After 12 years at the helm of Aegon Canada Inc., George Foegele is stepping down as chairman, president and CEO, but is staying on as chairman of the board in a non-executive position. Effective April 15, his successor is Paul Reaburn, a Canadian who returns home from Aegon Financial Planners in the U.S., at which he was chief operating officer.

Foegele says he made the decision to change roles so he could spend more time with his young family, to “get my golf handicap back to where it was when I started this job” and to explore other avenues down the line.

“I’m going to take on a number of selected board positions and I’m going to look at a number of business opportunities,” says Foegele, adding that he hasn’t made any decisions yet, but that he doesn’t lack options.

“It’s amazing, [the opportunities] seem to have appeared out of nowhere. When the world finds out you’re changing course, opportunities just seem to come out of the woodwork,” he says.

Toronto-based Aegon Canada is the corporate entity under which Transamerica Life Canada, Aegon Capital Management Inc., Aegon Dealer Services Canada Inc., Money Concepts (Canada) Ltd. and Aegon Fund Management Inc. operate. Aegon Canada, which has 700 employees across Canada and almost $9 billion in assets under management, is a subsidiary of Aegon NV of the Netherlands, a global insurance giant.

“[Foegele] won’t have a part in day-to-day operations; he’ll have more of a strategic role, the focus being on: a) continuity of the operation; and b) continuing to explore development opportunities,” says David Boone, Aegon Canada’s vice president of marketing and corporate services.

Reaburn, Aegon’s incoming chairman, president and CEO, is a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry. He holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Waterloo and is a designated actuary. Before joining Aegon, he worked for the Independent Order of Foresters in Toronto in a variety of positions, but predominately product development. In his final role at the IOF, Reaburn was responsible for all product development and pricing, risk management and the management actuarial function.

In 1997, he joined Aegon U.S. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at which he advanced through a number of executive jobs. As COO of AFP, Reaburn oversaw an operational group consisting of a number of divisions across the U.S.

Boone maintains that the change at the top will have no effect on the company’s structure or direction in the near term, and that affairs at Aegon are “business as usual.

“It’s not anticipated that [the change of president and CEO] in and of itself will lead to any other significant structural changes,” Boone says. “Paul, obviously, has a lot to observe in the immediate future in terms of our operations, so I suspect he’ll want to have that immediate period of time to form his outlook for the future.”

Boone says an important element to Aegon’s strategy is continuing to grow and improve the company’s distribution side.

“I think if I had to point to one specific area in which there’s a lot of focus, it’s enhancing our service offering to our stakeholders, both the distributors and the producers that form our distribution channel,” he says. “We have myriad activities ongoing that are going to allow us to take a quantum leap forward in how we service our distribution. And I can pretty much assure you that’s where the focus will be in 2005.”

Aegon’s wholly owned distribution arm includes Aegon Dealer Services and Money Concepts Canada. It employs almost 500 planners in 101 branches across the country and has almost $5 billion in mutual fund assets under administration. Aegon also leverages a national network of independent distributors, one of which is World Financial Group, which sells both life insurance and investment products.

Boone says Foegele leaves a strong legacy at the company, in which he has instilled “a spirit of competitiveness.

“We have a very dynamic company — we’re hustling to maintain and gain share,” he says. “George brought that spirit.”

Says Foegele: “We started off [as] a very small subsidiary of Transamerica Life. We survived and prospered through a time of huge consolidation in the 1990s and into the new millennium. When I think back to 1993, there were 55 companies competing in our marketplace. Today, there are 10 of us that control more than 90% of the market.”
IE