William Briffaut (40) is married, a French national and a father of five children. William studied Mathematics at the Université de Paris-Sud (Orsay), Statistics and Actuarial Sciences. He started his career in 1989 as an actuary for SCOR UK. After a few years with Coopers & Lybrand in London and Paris, he has been working with AXA Group since 1996, where he took on several technical responsibilities in France and in The Netherlands.

Patrick Coene will continue to lead Fortis Corporate Insurance as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and will be responsible for IT, Finance, Business Development and Operations in Belgium. Michiel Vervliet will be responsible for Operations in The Netherlands and at company level for Human Resources, Communications and Legal Affairs. The current technical responsibilities of Patrick Coene and Michiel Vervliet will gradually be transferred to William Briffaut.

With a premium income of over EUR 600 million, Fortis Corporate Insurance is one of the leading insurers of industrial risks in the Benelux region. Fortis Corporate Insurance has branches in Amstelveen, Brussels, Rotterdam and Antwerp.

Fortis Corporate Insurance is part of Fortis, an integrated financial services provider active in the fields of banking and insurance. With a market capitalisation of EUR 24.4 billion (31/08/2004) and over 53,000 employees, Fortis ranks in the top 20 of European financial institutions.