Expats Exit Birla Sun Top Rung

Birla Sun Life today restructured its senior management bringing in local faces.

Nani Javeri will take over as the new chief executive officer of Birla Sun Life Insurance Company from next month, replacing Vijay Singh who was on deputation from Sun Life Financial in Canada.

Subrato Kumar Mitra will head Birla Sun Life Asset Management Company as the CEO, taking over from Jeremy Beswick of Sun Life Financial, who will return to the UK. The new appointments take effect next month.

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the Aditya Birla Group and Stewart of Sun Life Financial, will continue to play musical chairs as they take turns to chair the joint venture insurance company and AMC.

Stewart will hold the post for a period of three years, before Kumar Mangalam Birla takes charge as chairman of the insurance venture. Birla is currently heading the AMC.

The change in the guard effectively reflects Sun Life's philosophy to remove expatriates at the earliest once the locals are able to successfully run domestic operations, said chairman and CEO of Sun Life Financial, Donald Stewart. "Financial services are country-specific and the locals know the domestic market the best" he said.

Sun Life Financial intends to invest 100 million Canadian dollars in the insurance venture with its 26 per cent stake. Singh said: "In the next five years the share capital of the company will increase to Rs 250 to 300 crore, from the present share capital of Rs 125 crore".

Mitra sees his new role as "old wine in a new bottle" since he was responsible for setting up Birla Sun Life's AMC. "I'm glad to be in charge again on a day to day basis," he added.

The challenge ahead for Javeri as the new CEO would be to see that the business continues to grow, Singh told Business Standard. He expects a three to four-fold growth in the coming year based on the existing infrastructure in terms of the network and size of agency force.

Javeri was with ANZ Grindlays Bank, Times Bank and recently with Oman International Bank. The challenge that lies today for Birla Sun Life is "to be the player, not just one of the players," he said.

This follows the huge amount of convergence in the financial services sector, he added.