HONG KONG, Sept. 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Manulife today announced the appointment of Pankaj Banerjee as its new Chief Distribution Officer, Asia. His appointment is effective 24 September 2021.

Pankaj joins Manulife's Asia Division Executive Committee reporting to Anil Wadhwani, President & CEO, Asia. He will also be a member of the company's Global Leadership Team. Pankaj will be responsible for growing, developing, and digitising Manulife's agency force across its Asia markets. He will also focus on further strengthening Manulife's bancassurance capabilities, while driving the adoption of digital channels and tools. He succeeds Vibha Coburn, who currently serves as CEO of Manulife Malaysia.

Pankaj brings over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry across Asia. He joins Manulife from AIA, where he most recently served as CEO, Group Partnership Distribution, covering all markets of AIA Group. Pankaj was previously CEO of AIA Sri Lanka, where he led various business transformation initiatives, including the development of a full-time quality agency model. Before AIA, Pankaj was with Prudential for nearly 10 years working across Southeast Asia, including serving as the founding CEO of Prudential Cambodia.

"Pankaj is highly regarded in the insurance industry for his work on expanding and deepening distribution, while driving solid results," said Wadhwani. "His vast experience will help further progress our digitisation and growth ambitions within our agency force and bancassurance partnerships across Asia, fulfilling our commitment to make the lives of millions more customers every day better."

About Manulife

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider that helps people make their decisions easier and lives better. With our global headquarters in Toronto, Canada, we operate as Manulife across our offices in Canada, Asia, and Europe, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States. We provide financial advice, insurance, and our global wealth and asset management segment, Manulife Investment Management, serves individuals, institutions and retirement plan members worldwide. At the end of 2020, we had more than 37,000 employees, over 118,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners, serving over 30 million customers. As of June 30, 2021, we had CAD$1.3 trillion (US$1.1 trillion) in assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12 months we made $31.3 billion in payments to our customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada and the United States where we have served customers for more than 155 years. We trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in Hong Kong.

Contacts

Augustine Kwan (Media Relations)Manulife+852 6772 8037Augustine_Kwan@Manulife.com

Eileen Tam (Investor Relations)Manulife+852 9030 5618Eileen_Tam@Manulife.com