Manulife last week announced the appointment of Pankaj Banerjee as Chief Distribution Officer for Asia, effective 24 September 2021. Based in Hong Kong, he will be a member of the company’s global leadership team and report directly to Asia CEO Anil Wadhwani. He succeeds Vibha Coburn, who is presently CEO of Manulife Malaysia.

As Chief Distribution Officer, Banerjee will be primarily responsible for growing, developing, and digitising Manulife’s agency force across its Asia markets. He will also work on growing Manulife’s bancassurance business, including driving its digitalisation.

Banerjee has 20 years of experience in the insurance industry across Asia. He was previously head of group partnership distribution at AIA, covering all of the insurer's markets, and before that he served as CEO of AIA in Sri Lanka. Prior to AIA, he spent 10 years with Prudential in Vietnam and then Cambodia, where he served as the founding CEO of Prudential Cambodia. Before moving to Southeast Asia, he also spent a number of years in the industry in India.

Wadhwani said of his appointment: "Pankaj is highly regarded in the insurance industry for his work on expanding and deepening distribution, while driving solid results. His vast experience will help further progress our digitisation and growth ambitions within our agency force and bancassurance partnerships across Asia."