AXA appoints a new Northern, Central and Eastern Europe Regional CEO

PARIS, Jan. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Jacques de Vaucleroy is appointed CEO of the Northern, Central and Eastern Europe Region (NORCEE) of AXA as of March 15th in replacement of Alfred Bouckaert, member of AXA's Management Board and Executive Committee, who will retire at the time of the AXA Group Shareholders meeting on April 29th 2010.

Jacques de Vaucleroy will be in charge of AXA's insurance operations in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe, and will also be in charge of AXA Bank Europe. He will take over all Alfred Bouckaert's responsibilities in the various governance bodies of the AXA Group.

"On behalf of AXA's Management Board and Executive Committee members, I want to very warmly thank Freddy Bouckaert for the remarkable work he has accomplished over the years with always a high level of integrity and professionalism. Under his management, AXA Belgium has become a leader in the Belgian market and has demonstrated its strength during the recent financial crisis. He also successfully managed to build and consolidate our insurance and banking operations in the NORCEE Region, which is one of the most important for our group", said Henri de Castries, Chairman of AXA's Management Board.

"I am very pleased to welcome Jacques de Vaucleroy in the AXA Group. He brings a unique blend of experience, which is very relevant to our business mix and will contribute to the future development of the NORCEE region and to the Group."

Alfred Bouckaert, 64, joined AXA in 1999 as AXA Belgium CEO and member of the Executive Committee of the AXA Group. In 2005, he was appointed CEO of the newly created Northern Europe Region and joined the Management Board in 2006 as NORCEE Region CEO, following Winterthur's acquisition.

Jacques de Vaucleroy, 49, made most of his career within the ING Group, where he was notably a member of the Executive Committee. He has developed over the years an extensive experience of the insurance, asset management and banking businesses, both in Europe and in the US.

About AXA

AXA Group is a worldwide leader in Financial Protection.  AXA's operations are diverse geographically, with major operations in Europe, North America and the Asia/Pacific area.  For 1H09, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 48.4 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 2.1 billion. AXA had Euro 967 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2009.

The AXA ordinary share is listed on compartment A of Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol CS (ISIN FR0000120628 – Bloomberg: CS FP – Reuters: AXAF.PA). The American Depository Share is also listed on the NYSE under the ticker symbol AXA.

This press release is available on the AXA Group website: www.axa.com

SOURCE AXA