AIA unveils flagship agency office in Kuala Lumpur

IT WAS double happiness for AIA Bhd as the company recently celebrated the Lunar New Year and the launch of its flagship agency office in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

Situated just along Jalan Munshi Abdullah and a stone’s throw away from its head office in Jalan Ampang , AIA CapSquare is located in theCapSquare commercial development.

Spread across 150,000 sq ft of space on nine floors in the CapSquare Tower, the office accomodates 253 of the life insurer’s agencies and some 2,200 AIA Life Planners.

On top of providing for a more conducive work environment, the office also houses training and recruitments systems and facilities to groom talent looking into financial planning careers.

Following the US$1.7bil (RM5.3bil) acquisition of ING’s Malaysian insurance businesses last year, the company is in the midst of bringing two teams together.

The God of Fortune handing out candies during the launch of AIA’s new office.

In addition to systems and operations integration, the transformation process involves remodelling of existing offices at new locations.

“Through the acquisition, we pretty much have an AIA office and ING office in most locations, including cities like Ipoh, Johor Baru and Seremban,” said AIA Bhd chief executive officer Bill Lisle.

“For most of the offices, we’re looking to move them to new locations and this will be a significant investment the company is looking into over the next 12 to 18 months.”

AIA CapSquare marks the first remodelled and relocated agency office to be launched while offices in Petaling Jaya and Klang are anticipated to be in full operation over the next two months.

With the new offices set up, the company is looking to recruit 6,000 new life planners nationwide through its Special Talent Search (STS) programme.

“Recruitment will continue to be a key strategic initiative to further strengthen our distribution footprint,” explained Lisle.

He also added that all aspects were carefully considered when designing the offices to ensure the best tools, technology and facilities are available to foster better financial planning talents as well as to support the growth of the life planners’ businesses.

Also in attendance of the launch were AIA Group president and chief executive Mark Tucker, regional chief executive Ng Keng Hooi, AIA Bhd central region chief agency officer Vincent Chong and agency distribution deputy general manager Choo Sin Fook.