When Kevin Strain becomes CEO of Sun Life in August, will big changes to the insurer’s strategy follow? 

David Motemaden A financial analyst with Evercore ISI, asked Strain this question during a conference call following the release of the insurer's Q4 2020 results. 

Strain, currently serving as Sun Life's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), sees one big change on the horizon: Greater emphasis on digital. 

“We rolled out a project called Digital Enterprise, which was really about how working more agile, working more like a digital company, bringing IT and the business closer together. But also on the what side of doing more in digital and continuing to be aggressive. You can see the impacts on digital through COVID and how quickly we pivoted,” Strain explains. 

Sun Life's presence in Asia will be another focus. “I think we’ve got a great footprint. We’re in the two biggest economies and the two biggest markets with China and India. We’ve got a great business in Hong Kong. We’ve got a really good footprint in the ASEAN region. We’re building out high net worth. So, my focus would be the same as it’s been the last few years, is building scale,” Strain explains.  

Strain points out that Sun Life made two acquisitions in bancassurance in Vietnam, in which he was quite involved. “But those types of transactions where we’re building distribution capability, we’re building partnerships and we’re building in a market that we think has huge potential,” he says.