Ping An CIO Benjamin Deng to join Sun Life

Ping An Insurance Group’s outgoing chief investment officer (CIO), Benjamin Deng, will join Sun Life Financial, sources familiar with the matter told AsianInvestor.

He will take on an Asia investment chief role at the Canadian group, overseeing the regional insurance asset portfolio, the sources said.

Deng will be based in Hong Kong, home to Sun Life’s Asia headquarters. AsianInvestor was unable to ascertain his exact title.

He will leave Ping An at the end of this year, when his three-year term ends, as AsianInvestor exclusively reported last month.

His move comes after another senior executive joined Sun Life from Ping A recently. In September, Ping An’s former co-chief executive officer Jessica Tan joined Sun Life Canada as the new president.

Juliette Lim has been Sun Life’s regional head of investments, Asia since 2019. 

Deng has been CIO of Chinese insurance giant Ping An since joining from China Pacific Insurance Company (CPIC) in January 2022 -- a move first reported by AsianInvestor.

As the investment chief of an insurance giant in China, Benjamin Deng is not only an authority on insurance asset management, he also has a deep understanding of China’s financial markets and policymaking.

He was recently named as one of the Top 15 life insurance executives in Asia, a list compiled by the AsianInvestor editorial team.

Deng is based in Ping An’s headquarters in Shenzhen but travels frequently to Hong Kong and Shanghai.

He was previously group CIO of CPIC and before that held senior risk management and investment roles at insurers AIA and AIG.

Sun Life did not respond to an AsianInvestor enquiry on the appointment. Deng declined to comment.

This story has been updated to state Tan's correct title.