Eighth meeting of AXA Stakeholder Advisory Panel

Attendees :

• External panelists: Ameera Shah, Maria Ressa, Steve Davis, Sangu Delle, Nicholas Eberstadt and Mark Tercek
• Members of AXA’s Board : Denis Duverne (Chairman of AXA’s Board), Angelien Kemna (Board Member)
• AXA management: Thomas Buberl (CEO), George Stansfield (Deputy CEO and Group General Secretary), Jad Ariss (Group Head of Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility), Nicolas Pfohl (Executive Assistant to Group Head of Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility) and Céline Soubranne (Group Head of Corporate Responsibility)

Panelists have been invited to share their insights and comments regarding specific initiatives: AXA Corporate Responsibility framework for engagement, Health in Africa and the “Future of Trust”.

1. AXA Corporate Responsibility framework for engagement

Panelists have agreed that CR topics for engagements should remain stable over time and limited in number. Efficiency and recognition come with focalization on a few iconic fights. The Panel validated the overall selection methodology, securing the alignment between possible topics for engagement and, notably, the strategy, the potential marginal impact, the exemplarity and the communication policy of the Group.     

To maintain consistency in the long term, the links between topics for engagement should be explored (i.e. links between health and climate change for example).

The interest to extent AXA’s existing “climate change and environment” pillar to the fight against biodiversity loss was unanimously recognized.

Regarding risks associated to excessive sugar consumption, the panel has highlighted the fact that prevention efforts have already been carried out by public and private players, without much success until now. If panelists agreed on the obvious legitimacy of such an engagement for AXA, they insisted on the importance for AXA to spot how it would be able to make a difference.

2. Health in Africa

The panelists exchanged on the opportunities offered by the African Health market and on the challenges AXA might face to roll-out its initiatives locally. The example of Egypt has been discussed in depth. Key topics explored were the following: the appropriate level of vertical integration in the Healthcare value-chain, the pricing strategy and the fundamental levers to gain scale.

3. Future of Trust

The panel has explored the various factors explaining the raising level of distrust within the public toward institutions, including corporate players, and between individuals. Panelists deep-dived on two specific issues: the responsible use of artificial intelligence for AXA and the denigration campaigns against individuals orchestrated through social media.

Panelists encouraged AXA to question its corporate culture to foster trust, especially because in the insurance business it is gained or lost with clients in a limited number of “crises” moments. 

The panel suggested that AXA should answer the requests for more transparency, whether expressed by customers or employees, but also communicate and explain when it cannot be transparent.