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Hugh Francis

Hugh has 26 years experience within the Insurance sector. Hugh has worked for Aviva plc since 2001 where he is Director of External Reporting Developments based in London. Hugh is responsible for assessing and responding to future external reporting, regulatory, solvency and accounting developments, including Solvency II, global regulation and IFRS. Hugh is actively involved in a number of UK, European & Global industry bodies and is a member of the EFRAG Insurance Accounting Working Group.

Hugh has participated in a number of finance projects, including the conversion to IFRS, US listing, Solvency II implementation. He has led work on the potential strategic and operational impact of IFRS and Solvency II developments and supports Aviva's CEO and Chairman on specific ad hoc external developments and initiatives. Previously, Hugh was Head of Risk Management at Sun Life Financial in the UK where, among other projects, he was responsible for the establishment and embedding of the risk management framework within the company.

Hugh joined Price Waterhouse Coopers in 1989 straight after gaining his BSc in Economics from The University of London. Hugh qualified as a chartered accountant and worked as a senior manager at PwC for a number of years, where he was involved in audit, M&A and other insurance and financial services projects.

Hugh has extensive experience in the insurance industry, initially as an auditor and external consultant and then within insurance companies and will endeavour to bring this experience to bear as a member of the IRSG as an industry representative on the wide range of consumer protection, regulatory, supervisory and financial stability issues under consideration by EIOPA. He has a good understanding of issues impacting the wider European insurance industry and experience with wider global developments, including capital developments following Aviva's designation as a Global Systemic Insurance Institution. Hugh can provide insight from his experience within Aviva, as a significant Pan-European insurer, which has a significant level of regulatory interaction across Europe and will particularly seek to utilise this experience to contribute to EIOPA's work on consistency of application of Solvency II and its subsequent review.