Executive Committee Members

Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Ltd

Naveen Tahilyani joined Tata AIA Life as Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director in January, 2015.

Naveen brings with him rich experience of nearly two decades in the Insurance, Banking & Asset management Industry.

Prior to joining Tata AIA Life, Naveen was a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, based in Mumbai and lead the Financial Services practice in South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Phillippines, Vietnam). At McKinsey he worked with some of the largest public, private and foreign financial services institutions.

Naveen has deep expertise in life insurance business. He has advised India and SE Asia’s leading insurance companies on topics of distribution transformation including bancassurance, customer management and operational improvements.

Naveen holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Chief Operating Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

Amitabh Verma has been appointed the Chief Operating Officer for Tata AIA Life since May 2014 and brings with him a wealth of global experience.

Amitabh is responsible for driving operational excellence across the company and reports to the CEO. Operational Excellence includes design, implementation, and improvement of policies and procedures that Tata AIA Life uses to create and deliver its solutions and, to ensure that the Company has world class systems, operational controls, and procedures in place to effectively grow the organization.

An engineering and management graduate from premier institutes, Amitabh has over 23 years of experience in the Insurance and Information Technology business. Prior to the current role, he served as the Chief Operating Officer of Birla Sun Life Insurance Company, where he was responsible for scaling up the business and, developing and deploying strategies for growth.

Amitabh has had a stint with Tata AIA Life during 2001 to 2005. He also worked with the AIG Group in Hong Kong from 2006 to 2008 as Vice President, IT and Operations.

Senior Vice President & Appointed Actuary, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

Heerak has been the Appointed Actuary of Tata AIA Life since November 2005 and brings with him a wealth of global and regional experience.

At Tata AIA Life as Appointed Actuary he is responsible for all the actuarial activities within the company including product pricing, statutory valuations and solvency reporting, asset-liability matching, embedded values and economic capital, investments, business planning and reinsurance. He brings with him a wealth of regional and global experience. Prior to joining Tata AIA Life Heerak was a Director and consulting actuary with Watson Wyatt (now part of Towers Watson) in Singapore consulting to countries in South East Asia covering India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka carrying out a wide range of assignments including advising on mergers and acquisitions, business planning, Appointed Actuary work and strategic projects in the insurance, mutual fund, health and retirement benefit sectors. Heerak has also assisted on a variety of projects for the Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand markets.

Heerak has also worked as an actuary with a multinational bank in India advising on investments and retirement benefit arrangements. He has also worked in the actuarial department of a life insurer in the United Kingdom where he started his career.

Heerak is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries of the United Kingdom having qualified in 1993 at the age of 23, a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries of India and a Fellow of the Singapore Actuarial Society. He also holds a MA degree in Mathematics from Cambridge University and a MBA from the University of Strathclyde.

Heerak has also served for several years on the Council of the Institute of Actuaries of India and has also been the Chairman of the Institute's Life Insurance Advisory Group.

Heerak is married with a son and a daughter. His wife is an MBA (Finance) gold medallist from the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Calcutta and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Calcutta University.

Chief - Partnership Distribution & Corporate Solutions, Tata AIA Life Insurance Co. Ltd.

H. Venkatachalam, also known as Venky to his colleagues, is the Chief of the Partnership Distribution and Corporate Solutions in Tata AIA Life Insurance. He overlooks partnerships spanning Bancassurance, Broking, Corporate Agency, Group and Credit Life Businesses.

Venky brings to the table his vast experience in the financial services industry spanning Life Insurance, Asset Management Business and Custodial Services. His 20 year long career encompasses Sales and Distribution, Channel Management, and Strategy roles.

He joined Tata AIA Life in April 2016 from ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company, where he was Executive Vice President for Bancassurance, Assets and International business. He was instrumental in setting up Bancassurance business at ICICI Pru.

Venky pursued Masters in Financial Management from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai.

Senior Vice President Human Resources, Training & Capability Development Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

Kristyl Pais Bhesania is currently Senior Vice President and Head of Human Resources at Tata AIA Life Insurance Co. Ltd. In her current role, she oversees the entire HR vertical of the company. Kristyl has joined Tata AIG Life Insurance in December 2011.

Kristyl started her career with Johnson & Johnson and thereafter headed HR for Tata NYK, where she set up the HR department. She has also had a stint with Euro RSCG as Head of HR.

Prior to Tata AIA Life, she was with Taj Group of Hotels, where she worked as Director Human Resources. She worked with the iconic hospitality brand for 12 years, having handled more than 40 of the group's international as well as the Premium hotels. She was part of the team that launched Vivanta by Taj brand in 2010. As a strategic business partner at Vivanta by Taj, HR focused on working on solutions to develop and train associates on the "Vivanta way of life".

Kristyl am certified in MBTI Assessments. She is a certified external assessor for the Tata Business Excellence Model and a certified IRIS trainer and assessor.

She is a graduate in Economics from Mumbai University and also done her MMS from Mumbai. Kristyl loves travelling and reading.

Senior Vice President (Legal & Compliance), Company Secretary, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

S. Swaminathan is responsible for leading Tata AIA Life in all aspects of Legal & Compliance and Enterprise Risk Management.

He has rich experience in handling legal & compliance functions in Engineering, Petrochemicals and Financial Services businesses including Life Insurance. During his career span of 26 years, he has played important roles in the Company Secretarial, Legal and Compliance functions. Swaminathan joined Tata AIA Life Insurance from HDFC Standard Life Insurance where he spearheaded the legal & compliance functions and was also the Company Secretary. He was instrumental in establishing the Corporate Legal & Compliance policies of the company since its inception. Prior to that role, he was with HDFC Limited managing its Investor Relations & Corporate Secretarial affairs and customer relationship issues concerning various stakeholders.

Swaminathan started his career with a leading distributor of pump sets M/s. Agromach. He also had successful stints with Kaveri Engineering and Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. where he was instrumental in handling the largest ever public issue in its time in 1992. In addition to being a member of Institute of Company Secretaries of India, Swaminathan is a law graduate from the Government Law College, Mumbai, and also holds a certificate in Oracle Programming.

An avid technology buff, Swaminathan enjoys embedding technology in all facets of legal and compliance. He is an active sports enthusiast and is also a qualified training faculty of the Art of Living Foundation.

Chief Financial Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Ltd.

Subhash Pillai joined Tata AIA Life as Chief Financial Officer in May, 2016

Subhash brings with him rich experience of over two decades in FMCG, Banking, Financial Services and Insurance industries having worked in various Indian and international environments.

Subhash has significant experience in the life insurance business having worked with Tata AIA in senior positions in Finance for nearly 7 years from 2005 to 2012, prior to pursuing his entrepreneurial interests. He was instrumental in driving many of the company’s strategic initiatives during his former stint with TATA AIA.

Prior to joining Tata AIA Life, Subhash was Director - Sales and Marketing at OPC Asset Solutions Pvt. Ltd, a leading player in the capital equipment leasing and Asset Life Cycle Management space, in an entrepreneurial role.

Subhash is a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.

In his spare time, Subhash enjoys long distance endurance cycling and reading philosophy. He is married to Bindu and together they have two sons – Aaryan and Arnav

Chief Investment Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Ltd.

As Tata AIA Life's Chief Investment Officer, Harshad will be responsible for all investment activities and investment strategy. Harshad brings to the table a unique blend of experience managing equity and debt funds for both insurance & mutual fund industry. Harshad Patil has extensive experience of around 15 years in a gamut of areas pertaining to investments such as fund management, research and dealing functions.

Harshad joined Tata AIA Life (TALIC) in 2006, and has been instrumental in taking TALIC's Investment portfolio from strength to strength. Under his guidance, TALIC's Unit Linked Income Funds and Hybrid Funds have outperformed the benchmark on a consistent basis. Harshad has also developed the investment methodology of the High water mark funds in-house, making TALIC a pioneer in this fund category.

Harshad's prior assignment was with UTI Mutual Fund for over 7 years in various capacities linked to fund management and dealing.

Harshad holds a Bachelor Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Government College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) and a Masters Degree in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Harshad also has a CFA certification to his credit.

Harshad has keen interest in Football and cricket and loves travelling. He is married with one daughter and one son.

Chief Risk Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Ltd.

Pawas Krishna Agarwal joined Tata AIA Life Insurance in September 2015, and was appointed as the Chief Risk Officer in December 2015. He is responsible for enabling the efficient and effective governance of significant risks, and related opportunities, in the business, aiming to achieve this by setting up a robust process, culture and ecosystem towards Risk Management in the company.

Pawas started his career with Tata Group’s flagship leadership programme Tata Administrative Services (TAS) in 1999.

Pawas joined Tata AIA Life from Tata Sons Ltd., where he was responsible for a Group level lead role. The role involved partnering with Tata companies (and a few non-Tata companies) on the subjects of strategy, leadership and Innovation, including the subjects of intelligent risk taking and sustainable profitable growth for long-term value creation. The role also accorded him a deep understanding of various CXO level issues and experience across varied industries, particularly, Financial Services, and Retail & Consumer Products in Singapore, Vietnam, US, Thailand, China and India.

Pawas has previously also worked with Titan and Tata Global Beverages in the areas of multi-channel sales, retailing and marketing, in various leadership roles.

A Postgraduate Diploma holder from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kolkata, Pawas also holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur.

Chief Distribution Excellence Officer, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Ltd

Rajiv Chelladurai is the Chief Distribution Excellence Officer of Tata AIA Life Insurance. He is responsible for Distribution Technology practices as well as implementing process excellence within the distribution teams aimed at resulting in increased productivity and higher efficiency.

Rajiv has over two decades of rich experience in the Financial Services and Telecom sector in the areas of Sales, Sales Transformation, Sales Automation and Innovation. He has a proven track record of 15 years in the Life Insurance industry. Prior to joining Tata AIA he in April, 2015, he served as Head Sales Automation and Innovation at Birla Sun Life Insurance Company.

Rajiv holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration in Marketing from Symbiosis and a MA in Public Administration.

Chief of Proprietary Channels, Tata AIA Life Insurance Company Limited

Rishi Srivastava, in his capacity as the Chief of the Proprietary Channels, is responsible for the Agency Business, Direct Sales Force and Rural Business of Tata AIA Life Insurance. In addition to his primary responsibilities, he’s also in charge of the Product, Marketing and Communications functions of the Company.

Rishi comes with extensive experience and brings to the table a unique perspective, thanks to his long association with the insurance and banking industry in India and South East Asia. In a career spanning over two decades, his contribution towards strategising, setting and scaling up a viable business model, has helped businesses achieve their objectives.

Rishi joined Tata AIA Life in April, 2016, from AXA Indonesia, where he was the CEO, Agency. Prior to that role, he was head of NRI Global Remittances and International Marketing with ICICI Bank. He also worked with ICICI Prudential Life Insurance as the Head of Agency.

Rishi has an M.A. in Economics. He has also done a postgraduate programme in Marketing.