Medibank Private Limited, Australia's largest and only national private health insurance company, has confirmed the government-approved appointment of Mr George Savvides as interim Managing Director.
Mr Savvides, previously a Medibank non-executive director since late 2001, will fill the role pending recruitment of a permanent appointee. He replaces Mr Mark Burrowes.
He expects to focus his efforts on realigning Medibank Private to provide affordable private health insurance pricing to the three million Australians through initiatives that decrease management costs and to better manage benefit outlay issues.
Mr Savvides was previously managing director of major pharmaceutical company, Sigma, for five years and before that was Managing Director the Australian arm of global healthcare company, Smith + Nephew.
He originally trained as an industrial engineer, is an MBA, a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is also a non-Executive Director of World Vision.