The AA’s head of insurance Michael Lloyd is saying goodbye to the insurer and breakdown services provider. Chief executive Simon Breakwell announced the resignation barely a year after Lloyd found himself on the receiving end of a punch from then executive chairman and director Bob Mackenzie.
“After four years with the AA, Mike Lloyd, chief executive of AA Insurance Services and chief commercial officer, has decided to leave at the end of the year,” The Times quoted Breakwell as saying. “This has already been communicated internally and to key external partners.
“Mike continues to input into some strategic projects and is transitioning his responsibilities. This is an amicable departure that we are very open about and we wish Mike well.”
As for Lloyd’s imminent exit being associated with the AA-Mackenzie saga, Breakwell stressed that no such link should be made.
“We can state categorically that his departure has nothing whatsoever to do with our former executive chairman, Bob Mackenzie, and any suggestion of that is totally spurious and without foundation,” said the AA boss.
Earlier this year Mackenzie talked about the physical altercation with Lloyd, which took place in late July 2017 at the Pennyhill Park Hotel. The sexagenarian’s shock sacking – now subject of a wrongful dismissal claim – happened a week later.
“I was so embarrassed by what happened that I phoned him the next day to apologise which he very graciously accepted,” Mackenzie, who described Lloyd as a ‘lovely guy’, told the Daily Mail. “There was a verbal handshake. Police were never called and I thought that would be the end of it, but sadly it wasn’t.”
