We care about your employees

Theo Iaponas

Theo Iaponas studied statistics at the University of California Santa Barbara followed by business administration at the University of Washington in Seattle. After holding various positions in Seattle and London within the health and risk benefits sector as an employee and advisor, he became part of Swiss Life in 2009. His initial role at the company involved working as an actuary in the reinsurance business. In 2012, he took over as Head of Product & Underwriting in the Global Employee Benefits business area. In this role his responsibilities included product development and the management of teams both in Zurich and Luxembourg. In 2015, he was appointed Head of Global Employee Benefits based in Luxembourg, where he was also responsible for Operations and Sales & Market Developments. In 2017, he continued as Chief Executive Officer of Swiss Life Luxembourg, where he oversaw, among other things, the integration of elipsLife into the Swiss Life International division from July 2022.

On 1 July 2023 Theo Iaponas took over as Chief Executive Officer International (CEO International) and became a member of the Corporate Executive Board of the Swiss Life Group.

Patricia Mattle

Patricia Mattle has over 10 years of experience in the insurance sector and is a recognised expert in the employee benefits field. Patricia has held a variety of roles in the areas of employee benefits and pension funds, and has spent time working in the US and France, all of which has allowed her to develop a broad range of skills and international experience in life and health insurance.

In her most recent role before joining elipsLife, Patricia spent two years in the Pensions department at AXA Switzerland as Head of Autonomous Market Group Life.

Patricia holds an MA in Marketing, Services and Communication Management from the University of St.Gallen (HSG).

She has been responsible for Central Europe and CEO Switzerland/Liechtenstein at elipsLife since April 2020.

Philippe Golinvaux

Philippe Golinvaux joined Swiss Life Global Employee Benefits as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer in March 2020. 

He brings broad experience in the insurance industry for close to 20 years with various global insurance companies (NN, Axa) in different roles in Finance, Risk Management and Underwriting. In his previous role, Philippe was CFO at AXA Luxembourg.   

Philippe studied Civil Engineer at the University of UC Louvain (Belgium) and also holds a Master’s degree in Actuarial Science (also from UCL). He is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in Luxembourg.

Gielijn Arends

Albert Bakker is responsible for the elipsLife Benelux organization. He has worked in the Dutch insurance industry for over 22 years. In the initial 9 years he worked as COO in one of the leading insurance companies, SNS Reaal. In the last 13 years he was CEO of several Dutch and international insurance companies, a.o. the pension Division of Achmea.

Albert studied Business Economics at the University of Rotterdam, followed by a post MBA in Accountancy. After working for 3 years as an auditor he held various Finance functions, before stepping into the insurance world.  He joined elipsLife in 2017, the moment elipsLife changed to a country organization. As CEO Benelux he is responsible for both the Dutch and Belgian market.

Michael Hansen

Ettore Franzolin holds a PhD in Geochemistry and Petrology from ETH Zurich. He started his career as Pricing Actuary in Corporate Solutions and over the last 10 years, has held various roles in Risk Management at Swiss Re. Ettore has built his experience in a wide range of global topics including capital, risk tolerance, governance, assurance and operational risk management. He led Swiss Re’s Group Risks & Analytics Risk Steering Team for four years and went on to become Head Global Risk Management at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions in 2019. In addition, Ettore Franzolin joined elipsLife as Chief Risk Officer in 2021.

*subject to regulatory approval

David Lata

David Lata is responsible for Underwriting at Swiss Life International Global Employee Benefits since 2022 and a member of the Swiss Life International Global Employee Benefits Management Team since July 2022.

He has worked in the Life and Reinsurance industry for over 20 years across many markets. David joined elipsLife late in 2020 as Head Costing & Underwriting.

He started his career with Generali Worldwide on the valuation/reserving side and then joined Winterthur Group in a product design/profitability role before moving to Swiss Re and later Credit Suisse ILS (Insurance Linked Securities).

David is an actuary (Swiss Actuary Association) and studied actuarial science at HEC University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Pierluigi Verderosa

Pierluigi Verderosa joined elipsLife in January 2020 as CEO Italy, responsible for the overall business development and operations in the Italian market. He has more than 30 years’ experience in Italian insurance industry. In his many different roles he worked in marketing and sales with agents and financial advisors channels, technical departments in Property & Casualty as well as Life. In addition lead more than 250 people and was also head of operations. As General Manager of Cardif BNPP’s Italian subsidiary, Pierluigi launched a new business unit for managing the Italian insurance of salary and pension granted loans. With this initiative Cardif become market leader in Italy.

He holds a degree in Management & Economics  from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice, Italy.

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Gielijn Arends

Albert Bakker is responsible for the elipsLife Benelux organization. He has worked in the Dutch insurance industry for over 22 years. In the initial 9 years he worked as COO in one of the leading insurance companies, SNS Reaal. In the last 13 years he was CEO of several Dutch and international insurance companies, a.o. the pension Division of Achmea.

Albert studied Business Economics at the University of Rotterdam, followed by a post MBA in Accountancy. After working for 3 years as an auditor he held various Finance functions, before stepping into the insurance world.  He joined elipsLife in 2017, the moment elipsLife changed to a country organization. As CEO Benelux he is responsible for both the Dutch and Belgian market.

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George Harbut

Appointed elipsLife Ireland CEO in January 2019, George Harbut is responsible for the Private Medical Insurance and Group Life & Health business in Ireland, and is also Swiss Re’s Country President for Ireland.  He has 25 years of experience across sales, product and finance roles in the international re/insurance sector, joining elipsLife as Head Strategy and Business Development in October 2017.

Prior to that he held several roles at Swiss Re, most recently Head of Corporate Development for Life Capital, responsible for establishing and growing the business unit. George holds a degree in Accounting, a Masters in Insurance & Risk Management and is a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute. 

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Eric Herbelin

Eric Herbelin is responsible for the market entry of elipsLife in the US and the overall development of our business in the region. He has worked in the insurance sector for over 28 years and has in-depth expertise in business development and strategy implementation across international markets. Prior to joining elipsLife, Eric spent 16 years at Zurich Insurance Group. He eventually rose to the position of Head of Group CEO Office, a role in which he was responsible for managing the strategic agenda of the entire Group.

He holds an Executive MBA from IMD, a Master in Human Systems Engineering and a Bachelor in Business Administration.

Eric spent a year as Head of Business Development & Acquisitions at elipsLife after joining the company. Since January 2018, he has been responsible for developing our business on the US market as CEO Americas.

E-Mail Eric Herbelin, CEO US

Patricia Mattle

Patricia Mattle has over 10 years of experience in the insurance sector and is a recognised expert in the employee benefits field. Patricia has held a variety of roles in the areas of employee benefits and pension funds, and has spent time working in the US and France, all of which has allowed her to develop a broad range of skills and international experience in life and health insurance.

In her most recent role before joining elipsLife, Patricia spent two years in the Pensions department at AXA Switzerland as Head of Autonomous Market Group Life.

Patricia holds an MA in Marketing, Services and Communication Management from the University of St.Gallen (HSG).

She has been responsible for Central Europe and CEO Switzerland/Liechtenstein at elipsLife since April 2020.

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Jan Möller

Jan Möller is responsible for elipsLife Germany & Austria. In his role as country CEO he will continue to develop a market for biometric risk insurance in Germany and Austria. He has more than 12 years of experience in the insurance industry with international companies in the corporate non-life and life business. As a (re-)insurance lawyer, he has extensive legal and market strategy expertise in the German insurance market. He started working for XL Catlin Group in 2009 as Legal Counsel & Compliance Officer and was appointed Deputy General Counsel of Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia in early 2017. In April 2017 Jan joined elipsLife in Germany as Head Legal Germany. He holds a PhD in Law from the University of Cologne.

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*subject to regulatory approval