29 juli 2009: Started with Fortis Insurance Company (Asia)

Henk has just completed the first month with FICA and so far everything goes very well. The new colleagues are really helpful and everyone tries to assist. After working in a temporary office, this week the company has created a new office close to the IT department that Henk is supposed to run.

Henk is Chief Information Officer (CIO) and hence responsible for the people in the IT department of FICA. FICA (Fortis Insurance Company Asia) has Life Insurance business and has about 250 staff. IT is a department of about 35 people. The objective is to further professionalise the team and work as efficient as possible to support FICA's business strategy with Information Systems.

FICA is located in Sheung Wan area on Hong Kong Island. Besides this location (officially HQ) there are two other locations that mainly are used to receive the local agents who do business for FICA.

Besides working as a CIO for FICA Henk is also supposed to assist Fortis' regional office in Asia in any projects related to Operations or IT. The Regional Office is also located in Hong Kong (Central Plaza on HK Island). Fortis has a number of Joint Ventures in Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, China and India) and these companies are assisted on project basis. That probably means that Henk will have to travel every now and then!

23 March 2010: Conference in Macau

Because it's quite difficult and expensive to organise seminars and conferences in Hong Kong, a lot of companies go to Macau to organise these events for their business partners. Macau is only about an hour from Hong Kong by boat, renting a hotel for a conference, e.g. in one of the casino's, is relatively not that expensive and for the guests it's a nice trip.

Oracle had chosen Macau uitgekozen for a two day seminar to present their new product line. Henk attended this seminar and was able to meet a number of other CIO's from Hong Kong.

28 August 2010: Fortis becomes Ageas

As a result of the issues during the financial crisis with the Fortis Group in 2008 BNP Paris Bas, who acquired a part of Fortis Bank, also now has the rights on the name "Fortis". As a result, the new Insurance Group is no longer allowed to use the name from mid 2011 onwards.

In April 2010 we have therefore selected a new name: Ageas and in due course most of the Operating Companies will adopt the new name.

In Hong Kong we did this in Augustus and to celebrate and introduce the name a big party for all staff and agents was organised on 28/8 in the Hong Kong Convention Center. In Hong Kong you can also see promotions of the new name in several places: subway stations, bus and tram stops and even a number of busses and trams in Hong Kong are completely decorated with the new name and logo.