtech50.