– Thomas Appiah leads renewed pensions market surge.
In a move aimed at bringing both exceptional expertise and a depth understanding of the company’s corporate values, objectives and culture, Quality Insurance group has appointed Thomas Daniel Appiah as the new CEO of QLAC Financial Trust Limited. Before his current assignment, Thomas was Deputy CEO of Quality Life Insurance Company Limited (QLAC), majority shareholder in QLAC Financial Trust. Crucially, the company is a private pensions’ scheme manager operating under the second and third tiers of Ghana’s three tier national pensions framework. Indeed, it is the similarities between life insurance and private pension schemes that persuaded QLAC’s shareholders, like their counterparts who own several of the other life insurers in Ghana, to go into pension’s scheme management.
QLAC Financial Trust was consequently established in 2015, but since then has not fully leveraged on the synergies with life insurance and the market opportunities available to the highly reputed Quality brand with regards to risk management and retirement planning.
This will now change. Thomas Daniel Appiah is an exemplary choice for the job of putting QLAC where it deserves to be in the private pensions market in Ghana.
He is a chartered accountant by profession and a member of the Chartered Institute of Accountants, Ghana (ICAG Ghana). He also holds an Executive Masters of Business Administration degree in Finance from the University of Ghana, Legon. He has passes in three subjects from the Ghana Insurance College.
He has three decades of professional experience in accountancy and finance, 26 years of which have been in the general business and life insurance sectors. He has also held various managerial positions including Head of Accounts of the Ring Road West office of the then State Insurance Company (now SIC insurance), project accountant at the SIC Mall from 1999 to 2004, and Accountant of the ECOWAS Brown Card Insurance Scheme between 2002 and 2005.
More lately, he was Chief Finance Officer of Unique Insurance Company for over eight years, and has been Deputy CEO of Quality Life Assurance since then, before ascending to his new appointment in which he is tipped to make the Quality brand a leader in the private pensions industry.
He is completely well-armed, having attended management training programmes, conferences and several courses – both locally and internationally, including two professional attachments in the United Kingdom.
Thomas has worked on several internal and external internal committees, including Chairman of the Audit Committees of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Special Initiatives, as well as serving as a member of the National Petroleum Authority’s Audit Committee. He is also the Board Chairman of the Audit Committee of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration. He is a Board member and secretary of QLAC Financial Trust.
The new appointment is seen by Ghana’s pensions industry as a potential turning point in the development of Ghana’s private pensions industry; and Thomas himself affirms that he is up to the task and the huge expectations placed on his capable shoulders by the Quality brand itself with regards to the provision of financially secure, relevant and customer-convenient private pensions products and services. The smart money in the industry right now is on his succeeding in spectacular fashion.
