The FinOps Foundation Announces AIA as a Premier Member

Asian Insurance Giant Joins FinOps Foundation to Support its Rapid Cloud Adoption

PORTLAND, Ore., Sept. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The FinOps Foundation, a part of The Linux Foundation's non-profit technology consortium focused on advancing the people and practice of cloud financial management, announced today that insurance giant, AIA Group, is joining as a Premier Member company.

As part of AIA's Premier Membership, Keith Austin, Associate Director of Cloud Services, leading the Cloud Centre of Excellence at AIA, will join the FinOps Governing Board as a voting member to help craft Foundation strategy and direction. The Governing Board sets the strategy of the program, including where to invest resources and funds in support of the Technical Advisory Council's work.

For more than a century, AIA has strived to make a significant, positive impact for customers and communities across Asia. As the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group—with a presence in 18 markets across Asia—how it evolves impacts millions of people every day.

Amid the growth of cloud computing, AIA's transition to the cloud has been enormous, increasing cloud adoption to 78%, ahead of the global average in the financial services and insurance industry. FinOps teams and practices enable companies to gain greater control over their cloud spend forecasting and migration planning. FinOps is now practiced in every major industry and AIA will lead the early growth of FinOps in the Asia-Pacific region, which is following North America and Europe in FinOps adoption, research shows. 

"The common thread that unites our Technology, Digital, Analytics (TDA) team is that everybody is an expert in their respective fields. We bring together the best providers and hire top talent, and we empower our teams to build frictionless, world-class systems and products. This will now include the FinOps Foundation," said Marcel Malan, AIA Group's Head of Group IT Operations. "By leveraging the power of TDA to transform into a customer-centric, world-class digitally-enabled insurer, we enhance our resilience and abilities to capture the growth opportunities. This also deepens our purpose to help millions of people in Asia to live healthier, longer, better lives."

AIA's cloud first strategy is a fundamental pillar for AIA to be able to scale and modernize with the needs of customers, agencies and distributors, and it leads its peers in Asia in doing so.

"AIA's rapid cloud adoption takes courage, leadership and a committed team and partnership," said J.R. Storment, Executive Director of the FinOps Foundation. "We welcome AIA as a Premier Member. Its commitment to evolve to the cloud computing world is an example of how all companies, whether deeply established or brand new, can and must take advantage of technological advances to better meet their customer needs and stay ahead of competitors. AIA's membership in the FinOps Foundation will be a huge asset to the larger FinOps community as we develop and instill best practices across industries and continents."

The FinOps Foundation has continued its rapid expansion. It now serves over 7,500 community members from more than 2,500 organizations. End user members gain exposure in the FinOps community, have easy access to training and enhanced recruitment opportunities - accelerating the adoption, and are coached on the development of their FinOps practices.

The latest FinOps Foundation research indicates that large companies will continue to adopt FinOps, due to the complexity of their cloud environments, reporting requirements and the sheer number of disparate teams requiring collaboration. Also, the research found that financial services and IT industries practice FinOps most, followed by other industries.

With the explosive growth of cloud in recent years, organizations understand the critical need to ensure accountability for cloud spending in order to align cloud adoption and investment with business strategy and value.

To learn more about becoming a member of The FinOps Foundation visit https://www.finops.org/membership/ 

The FinOps Foundation (F2) is a non-profit trade association made up of FinOps practitioners around the world including Atlassian, Autodesk, Gannett, HERE Technologies, Just Eat, Nationwide and Spotify. Grounded in real world stories, expertise, and inspiration for and by FinOps practitioners, the FinOps Foundation is focused on codifying and promoting cloud financial management best practices and standards to help community members and their teams become better at cloud financial management.

AIA Group Limited and its subsidiaries (collectively "AIA" or the "Group") comprise the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group. It has a presence in 18 markets – wholly-owned branches and subsidiaries in Mainland China, Hong Kong SAR⁽¹⁾, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan (China), Vietnam, Brunei and Macau SAR⁽²⁾, and a 49 per cent joint venture in India.

The business that is now AIA was first established in Shanghai more than a century ago in 1919. It is a market leader in Asia (ex-Japan) based on life insurance premiums and holds leading positions across the majority of its markets. It had total assets of US$340 billion as of 31 December 2021.

AIA meets the long-term savings and protection needs of individuals by offering a range of products and services including life insurance, accident and health insurance and savings plans. The Group also provides employee benefits, credit life and pension services to corporate clients. Through an extensive network of agents, partners and employees across Asia, AIA serves the holders of more than 39 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes.

AIA Group Limited is listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the stock code "1299" with American Depositary Receipts (Level 1) traded on the over-the-counter market (ticker symbol: "AAGIY").

Notes:
(1) Hong Kong SAR refers to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
(2) Macau SAR refers to the Macau Special Administrative Region.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE FinOps Foundation