Tidjane Thiam an executive director, sitting on the plc board. In January 2007, after Richard Harvey announced he would step down as chief executive of Aviva, Thiam was tipped as a possible future head of the group. Thiam left Aviva in September 2007 to become chief financial officer of Prudential plc. In March 2009, Thiam was named chief executive, effective from October, after Mark Tucker chose to step down. The appointment made him the first African to lead a FTSE 100 listed company. His departure from the role was announced on 10 March 2015. After he became chief executive, Prudential launched a
FTSE 100 Index nowadays is largely obsolete due to its redundancy. It is similar to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and companies listed are from the industrial and commercial sectors. Financial sector companies and government stocks are excluded. Of the original constituents, four are currently in the FTSE 100: Guest Keen & Nettlefolds (GKN), Tate & Lyle, Imperial Tobacco and Rolls-Royce, although Rolls-Royce has not been continuously listed and Imperial Tobacco was a subsidiary of Hanson for a number of years. ICI was removed when it was taken over by Akzo Nobel in January 2008. Two of the original FT 30 companies are