Prudential Hires HR Chief

By Allison Bell

April 26, 2017 at 12:01 PM

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Job hunters who like the idea of working for Prudential Financial Inc. have a new name to learn: Lucien Alziari.

The Newark, New Jersey-based insurer today said it has hired Alziari to succeed Sharon Taylor as a senior vice president and chief human resources officer.

Taylor began working for Prudential as a management trainee in 1976. She has decided to retire, Prudential said.

Alziari was the chief human resources officer at A.P. Moller-Maersk, a Danish shipping company, from October 2012 until last month. Before that, he spent eight years as the head of human resources at Avon Products Inc.

Alziari has a bachelor's degree in modern history from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.

He began working in human resources at a U.K. division of M&M Mars, the candy company, in 1986.

In January 2016, while Alziari was the head of HR at Maersk, the company made the news by announcing that it would guarantee female employees a minimum of 18 weeks of paid maternity leave, to see if that would increase retention. Previously, some of the company's U.S. workers received just six weeks of paid maternity leave.

In 2009, a consultant from Egon Zender International A.G. interviewed Alziari about his views on how to choose the right general counsel for a corporation.

Alziari said any candidate that comes from outside a company should pass a "head and shoulders" test.

"When your team meets the new leader, you want them to say, 'Oh, I get it, this is somebody who sets a new threshold, somebody I can learn from, and want to work for,'" Alziari said, according to Egon Zender.

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