Atsuhiko Ayabe graduated from Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, Japan in 1989 with a Bachelor degree of Economics (major in “Public Choice”). In the same year, he joined The Tokio Marine and Fire Insurance Co., Ltd. (now renamed as Tokio Marine and Nichido Fire Insurance Co., Ltd.) and, being traditional Japanese, has continuously been working for Tokio Marine Group since then.

Through his nearly a quarter century career with the Japan’s oldest and largest insurance group, he obtained practical and well-balanced knowledge of both Life and Non-life Insurance business. Furthermore Tokio Marine Group sent him to CGU (now renamed as AVIVA) in York, UK and Warsaw, Poland in 1998 for an extensive training of Life Insurance operations. He also has strength in Market Research, Marketing and Branding and Product Development.

From July 2000 to September 2004, Atsuhiko was given an opportunity to lead a dedicated project team to develop Takaful particularly Family Takaful business for a Tokio Marine Group’s affiliate company based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Having successfully established “Bancatakaful” alliances with 3 larger local banks, he got new assignments to further develop Tokio Marine Group’s Takaful business in the Asian region namely Singapore and Malaysia from October 2004 to October 2009.

In November 2009, he was called back to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and is currently responsible for setting up the Protection and Savings (or Life) Insurance Division of Alinma Tokio Marine (“AITM”). AITM is a listed company, with SAR 200 million of paid-up capital, whose major share holders are Tokio Marine Group, Alinma Bank and SABIC Industrial Investment.

Atsuhiko was invited to speak at several major Summits, Seminars and Conferences on Islamic Finance and Takaful business in London, Malaysia, Singapore and Tokyo. He contributed the Chapter 5 to “Islamic Insurance: Trends, Opportunities and the Future of Takaful” published by Euromoney Institutional Investor Plc in 2007. He is also an Associate Fellow member of The Institute of Islamic Banking and Insurance (London) certified on 30th June 2003.