AIDA Europe hosts Presidential Council

By Chris Rodd, Member of the AIDA Executive and Australian representative on the AIDA Presidential Council

In late May, AIDA Europe hosted the 10th AIDA Europe meeting in Athens, Greece.
 
It incorporated a full meeting of the AIDA Executive and Presidential Council and was the first face-to-face meeting since the AIDA World Congress in Melbourne in August 2023.

Incoming President Carlos Estebenet, from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who took over from Peggy Sharon, from Tel Aviv, Israel, has indicated that his specific focus during his presidency is to increase global participation in and output from the 12 AIDA working parties.

Consistent with this aim, it was gratifying to see that 11 of the 12 working parties met individually or as joint meetings in Athens. The European meeting was held over two days on 30-31 May, with Presidential Council meetings on 29 May.
 
A focus for discussion was enhancement of the AIDA website, transferring AIDA’s registered office from Switzerland to an EU country, Luxembourg, and the admission of new AIDA chapters, most notably Canada. There were discussions about expanding participation of AIDA’s global membership in the working parties’ activities, including conducting regional webinars.

As revealed in Melbourne, the next AIDA World Congress will be in Hamburg, Germany, in 2027.

Since then AIDA has received an expression of interest from our colleagues at ILAS in Singapore who have indicated a desire to host the following World Congress in Singapore in 2031.

This is a very significant development because if it goes ahead it will be the first time an AIDA World Congress has been hosted in an Asian country, although AILA did join with ILAS to host the Asia Pacific Insurance Conference in October 2017.

It is a very positive development in enhancing the profile and supporting the evolution of AIDA in South-East Asia and Asia generally.