Paris, France - March 22, 2016, Paris, France - AXA, an insurance firm, announces that its chairman and CEO, Henri de Castries, has announced his decision to retire and to step down from the board of directors on September 1, 2016.
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Mr. de Castries starts his career in the French Finance Ministry Inspection Office, auditing government agencies from 1980 to 1984. In 1984, he joins the French Treasury Department, where, in 1986, he plays an active role in several privatizations before being appointed to oversee foreign exchange markets and balance of payments for the Treasury.
In 1989, he joins AXA's Corporate Finance Division. In 1991 he is named Corporate Secretary, in charge of the legal aspects of the reorganization and merger of Compagnie du Midi with and into the AXA Group.
Two years later, he is appointed Senior Executive Vice President for the Group's asset management, financial and real-estate businesses. In 1994, he assumes the additional role of overseeing North American and UK operations.
In 1996, Mr. de Castries played an active role both in preparing the UAP merger and in managing the subsequent integration of the two groups. In 1997, he was appointed Chairman of The Equitable Companies (which later became AXA Financial).
He is Chairman of the AXA Management Board from May of 2000 to April of 2010. Since April 2010, following a modification of the corporate governance structure, he has been Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of AXA.
Mr. de Castries is a graduate of the business school HEC (Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales) and holds a bachelor degree in Law. He is a former student of the ENA (Ecole Nationale d'Administration).
Since June 2015, he has been Chairman of the Institut Montaigne. He sits on the Board of the Association pour l'aide aux jeunes infirmes, an organization dedicated to helping disabled youth, and is Chairman of AXA Hearts in Action, AXA's volunteer community outreach program.
AXA's Board of Directors decided to separate the functions of Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, and approved the following appointments effective upon Mr. de Castries’ retirement on September 1, 2016.
Denis Duverne is named as Non-Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.
He started his career in 1979 at the tax department of the French Ministry of Finance, and, after 2 years as commercial counselor for the French Consulate General in New York, he was director of the Corporate Taxes Department and then responsible for tax policy within the French Ministry of Finance from 1986 to 1991.
Between 1991 and 1995, he held senior positions in the banking sector. Denis Duverne joined the AXA Group in 1995 and assumed responsibility for supervision of AXA's operations in the US and the UK before managing the reorganization of AXA’s companies in Belgium and the United Kingdom following the merger with UAP.
Between 2000 and 2003, he became Deputy Chief Financial Officer, where he developed in particular the risk management function. From February 2003, he was the Management Board member in charge of Finance, Control and Strategy. He was notably in charge of the integration of Winterthur within the AXA Group in 2006-2007.
In 2014, Mr. Duverne became a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG), which brings together international leaders of the private sector whose shared goal is to help developing countries improve their corporate governance, co-founded in 1999 by the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Mr. Duverne is a graduate of the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC) and of the École Nationale d'Administration (ENA).
Prior to this appointment, Mr. Buberl was Chief Executive Officer of AXA Germany, CEO of AXA Life & Savings and Health Global Business Lines and a member of the AXA Management Committee. He started his career at the Boston Consulting Group as a consultant for the banking & insurance sector in Germany and internationally.
From 2005 to 2008, he worked for the Winterthur Group (acquired by AXA in 2006) as member of the Management Board of Winterthur in Switzerland, first as Chief Operating Officer and then as Chief Marketing and Distribution Officer. Then, he joined Zurich Insurance Group where he was Chief Executive Officer for Switzerland.
Beginning of 2012, Mr. Buberl joined AXA as Chief Executive Officer of AXA Germany and member of the AXA Executive Committee. In March 2015, he also joined the AXA Management Committee and was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Global Business Line for the Health Business, and, in January 2016, of the Global Business Line for Life & Savings. ■