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.

Sandra Kipfer

Sandra Kipfer joined elipsLife as Chief Financial Officer in January 2024.

She brings broad experience in the insurance industry for over 15 years, holding various positions in finance. In her previous role, Sandra was Head Finance Transformation International Division at Swiss Life. Before, she hold numerous roles at Zurich Insurance.

Sandra possesses a Master’s degree in Finance and Accounting, in addition to an Advanced Federal Diploma in Business Administration.

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.

Marco Giovannini

Marco's journey in the financial sector began as a financial analyst, and he has since held various roles of increasing responsibility within the investments division of Generali.

His professional path has taken him across different global hubs, including Munich, Paris, and New York, where he gained expertise in life, health, and savings products. His extensive industry experience has equipped him with a deep understanding of employee benefits and a comprehensive skill set spanning across strategy, finance, sales, marketing, and operations.

Marco holds a MS in Law and Business Administration, a Ph.D. in Corporate Finance, and a joint global executive MBA programme from Columbia and London business Schools.

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.