Asia: Pacific Life Re appoints regional managing director
Pacific Life Re announced the appointment of Mr Andrew Gill as the managing director of its Asia and Australia business units. He replaces Mr Alex King, who most recently served as Pacific Life Re Asia’s managing director.
Mr Gill is currently the managing director of the company’s Australia business unit and serves as a member of the company’s global executive team. He has led a very successful start-up of the Australia business unit since it began operations in 2015. Under his leadership, the Australian office has grown rapidly to become a leading reinsurer in that market with premium revenue in excess of $400m. He is a qualified actuary with almost 20 years of post-qualification experience in Australia and a number of worldwide locations. Mr Gill has worked in the life reinsurance industry for over 15 years in a variety of roles, ranging from marketing to appointed actuary.
Since he assumed the managing director role in 2013, the company has significantly expanded its footprint in Asia with the opening of a branch office in Korea and a representative office in China. The Asia operation has also outperformed its business plan for two years in a row.
Asia Pacific: IIS names new regional managing director
International Insurance Society (IIS), has named Mr Raphael Young as its managing director – Asia Pacific region, with immediate effect. Mr Young will be based in the recently established Singapore regional office of the IIS, the IIS Asia Pacific hub.
Mr Young’s responsibilities will include providing IIS with insights into the key issues affecting the region, assuring that they are fully considered in the organisation’s design of conference programmes, traditional and digital media content and other member services. Additionally, Mr Young is charged with being the principal IIS liaison with existing members in the region and, most importantly, developing new membership from this rapidly growing market.
Prior to joining IIS, Mr Young managed strategic consulting and implementation engagements in the Asia Pacific insurance industry for KPMG, Munich Re and SAP, for life, non-life and insurance services organisations. He is particularly well-versed in the technology related issues so critical to the industry’s future, including data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, blockchain and other such transformational technologies.
Mr Young has already been associated with the IIS for more than five years, having served as an IIS ambassador and as a speaker at Global Insurance Forum conferences.
Asia: ArgoGlobal appoints Alfredo Alonso as chief underwriting officer
ArgoGlobal announced the appointment of Mr Alfredo Alonso as chief underwriting officer for Europe, Middle East and Asia. Mr Alonso takes up his London-based role in March 2019. He will report to group head of international operations Matt Harris.
Mr Alonso brings 30 years’ of industry experience to ArgoGlobal. He joins the company from RSA, where for the last seven years he served in a number of chief underwriting officer roles in emerging markets, serving most recently as group casualty director. He began his career working for Winterthur Insurance (now a member of the AXA Group) in its claims department, before becoming a senior casualty underwriter.
He went on to work at Zurich Financial Services, where he served for 12 years in various underwriting roles, including head of technical centre for commercial lines in Switzerland, head of casualty for Europe, and chief underwriting officer for Middle East and Africa.
Asia Pacific: Willis Re launches agriculture team
Willis Re announced the appointment of Mr David Gregori as head of agriculture for Asia Pacific and the set-up of its agriculture team for the region.
Based in Hong Kong, Mr Gregori will lead the agriculture team, utilising the Willis Re regional and global network, and modelling teams, to support clients and partners in developing insurance solutions to better protect farmers throughout the region.
Prior to Willis Re, he spent more than four years as head of global agriculture at Canopius, a Lloyd’s syndicate in Singapore. Before that, he was an agriculture underwriter at Partner Re. Mr Gregori has been dealing with crop insurance for the last 12 years and was involved in the design of a subsidised Moroccan Crop Insurance Scheme, covering approximately 1m hectares of farms today. He is also a global expert in parametric insurance solutions and is passionate about educating and improving the level of knowledge of agriculture (re)insurance throughout the industry.
In addition, the Willis Re Agriculture business in Asia Pacific has made two appointments in India and China:
Dr Ajay Rakhe leads the agriculture business in India as VP, treaty – agriculture. He is based in Willis Re’s Mumbai office and is responsible for developing and managing the agriculture treaty business along with designing other rural products for clients and partners in India.
Dr Rakhe has more than 11 years’ of experience in the general insurance business in India, ranging from in reinsurance, underwriting and claims, to managing government business. In his earlier roles, he also handled products such as crop and weather, livestock, health and personal accident. He was involved in the implementation of two major national insurance schemes in the Indian market (crop scheme – PMFBY - and health scheme – RSBY). Prior to Willis Re, Dr Rakhe worked in the International Reinsurance and Insurance Consulting & Broking Services. He has also held positions at HDFC ERGO General Insurance and ICICI Lombard General Insurance.
Ms Simiao He, associate director of reinsurance, leads the agriculture business in China and is based in Willis Re’s Beijing office. She has a comprehensive knowledge of China’s agriculture (re)insurance market and a strong technical background in innovative index products, including weather index, satellite index and revenue insurance. Prior to Willis Re, Ms He spent five years at Swiss Re as an agriculture reinsurance underwriter and graduated from China Agricultural University.
Asia Pacific: Allianz appoints new CEO for regional P&C operations
Global insurer Allianz has appointed Ms Claudia Salem as its new CEO, property and casualty for Asia Pacific.
Ms Salem is responsible for the P&L and functional development of Allianz’s property and casualty business in the region, including the long-term bancassurance relationship with Standard Chartered Bank.
Based in the Singapore office, she will report to the Allianz Asia Pacific regional CEO and serve as a member of the Allianz Asia Pacific regional executive board.
She joins Allianz from AIG, where she was most recently Singapore CEO and head of Southeast Asia. In her career of over 15 years in the business, she served in various leadership roles across operations management, business development and customer solutions, with a track record for driving large-scale change management, service delivery and bottom-line results.
Malaysia: Zurich names new Takaful CEO
Zurich Malaysia has announced the appointment of Mr Mukesh Dhawan as the CEO of Zurich Takaful Malaysia (ZTMB).
In this role, Mr Dhawan will be responsible for executing Zurich’s strategic priorities to gain a more profitable foothold for its family takaful business in Malaysia. He succeeds Mr Salim Majid Zain, who left the company in January 2019, and will report to ZTMB’s board of directors.
Mr Dhawan is a seasoned industry leader with more than 18 years’ experience in the life insurance industry across the Asia Pacific region. He has helmed various senior management and strategic roles in accident and health profit centre management, strategic marketing, product management as well as distribution management in leading organisations such as Prudential Corporation Asia, AIG and AIA. Prior to joining Zurich, he was based in Singapore with the AIA regional team to drive its premier agency strategies within the South East Asian markets.
He joined Zurich Life Insurance Malaysia in January 2015 as the general manager and head of market management.
Over the last four years, he has driven profitable growth for Zurich Malaysia’s life insurance and family takaful businesses through the development of unique customer propositions as well as establishment of robust distribution channels and partnerships.
Singapore: AXA Insurance announces new members to its executive committee
AXA Insurance has appointed Mr Kevin Leong as managing director, commercial lines, Ms Juliet Khew as managing director, health and Ms Hayley Yap as chief people officer.
Mr Kevin Leong has been named managing director, commercial lines, in addition to his current responsibilities as country leader, Singapore-Insurance for AXA XL, a division of AXA Group. In his new role, Mr Leong will be leading the commercial lines businesses of AXA Singapore. He will be co-reporting to AXA Singapore CEO Jean Drouffe and AXA XL Asia Pacific chief executive Craig Langham. This appointment follows AXA’s recent acquisition of XL Group and the subsequent creation of the AXA XL division.
Ms Khew has been promoted to head the newly created health strategic business unit, which will play a key role in AXA’s journey to partner its customers in various aspects of their lives. She will be responsible for driving the continued growth of AXA’s health business and a superior experience for health customers. She joined AXA in December 2009, with many years of experience in life insurance sales and accident and health underwriting.
Ms Yap takes on the role of chief people officer after over two decades of experience in human resources, risk and assurance, and strategic business planning and partnering, and was previously the head of business execution for South East Asia, India, and Middle East at ANZ. She will continue to drive AXA’s strategic people agenda while aligning to its business objectives for growth.
Singapore: UIB Holdings appoints new board member
UIB has announced the appointment of Mr Hiroki Miyamoto to the board of UIB Holdings.
Mr Miyamoto will also become CEO of UIB Asia Reinsurance Brokers in Singapore with immediate effect. In his role, Mr Miyamoto will oversee UIB’s Asian operations and work closely with the Japanese team to manage and service UIB’s Japanese clients.
Singapore: Institute and Faculty of Actuaries names first Asian president
Insurance veteran Mr Tan Suee Chieh has been named president-elect of the UK-based Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), according to a statement issued by the institute which is the UK’s only chartered professional body dedicated to educating, developing and regulating actuaries in the UK and internationally.
Mr Tan will take up his new position in June 2019 as Mr John Taylor becomes president, taking over from Mr Jules Constantinou. He will be the first Asian president of the IfoA and is based in Singapore.
Mr Tan graduated from the London School of Economics after which he served the Prudential for 20 years in a variety of roles in London, Malaysia and Singapore, including as CEO of Prudential Singapore and lastly as regional managing director of Prudential Asia. After a stint in organisational psychology, he returned to the insurance industry as CEO, NTUC Income, a leading composite insurer in Singapore, and eventually group CEO of the holding entity NTUC Enterprise. He stepped down from NTUC Enterprise in 2017.
In addition to being a council member of the IFoA, he holds a number of non-executive roles in academic institutions and voluntary organisations.
Thailand: AIG appoints new CEO
AIG has announced the appointment of Mr Isorasak Thesratanavong as CEO of AIG Thailand. Mr Thesratanavong reports to, AIG General Insurance CEO of Asia Pacific, Sachin Shah, and will be based in Bangkok.
In this role, Mr Thesratanavong will lead AIG’s business and operations in Thailand with a focus on partnering with clients to deliver on growth opportunities. Mr Thesratanavong succeeds Mr Tomi Latva-Kiskola, who was named president and CEO of AIG Hong Kong and Macau, and head of country operations for Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Mr Thesratanavong joins AIG from Direct Asia (Thailand), where he served as CEO. Previously, he was CEO of Sompo Insurance (Thailand). Earlier in his career, Mr Thesratanavong held positions at AIG, including senior VP of consumer lines.
Global: SCOR announces new CEO of global P&C business
SCOR has appointed Mr Jean-Paul Conoscente, currently CEO of reinsurance at SCOR global P&C, as CEO of SCOR Global P&C. Mr Conoscente will also join the group’s executive committee. This appointment is effective 1 April 2019.
This appointment follows Mr Victor Peignet’s decision to retire for personal reasons, after 35 years with the SCOR group.
Global: Lockton enters reinsurance business
Kansas City-headquartered Lockton has announced the formation of a new global reinsurance business, Lockton Global Re.
Reinsurance is a critical pillar of Lockton’s aggressive growth plan, Lockton said in a statement.
This investment in the US and across the globe will be led by current CEO of North America operations for Guy Carpenter Mr Tim Gardner, current managing director and global chief innovation and product development officer for Guy Carpenter Mr Claude Yoder and current managing director for Guy Carpenter Mr Nick Durant.
This new leadership team will incorporate with Lockton’s reinsurance capability, Lockton Re US, and Lockton Re UK.
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