Our People Strategy

Mark Norbom

Now, I would like to move on to the next item on our agenda, which is operating excellence. And this area is really where we are talking about making our business more than just the sum of its parts. Our integrated operating model, our leadership development programmes, our approach to risk management, are all critical elements of our strategy. And I've six speakers this morning, who will share more detail on Prudential's approach to delivering -what I have called- operating excellence.

First you hear from Shu, who is our Senior Director for Human Resources about our people and leadership development strategies. Absolutely core to developing our competitive edge, our sustainability, and our profitability.
Then Steve, our Corporate Affairs Director, will cover the critical area of compliance in Asia and tell you more about our approach; absolutely critical to developing our sustainability and trust in our brand.
And then hear from Clive, the General Manager of Prudential Services Asia; and Kris, the Project Director of Prudential Services Asia, who will talk about our first regional systems and operating hub, established in Malaysia. This is the Genesis project that we've talked about. This is critical for driving cost down, driving up our service level and increasing our productivity across our businesses.
And then finally we hear from Garth, and Kelvin, and they'll tell you about our approach to asset management, which is one of the key drivers of value for our insurance businesses.
So, let's start with Shu.

Shulamite Khoo

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to share with you Prudential Corporation Asia people's strategy. From the previous presentations you will have seen that one of the consistent themes is the importance of people in our business, and how critical it is in our business to effectively resource our business. Across Asia many of our operations are operating in an environment where there is a shortage of skilled and experienced people. As one of the region's major players with a reputation for recruiting and developing talented people, Prudential Corporation Asia's staff do get directly targeted by competitors. Our goal has been to build a portfolio of propositions that are compelling to both our business goals and to our people; and to do this in a manner that is difficult to imitate in the market.

Against the backdrop of business and market requirements, we need to continually increase the breath and depth of leadership and management capability to strengthen the business for the longer term, while addressing the short-term requirements. This includes development of local talents in each of our market. Our strength lies in leveraging our brand strength and reputation to attract the right type of talent and offer them a compelling and unique employee proposition. Attracting and retaining talent goes beyond just higher salaries and more perks. The solution involves shaping the entire organisation to engage our talents, so they perform at the highest level. The challenge is to recognise the choices our talents have. To serve our 5.5 million customers, our business has had to expand exponentially. We now have 7,600 employees, up from just 700 ten years ago. That is 11 times over the last ten years. Our speed to recruit and integrate people and skills to market is a huge competitive advantage that can not be replicated overnight. We have a good mix of staff across the region, all highly qualified within their markets. Almost 80% of our staff are university graduates and of the over 100 actuary staff, a third are qualified actuaries.

As a testament to the focus on building senior leadership and expertise that truly understands the local market, today 85% of current CEO's are Asians. As you can see, we have been successful in localising senior talent.
We have in place three core people strategies, which offer every staff a total value proposition, covering leadership requirements; a positive, engaging work environment; and outstanding career opportunities. Our approach is that all must be rightly positioned to each staff, such that it become necessary for competitors to match the total proposition in order to sway any individual whom we want to retain – a much tougher task than competing on compensation or opportunity alone.
Likewise, our rewards must be compelling. However, these rewards can only be offered through achievement of the key targets in the business. This is important not only for the employee, but also for our business, as it continues to grow and develop.

You have heard me mention the outstanding career development opportunities. One of our key offerings is transfers between our Asian businesses as a way we leverage the considerable asset our people represent. We have already established a good track record in this area. However, I see this increasing at a far more rapid rate as we move forward. The benefits of people transfers are two-fold. Firstly, it allows us to leverage this phenomenal asset and advantage we have in our team of experienced people. Secondly, it helps create stickiness for our people and managers by offering them more opportunities for growth and development. The Prudential Corporation Asia board takes a very serious view on developing leaders from within. We have numerous life examples of people who have made significant progress in their career and have stepped up to take significant roles across borders. On the left hand side of your screen you can see of them is Clive Baker, who will be speaking to you later this morning. Clive originally moved up from Prudential UK to Hong Kong and then to our Philippines business as CFO and then back to Hong Kong again in the regional office, and more recently to Malaysia of the General Manager of the shared services hub.

Regional Learning. When PruUniversity was conceived in year 2000, it was a proposition to provide our people with the right technical and business skills, delivering consistent leadership and management training and providing a means by which we could consolidate our quality and cost of training. As mentioned earlier, we have ambitious recruitment goals. These goals put a tremendous pressure on us to rapidly train our people and have managers, who can manage within the PCA context. The additional challenge is to fulfil this over multiple markets. Today, all Prudential people can enjoy access to consolidated and integrated learning. The University is hosted by Prudential Corporation Asia and distributed to a geographically dispersed group of students, using a variety of classroom, online and blended learning initiatives. At PruUniversity, all levels of our staff benefit from continuous learning, development of skills, knowledge and experience, essential to their current roles, as well as preparing them for future industry developments.

In summary, our people response to the business strategy has been focused on:
Leveraging our scale and diversity to offer outstanding career opportunities; development of leaders and talents both now and for the future; creating a brand and culture, which people are proud to choose; ensuring the reward correctly and differentiated to different levels of performance; but most importantly, understanding why people choose to work in Prudential Corporation Asia and engaging them both intellectually and emotionally. Thereby we continue to build the brand's strength and band with, necessary to support our continued growth in Asia. Thank you.

Now I would like to hand the podium to Steve Bickell, Asia Regional Corporate Affairs Director to talk about compliance. Steve...

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