Shiu Ling PoAIA International, Hong Kong

Prior to joining the insurance industry, Ling Po pursued an academic career in psychology. He graduated from the University of California with a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Michigan, before he joined the Chinese University of Hong Kong as an assistant professor in 1996 and worked up the ranks to become associate dean of the Faculty of Education, and the director of two postgraduate diploma/degree programmes.

Since leaving the world of academia to become an insurance agent in July 2017, he achieved Million Dollar Round Table in just five months of joining the industry, was promoted to assistant unit manager at the beginning of 2018, and then to new unit manager in July. By the end of 2018, he achieved Top of the Table (TOT).

While working diligently on personal production, he also embarked on agency building. Besides his own core team, he has also helped one of his agency to build her team. The two teams together produced more than US$400,000 FYC in the second half of 2018, one TOT, and three MDRTs.

While a lot of people consider joining the insurance industry a drastic move from academia, he views it as a continuity in his career development because he feels there are many similarities between an insurance agency leader and a professor. To develop newly recruited agents into successful agents and competent agency managers is like mentoring students but perhaps even more difficult, he said.

Appearing as a guest speaker at recruitment talks, he is seen as a role model for people who, while successful in their current positions, are looking for breakthroughs. He has also been asked to be a mentor for students of his former university, and as a speaker at career talks for post-secondary school students who are eager to learn about insurance and financial planning.

He frequently taps into his university network to bring in different professionals, including medical doctors, lawyers, certified accountants, and private bankers to be guest speakers at in-house seminars. There is no better way to enhance the professional image of financial planners than to equip them with solid knowledge in various fields of finance and business.

Chia-Chun LiuCathay Life, Taiwan

Insurance is a career of love, a strategic alliance guaranteeing a win-win situation between charity and entrepreneurship. It is not just any career; insurance is an important financial tool. With that realisation back in 2004 as an intern in the company, Chia-Chun has since built a remarkable insurance career.

She is an example to all financial practitioners that high productivity can be achieved without compromising professionalism and integrity. This is evident from her consistent qualification as MDRT Top of the Table member, and a regular winner of both the International Dragon Award and International Quality Award – an international award by LIMRA recognising excellent production and outstanding persistency.

In 2018, she emerged as the top agent in her company and became an MDRT Top of the Table member for the fifth time. Since her promotion to marketing director in 2015, she has received multiple awards in the company’s monthly sales goal breakthrough competition and achieved the highest persistency rate in the company for 25 months.

She appears regularly in newspapers and magazines, to share her expertise and boost the image of the industry, as well as share with fellow practitioners her client management strategies to raise the standards and give back to the industry. A firm believer in continuous learning and personal growth. She acquired her second master’s degree at the National Taiwan University‘s Department of Finance.

She also contributes actively to social welfare schemes as she feels this demonstrates the life insurance industry’s positive effects in society through helping others.

Among her contributions are: Raising NT$1m ($32,000) within 10 days for local banana farmers in 2018 as the deputy chair of the Taipei Yongkang Shopping District Association; and raising NT$1.62m for Keelung City’s Double Bliss Welfare and Charity Foundation to provide the underprivileged with food, clothing, and after-school programmes during her time as the host of the MDRT Taiwan chapter.

Isabelle Oh Chin IanAIA Financial Advisers, Singapore

Isabelle is a successful financial adviser with Million Dollar Round Table qualifications from 2011 to 2018.

Despite her success, she continues to live a simple and contented lifestyle as a living example to educate her clients on financial planning and the importance of protection and saving for their retirement. She was even featured in Singapore’s national newspapers to advocate and share the philosophy of living a low-key life to achieve financial independence.

Born in Malaysia, she lost her father at a young age due to nose cancer and grew up under the care of her nanny. Instead of wallowing in self-pity or falling into the path of delinquency, Isabelle overcame her circumstances to earn the prestigious ASEAN Scholarship to study engineering in one of Singapore’s top universities. While the school fees were provided for, the years of living expenses piled up, and by the time she graduated, she had accumulated a debt of S$40,000.

Isabelle was six months into her first job as an engineer when she decided to join the financial services industry. She felt a strong sense of purpose to help families insure against financial despairs rising from the loss of their breadwinner. With the $40,000 student debt and just $1,000 in her bank account, she took the brave step to make a difference by becoming an adviser.

She had no family in Singapore, few friends and no money to afford to go for roadshows. So she started with the bus stop near her flat where she stood for hours to share her thoughts on the importance of insurance with strangers. Just like this, one client at a time, one small case of $10 to $50 a month at a time and one driving purpose in life, Isabelle has protected over 1,500 clients in her 13 years in the industry.

Through her life, she empowers new agents with the belief that everything is possible when they are determined and have a meaningful life goal truly to help others.

Jason ChuSun Life Hong Kong

At the age of 31, Jason is already a regional director. This places him amongst the top 3% of agency leaders in his company.

He has built a team of 80 advisers and leaders in the short span of five years, making him one of the young agency leaders with the fastest growing business.

Impressively, the quality of business and advisers have grown correspondingly with the exponential growth in team size.

Jason and his team have received a string of awards, both internally and externally. Other than qualifying for some of the most prestigious and highest-ranked awards in his company in 2018, his team had 29 Million Dollar Round Table qualifiers, representing 36% of his team. Out of these 29 MDRT members, five achieved global recognition in less than a year. And, leading by example, Jason is one of two Court of the Table qualifiers in the team.

To build a productive team of high quality, he believes in being a role model to his team through being an inspiring leader, an active recruiter and a productive adviser.

A testament to the success of the sales and management system he has implemented, he successfully groomed two district directors in his team last year. One of his managers currently leads a team of over 10 advisers.

As a Gen Y leader, he has built a young and energetic team committed to professionalism. Over 90% of his team are Gen Y with an average age of 26, and almost 80% are university graduates from different academic faculties, bringing with them different perspectives from their studies in customising a quality financial plan for their clients.

As someone who chose to join the insurance industry after graduating from the City University of Hong Kong, he is a walking example to undergraduates and graduates. Hence, he has an excellent track record in college recruitment, which helps to ensure the industry attracts the right young talent.

Chow Wing KaiAIA International, Hong Kong

As an MDRT Honor Roll and Life member, Wing Kai leads by example and has groomed his team with 144 members achieving MDRT or above – 126 MDRTs, 15 Court of the Table producers and three Top of the Table producers. Starting with four unit managers in 2011, the district has expanded to 26 unit managers with almost 300 members.

As part of his efforts to raise the image and professionalise the industry, he has focused on recruiting high-quality young talent. The average age of his team members is 30, 96% of them possess a bachelor’s degree, and 70% possess a postgraduate degree. Wing Kai himself holds 14 professional qualifications as part of his continuous efforts to improve himself.

He has delivered over 400 speeches in different countries to more than 60,000 people. In 2018, he was invited as a speaker on multiple occasions, including ‘MDRT Experience and Global Conference’ held in Bangkok, ‘LIMRA Regional Training Seminar’, ‘MDRT Day’ and ‘AIAFAM National Convention’ both in Malaysia, ‘AIA Jiangsu Celebrity Lectures’, ‘AIA Jiangmen MDRT Day’, and ‘LUA Hong Kong Love Care Movement Seminar’.

His organisation actively supports mothers in the team through the establishment of the ‘Premier Lady’ department. Different measures and facilities have been implemented to cater to the needs of these working mothers, including a nursery and play room with instant broadcasting, to ensure that they can take care of their children as well as work with peace of mind.

Wing Kai regularly shares his expertise and success principles as a columnist for the Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Digest and Etnet. To help fellow leaders in the industry, he also shared his strategies in his first book ‘Riding the wave – The Key to Building a 100% MDRT Team’ which is now in its seventh edition. The book has become one of the bestselling books published in Hong Kong and is also available in other markets, including China, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia.

Calvin LeeAXA Insurance, Singapore

With insurance being dynamic industry, it becomes important to keep abreast of industry best practices, especially when it comes to digital efforts. And Calvin has managed to do just that.

His LinkedIn recruitment system has consistently resulted in interviews with between three and five candidates per week. He successfully recruited 10 of the candidates in 2018. Tapping LinkedIn has helped to ensure that candidates are screened in advance before being selected for interviews, and enabled him to recruit candidates from both local and overseas markets. Besides Singapore, his agency is made up of advisers from countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam.

For his efforts on LinkedIn, including educating and engage through informative articles, Calvin was ranked in the top 1% of the financial services industry and the number one in his company based on LinkedIn’s official Social Selling Index. He currently has over 13,000 connections and potential candidates on LinkedIn.

His digital initiatives for prospecting and leads generation include a strategic partnership with an online portal which helps young parents look for pre-school centres, the development of ‘Shiok Retirement’ website (which means retiring with sheer happiness) to provide videos and curated articles on retirement, and the adoption of digital marketing to automate client interation.

Proven results from the sales and prospecting initiatives include over 5,000 leads generated in 2018 from the strategic partnership with the online portal, and an increase of 50% more sales from existing clients through the email marketing system.

What is even more commendable about Calvin is his willingness to help fellow practitioners adapt to the digital world. Calvin was named AXA LinkedIn Champion for his success and contributions to AXA Social Media Program 2018. He is also president (2019/20) of the industry-wide Financial Services Managers Association in Singapore.

Mr Lee has shared the detailed step-by-step guide to his LinkedIn recruitment system strategies and his achievements in embracing digital technology both internally in his company and externally with the industry at large.

Susanna ChanSun Life Hong Kong

In the industry for 25 years, Susanna is a successful agency leader with a team of 75 advisers. As a regional director, she represents the top 3% of agency leaders in her company. Besides being a leader, she is also a Million Dollar Round Table Honor Roll member, achieving 16 years of MDRT.

Her dedication to serving clients by putting quality business and service as priorities can be seen from her personal achievement of Quality Advisor Award, and team achievement of Quality Manager Award. Both these awards are organised by The Life Underwriters Association of Hong Kong (LUAHK) to recognise dedication to the provision of excellent services and professional ethics.

Beyond her career achievements, Susanna inspires through her active role in contributing to society to help the underprivileged, disadvantaged and the vulnerable.

She is an advocate of the LifeCare Movement (LCM) organised by the LUAHK. The LCM campaign is targeted at helping the underprivileged in Hong Kong by having clients donate part of their policy claims to a charitable organisation of their choice.

She has continuously promoted the spirit of the ‘Policy Donation Program’ and LCM not only in her company but also to other insurance companies in Hong Kong. Susanna is ranked ‘All Time No. 1 Producer’ in policy donations recorded. Out of 10,000 donated policies over the years by all insurance companies of Hong Kong, her team has contributed more than 10% of the total.

In recognition of her efforts, she was the vice chairman of LifeCare Movement committee and also the LifeCare leader and LifeCare ambassador in 2018.

In addition, she regularly supports and volunteers in a non-governmental organisation, the Youth Career Development Service (YCDS) of Evangelical Lutheran Church Hong Kong.

The YCDS provides different services to align the development needs of students and encourage students to make career decisions according to their interests, abilities and orientations. As a volunteer teacher, she has conducted various events including career talks and interview skills workshops to help them discover their real self, potential and confidence.

Dr Mary Chen Ming LiAIA Singapore

Mary was a famous actress and celebrity prior to joining the insurance industry in 1982. Since then, she has continued to be a star under the glitzy lights in the insurance world.

She was the first in Southeast Asia to qualify for Top of the Table(TOT) in 1989. She is also one of the longest-serving MDRT Life members who has consistently qualified for 33 years - 31 of which as a life and qualifying TOT member.

At numerous events and seminars, she has selflessly shared how she excels in this business and has motivated many across Asia and globally. In 2002, she was the first Chinese speaker ever on the main platform at the year’s global MDRT meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. In 2018, she was a main platform speaker at the inaugural MDRT Day in Singapore.

Moving into the management role did not stop Mary from attaining exponential growth as she continued to achieve TOT year after year. Even as a director, she remains committed to reaching out to more people to help them be adequately protected.

Mary has also set extraordinary standards of excellence in her company. She was the top financial services consultant (FSC) for 18 years in AIA Singapore, the AIA Group Top FSC for 12 years, the president of conventions for 19 terms and the top manager seven times.

The year 2018 marked another incredible milestone in her career as she was promoted to become financial services director (FSD). Demonstrating her outstanding leadership quality in her first year as an FSD - she groomed an FSC who achieved TOT, became the top financial services consultant and President of the Convention.

Beyond her career achievements, Mary believes in giving back to society. Among her charitable initiatives are Love for Bhutan, a charity auction to raise funds to sponsor medical equipment and facilities; the Motion Heart Project, started together with her agency leader Rayner Lee, which has built four schools in rural China; and the Motion Academy of Gym Sports for orphans in Cambodia to train them as gymnasts and trainers to help them to break out of the cycle of poverty.

GoalsMapperSingapore

GoalsMapper is built with the fundamental principles of personalisation, convenience and relevance to reshape the financial planning experience by expanding customer expectations. The solution was developed with advice and feedback from more than 30 veteran financial planners across various agencies.

It enables financial advisers to help their clients visualise their financial status and stress test their portfolio instantaneously. With the Goals-Planning feature and Scenario-Based Planning feature, clients are able to understand their finances with greater clarity. Objections can also be handled with precise and accurate projections of problems and solutions. Moreover, after meeting their clients, users can generate various reports with a single click.

GoalsMapper helps agents and advisers to:

• Differentiate themselves by impressing their clients visually through identifying the gaps in their financial health and seeing the impact of real-life scenarios and how the proposed solutions can help them.
• Provide real-time advice for a more productive appointment by getting an overview of a client’s financial life laid out in minutes. So less time is spent on crunching numbers, and the focus can be on finding the best solutions.
• Provide greater clarity. No more estimated numbers as the charts provide the highest resolution for financial planning, allowing advisers to create a precise picture of a client’s financial status.
• Build instant trust as it increases professionalism by value-adding to even more demanding and better-informed clients. It helps to create interactive discussions through scenarios and plans comparison.

In less than a year since its launch, some 400 advisers have subscribed to using GoalsMapper. It is now available to financial advisers in four markets across Southeast Asia – Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

It also participated in the Dsion Startup Challenge – Singapore in 2018 where it showcased its software, and shared its vision, marketing strategies and partnership opportunities in today’s competitive environment. GoalsMapper was crowned one of the winners among the top 10 startup finalists in the live pitch finals held in December.

Aiming to continue innovating and value-adding to the industry through emerging technologies, it plans to develop a client portal and develop through an ecosystem for customers, merchants, financial institutions and advisers by 2022.

TechcombankVietnam

Manulife and Techcombank penned their 15-year exclusive partnership in 2017 to bring comprehensive solutions to meet the insurance needs of Vietnam’s 93 million people.

The seeds of success for this collaboration were planted 10 years ago in 2009 when Techcom Securities partnered with Manulife and began offering personal accident policies to its customers. In 2012, Techcombank and Manulife Vietnam began cooperating on bancassurance. In that year, total APE for Techcombank was a mere VND 221 million Vietnamese dong (~US$10,000).

The collaboration has yielded impressive results since then, with APE growing 21 times and customers growing 44 times over five years since 2013.

In 2018, Techcombank and Manulife Vietnam combined to deliver bancassurance APE of VND 917 billion, a 77% growth over 2017.

As a result, both partners have more firmly solidified their market leadership, with Manulife Vietnam garnering 22% share and Techcombank gaining 19% share of the bancassurance market in the first nine months of 2018.

The aligned vision and consistent strategy of putting the customer first by tailoring unique insurance solutions to market demands for both protection and wealth management are part of a comprehensive portfolio of solutions. Manulife’s and Techcombank’s technological and analytical capabilities have enabled the creation of more predictive propensity models, generating more cross-selling opportunities and further benefiting both partners.

The partners are aligned in their vision of putting the customer first, their commitment to the long-term and healthy living. Both brands are associated with endurance sports. The old phrase ‘it’s a marathon, not a sprint’ is an appropriate expression of its partnership. Both partners are dedicated to the long-term, sustainable growth of the bancassurance market in Vietnam, and are working together to support the state’s target of ensuring that 15% of the population has a life insurance policy by 2025.

Its deep partnership can also be observed in 2018 when Manulife Vietnam and Techcombank worked together to begin moving to a dedicated, in-house sales force. More than 400 sales personnel from Manulife Vietnam became Techcombank employees as part of this joint strategic decision to move from a referral-sales model to establish a direct sales force – a decision made with the customer in mind to improve the customer experience further.

Sabrina OngAIA Financial Indonesia

Sabrina has over 15 years of experience in the insurance industry and close to five years in a regional role supporting China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Taiwan. Embracing the need to develop and educate professional sales force for the future of the insurance industry, she has specialised in learning and a professional development of insurance sales agents at all levels.

From 2017 to 2018, she was selected by her group to help with setting up the business in Cambodia. With the insurance industry in the early years of development, it was common to have a part-time agency force mainly selling endowment savings products.

Sabrina was instrumental in helping her company to launch the first full-time professional agency force in Cambodia with a focus on protection solutions. As head of agency training, she was responsible for setting up the ‘Premier Training System’ to educate and develop the agency force.

During the set-up phase, she went beyond her training role to support the recruitment of a full-time agency force by organising and conducting recruitment events and panel interviews to select the first batch of life insurance agents.

As a result of the Premier Training System, the company produced a full-competence local agency team of business development managers, agency trainers, agency recruitment and agency operation staff; two Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) members in its first eight months of operation from May to December 2017; two Court of the Table and 10 MDRT members in its first full year of operation in 2018; six local business managers; and 13 local associate business managers.

In 2018, she also took on the extra responsibility of heading the agency recruitment team, focusing on recruiting and developing young Cambodians to be entrepreneurs – insurance entrepreneurs. Working with non-governmental organisations like Cambodia Women Entrepreneurs Association, Daily Plus, and Junior Chamber International Cambodia, she launched initiatives to provide financial planning knowledge and to offer insurance business opportunity to their members.

It is never easy to start a full-time professional agency force in a developing market to focus on the financial advisory process and protection solutions. However, Sabrina successfully took on the challenge to make a difference in the insurance industry.

Sara LamsamMuang Thai Life, Thailand

Under Sara’s leadership as CEO, 2018 marked another year of strong progress of innovations in product development, sales tools, and online digital platforms as the company successfully executed a new strategic plan to support agents.

He is committed to improving customer experience in the life insurance industry in Thailand. One of his solutions is ‘Digital Innovation and Transformation’, aimed at addressing claims speed offering new experiences that will change how the customers look at insurance.

‘Digital Innovation and Transformation’ is not simply about insurers leveraging technologies. It is about coping with the challenges of this brave new digital world – where the customer has the freedom of choice to select ever-higher standards of services and products.

At the core of it all is the customer-centric policy ‘Everyday Life Partner’. Being aware of the characteristics and attitudes of the different generations, he has transformed the company’s working environment and culture to be more suitable in the current era.

He has laid the foundation for a strong customer-centric policy for the agency channel. Other than offering excellent products and services to customers, it has instilled in the mindset of agents the need to put the customers at the core of its operations and the entire value chain in the agency force.

Always looking to support and elevate the performance of agents, he closely monitors the results of the agency force through an Agent Subcommittee. He also ensures that the agents are motivated and engaged through special events such as agent seminars and ‘Meet The Boss’ sessions held every quarter.

He takes the time to visit local agents, even in uptown branches. He believes that meeting agents face-to-face is one of the best ways to communicate to ensure that the agency force is fully aware of its integral role in the direction of the organisation.