Aviva broking talent programme welcomes largest ever cohort

Aviva has welcomed 19 broking professionals to its rising stars broker development programme, the largest cohort since the programme launched.

Over the next year, participants will take part in six of two day development sessions across the UK and cover topics including stakeholder management, critical thinking and personal branding.

This year’s programme has a renewed focus on mentoring after previous cohorts highlighted this a particularly valuable element. 

Each rising star is nominated by a senior broker from their business who act as a mentor throughout the programme.  

Michelle Taylor, broker distribution director at Aviva, said:  “Our industry is full of promising talent and I’m proud that Aviva is offering even more brokers the opportunity to develop their best and brightest. 

”Our rising stars always bring new perspectives and I’m really looking forward to hearing the ideas of the 2026 cohort and seeing what we can take back to the team.  We know many brokers find retaining talent challenging. 

“By giving rising stars access to a great network and high-quality learning, we hope to give brokers’ most promising individuals all the tools they need to get ready for the future and build a long-term career within their brokerage.”

Mentoring opportunities

Rising stars were joined by their mentors for their first two-day session at Aviva’s Birmingham office in January.

In these sessions, they explored how to build effective mentoring relationships, alongside sessions focused on team building and strengths profiling.    

Commenting on her experience as a rising star on this year’s cohort, Simona Mitrica, insurance representative at i4me, said: “I’m really excited to be on the rising stars programme.

”From the moment we arrived, the environment was so welcoming and inclusive which really boosted my confidence. I’ve only been in the insurance industry for just over a year, so I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to learn, develop and build such strong connections so early in my career. 

”The support I’ve already received and the relationships I’ve started to build, have been incredible.”