Senior Director - New Markets SBU

Anil Mehta has successfully led the company’s sales efforts to large corporate houses. He earlier led the company’s Product Management team through coordination across all functions and transfer of best practices from New York Life. Prior to his appointment at Max New York Life Insurance, Anil was regional Head of Credit, Personal Finance Services, Middle East and South Asia at ANZ Grindlays Bank. He has been responsible for Risk Management and Product Development Support for Personal Financial Services. Anil has also worked as Director Risk Management, Personal Financial Services at American Express Bank Limited .He also worked at Bank of America in the Consumer Credit and Operations.

Senior Director & Chief Financial Officer

Sunil Kakar is in charge of finance, accounts and investment management at MNYL for the last 9 plus years. His career spans 29 years, of which the first 20 years were with Bank of America managing diverse areas like Financial Control, Branch Administration, Operations, Risk Management and Treasury. Sunil was the Vice President (CFO-India), Bank of America and was responsible for strategic planning, asset management liability, annual budgeting, Accounting and Taxation, Regulatory Reporting and MIS before joining MNYL. He was also Director on Board of companies where Bank of America was a shareholder. Additionally, he monitored risk management systems and introduced new treasury products like currency options.

He has a Bachelors degree in Engineering from IIT, Kanpur with MBA in finance from XLRI.

Senior Director- Legal & Compliance

Ajay Seth joined the company in April 2003 and in a short period of time he has helped evolve the company’s legal and compliance strategy, striking a balance between business objectives and statutory and regulatory requirements.
Ajay was earlier with Madura Coats Limited in Bangalore. He has also worked with Unilever Group in Mumbai, Silicon Valley Technology and Max India Limited. Ajay is a Graduate in Law & an Associate Member of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India and Institute of Cost & Works Accountants of India. He has over 15 years of experience which includes exposure to all legal matters in connection with tax, excise, risk management, structuring of partnerships, business alliances, foreign exchange and foreign investment, and litigation related to contract, property, civil, competition, labour and corporate laws.

Senior Director & Chief Marketing Officer

 Debashis Sarkar is responsible in strengthening and steering the Max New York Life’s marketing programme with a vision towards building India’s most admired life insurance company. He was also instrumental in establishing additional channels of distribution across the country.
Under Debashis’s leadership, the team also built an alternative distribution to control mass of Rs. 100 crore and designed a lead generation capability. He has launched products like Life Invest, Life Maker, Smart Steps, Smart Invest Pension, Max Vriksh and Max Mangal, and has been responsible for strategic alliances with Pearless and Nirmal Chhaya.

With an experience of over 20 years in marketing both in India and abroad, he brings a wealth of expertise to the challenges of building a life insurance brand. Debashis now leads the marketing, corporate communications, products, pricing and CRM teams within MNYL supporting both distribution expansion and value creation within the company.

Prior to joining Max New York Life, Debashis was with Reckitt Benckiser, the global household products MNC where he was responsible for new products, innovation and profitability as Marketing Controller (Households). He has played a key role in developing the marketing strategies of well-established brands including ‘Dettol’, ‘Mortein’, ‘Cherry Blossom’ and ‘Harpic’.

Appointed Actuary

John Poole is the Chief Actuary at Max New York life and is also the Appointed Actuary for the Company in terms of Indian insurance Regulations.
John joined MNYL in early 2005 following an 18th month sabbatical at his home town in Cairns, Far North Queensland, during which time he was studying at James Cook University and working on a contract basis for Sydney based Citicorp Life – the reinsurer for all Citibank generated business in Asia.
Prior to that John’s career was spent mainly with the AMP – Australia’s largest life insurer. He held a number of actuarial and finance positions in AMP including CFO and Actuary for the largest of AMP’s Australian business units.
Following AMP’s demutualization in 1998, John headed a project that restated AMP’s financial statements under US GAAP as a prelude to a possible listing in New York. After that he became Finance Director for AMP’s Asian operations during which time he spent many months working closely with China Pacific – the 3rd largest life insurer in the People’s Republic of China and was involved with start-up operations in Japan and India.
John attended London University and then qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (UK) before moving to Sydney in 1974. He is also a Fellow of the Australian and Indian actuarial bodies and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Executive Vice President- Strategic Planning and Business Development Max New York Life Insurance

Prashant looks after the strategic initiatives of the company and works closely with cross functional teams for business development. He works closely with other members of the Management Team in an effort to continue to develop long-term strategy and initiatives to place Max New York Life at the forefront of the Life Insurance industry in India. His role is to identify and develop new opportunities, initiatives and assist in the support of new and existing external relationships. He also supports the market intelligence initiatives and assists in all areas of Max New York Life's future growth. Prashant joined Max New York Life in February 2007.