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Ping An Insurance has brought on-board senior communications professionals for its newly formed international public relations unit as part of its overseas expansion push.
Gareth Hewett, former head of Asia media relations at HSBC, has joined Ping An as head of international PR, according to PR news portal The Holmes Report. He was part of HSBC for 21 years.
Meanwhile, KW Lam was hired as Hewett’s deputy. Lam is the former managing director of H+K Strategies Hong Kong.
Ping An’s international PR unit will be composed of four people, including an international media relations manager and international digital content manager. Hewett has said that it will focus on building Ping An’s and its subsidiaries’ brands in markets outside of China.
Aside from its insurance businesses, Ping An has made substantial investments in fintech, with its recent Good Doctor IPO and upcoming listing of its OneConnect financial management portal.
The Hong Kong-listed insurer has been ranked by Forbes as the largest insurance company in the world and is also the second-largest shareholder in HSBC. Ping An joins several other Chinese heavyweights such as Alibaba and Huawei in embarking on an international public relations blitz to herald their foreign expansion efforts.
