Naveed Irshad has been appointed regional chief executive officer for Indonesia, the Philippines and Africa at Prudential plc, with the new role taking effect on October 26. Insurance Business reported the appointment, and The Business Times independently confirmed the scope and timing.
Irshad will also take enterprise-wide responsibility for Prudential’s health and product businesses and join the group executive committee. He will be based in Hong Kong and report to group CEO Anil Wadhwani. Before joining Prudential, Irshad held senior roles at Manulife and RGA across insurance and financial services.
A regional brief with a group-wide layer
The appointment is notable because the title does two jobs at once. The regional perimeter covers three growth markets, while the health and product remit cuts across the group. That places Irshad’s experience in actuarial work, product development, distribution, reinsurance and in-force management close to both local execution and central priorities.
Prudential also announced adjacent changes in Singapore: Chan San San is moving from CEO of Prudential Singapore to chief partnership officer at Eastspring Investments, while Andreas Rosenthal becomes interim CEO. Those moves are part of the same leadership announcement, but Irshad’s appointment has its own October 26 timetable and a distinct regional mandate.
The pattern is familiar across global insurers: local market leadership increasingly sits alongside a group role that connects products and distribution. It follows Alex Wells’s appointment to lead Zurich’s U.S. business, another insurance move where the value of the role was defined by both geography and operating responsibility.
