Jon Bassett
Senior Vice President & Head of Strategic Initiatives Office at AIA (formerly Implementation Director of AXA Sun Life)

Jon Bassett is a strategic change leader, specialising in the design, execution and realization of major organizational change programs.

He has worked within the life assurance sector for nearly 30 years, with a strong base in the UK and with several years in Australia and in the Asia Pacific region. Most recently, he has spent 3 years as Senior Vice President & Head of Group Strategic Initiatives Office for AIA Group, based in Hong Kong, where his responsibilities in this role covered the strategies for 14 countries and 6 regional functions.

Jon’s background is in similar change leadership roles: in large scale Merger Integration, in goal focused programs and, prior to that, in heading IT development functions. Before moving to work overseas with AIA in 2007, he was Implementation Director for AXA Sun Life, a leading life assurance, investments and pensions company in the UK.

In a previous life, Jon enjoyed a 5 year career as a teacher, and was once Head of the Economics dept in a large school in Oxford, UK. He has a degree in Politics and Economics, and is a qualified teacher, as well as holding technical qualifications in program management and Six Sigma process engineering. He was briefly elected to the Council of the Association for Project Management in 2000 - before immediately departing overseas - and had previously served on other professional project management examination boards.