Axa, one of the largest insurance companies in the world said it has appointed Richard Benjamins as Chief Data Officer of the AXA Group and Head of the Data Innovation Lab.
The group said in a statement that his appointment is effective May 2. Previously, he was Director of External Positioning & Big Data for Social Good at LUCA, Telefonica’s newly created data unit. He will report to Benoît Claveranne, Chief Transformation Officer (CTO) and a member of the Management Committee of the AXA Group.
In his role, Richard will notably steer the Group’s data strategy and manage the data governance. His proven track record and expertise will be instrumental in taking the DIL and its teams to their next development stage and, more broadly, together with the Chief Data Officer (CDO) community, make AXA a data empowered organization.
Richard Benjamins holds a PhD in Cognitive Science/Artificial Intelligence from the University of Amsterdam. From 1993 to 2000, he was successively visiting professor at the University of Sao Paulo, visiting researcher at the Université Paris-Sud (HCM-EU), visiting researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA) for the Spanish Ministry of Sciences (CSIC), and assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam. From 2000 to 2007, he was Director and Board Member of iSOCO.
He joined Telefónica in 2007. From 2014 to 2016, he was Group Director of Business Intelligence & Big Data. His last position at Telefonica was Director of External Positioning & Big Data for Social Good at Telefonica’s recently launched Big Data unit LUCA.
