AIA retains Shah as MD in Sri Lanka

Asian giant AIA has retained Shah Rouf as the Managing Director of its newly-acquired Lankan entity, the former Aviva NDB Insurance.

Shah was previously Aviva’s appointed MD, a post held since March 2010 and is remaining with the Sri Lankan entity. AIA last week concluded its acquisition of Aviva NDB Insurance with a $ 109 million investment buying out Aviva and NDB Group.

Shah has had over 18 years of experience with Aviva, having held senior management positions in both Life and General insurance in UK, Middle East, India and continental Europe.

Prior to his appointment to the Board of Directors of the company, he was the CEO of Aviva Romania and Chief Distribution Officer Central and Eastern Europe for Aviva.

 He concluded his academic studies at the London School of Economics and has a BA (Hons) and an M.Sc. degree in Economics. He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, UK.

Deepal Sooriyarachchi is the other Director from the former Aviva NDB Board who has been retained by AIA as Non Executive Independent Director. Deepal was a former Managing Director of the Lankan insurance. He was first appointed to the Board on 17 May 2005. He functioned as the Managing Director until end February 2010 and continued as an Executive Director from March 2010.

Following the acquisition by AIA, seven former Board members of Aviva NDB have resigned and new owner has proposed other replacements subject to approval of industry regulator IBSL.

They are AIA Group’s Regional Chief Executive H. T. Phong, as Chairman/Director in Non-Executive, Non-Independent capacity, AIA Group Business Development Director for Group Partnership Distribution Richard Allan Bates as Non Executive, Non Independent Director, AIA Group Senior Regional Counsel Manoj Ramachandran as Non Executive, Non Independent Director, Tata AIA Life Insurance Appointed Actuary H. Basu as Non Executive Independent Director and American International Assurance Board CEO and Managing Director K.H. Seng as Non Executive Independent Director.

The seven who have resigned from Aviva NDB Board are T.R. Ramachandran who was the Chairman, L. Patrick Callaghan, S. O’hUaithne, Russell De Mel, Sarath Wikramanayake, Anura Siriwardena, and Indrajith Wickramasinghe as Alternate Director.

Following the acquisition, Aviva NDB Insurance will be renamed and rebranded as AIA in early 2013.  AIA ranked fifth in the world by market capitalisation with a market value of $ 47 billion as of 24 November 2012.