Pascale joined AIA in 2020 and has been leading the Group performance & rewards function since early 2022. She has implemented a number of initiatives to elevate performance and rewards across the Group and drive impactful rewards. Prior to joining AIA, Pascale worked for Zurich Insurance and for UBS in Switzerland and in New York. She holds a Master of Science from the University of Zurich.

Michael is a lawyer and Swiss Certified Tax Expert and the Co-Founder of Sterchi Share Incentives & Pensions AG (SSIP) a company supporting its clients in the design, implementation and roll out of global executive and share plans. Before founding SSIP Michael was partner and the head of the executive compensation group at KPMG in Zurich and has 25 years’ experience in assisting Swiss and international companies in relation to the design and global implementation of executive compensation, equity and pension plans including accounting, valuation, tax and legal issues.

Daniel is currently managing the Group’s Equity Programs, featuring Options, PSUs, DEUs, RSAs and RSUs. The main activities are to organize recurring plan events, automate processes, analyze and implement new plans, and improve the participants' user experience. To achieve this, Daniel liaises with the regional Compensation experts as well as with peers from Finance, Treasury, Tax, Legal and Compliance. In addition, he supports the administration of local share plans in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland. Other areas of activities include Executive Remuneration, Corporate Governance and Compensation.

Prior to joining Zurich in December 2013, Daniel worked as a Business Consultant at UBS’ CEFS. CEFS was later incorporated as Equatex AG. Prior to joining UBS in 2007, Daniel worked at a small Swiss IT company as a Project Leader, developing software applications for banks.

Daniel holds a Master of Science ETH in Computer Science (2002) and an MBA from the University of St. Gallen (2011). It wasn’t exactly career planning, but rather a series of fortunate opportunities that moved Daniel to the Share Compensation world.

Markus Seppälä is Senior Manager, Executive Compensation and Share Plans at global specialty chemicals producer Clariant. A three-time TEDx speaker as well as a stand-up comedian, Markus engages diverse audiences with humor and enthusiasm. Markus is based in Basel, Switzerland. 

Markus' corporate career spans global advisory firms PwC in Sweden and Ernst & Young in Australia, as well as life science leaders Syngenta and Johnson & Johnson in Switzerland. He regularly delivers highly-rated technical presentations to industry leaders at conferences across Europe. Markus holds a Master’s degree in Business and Commercial Law from Linköping University in Sweden. 

Vickram Paliwal is a Director in KPMG’s Zurich Global Mobility Services practice. He joined KPMG in 2005, having worked in the UK before moving to Switzerland in 2010. Vickram has focused his entire career on the taxation of executive and incentive compensation for both public and privately held companies, across various sectors. Vickram works in KPMG’s Global Equity Tracker (GET) team, part of KPMG’s LINK technology suite. As part of his role, Vickram is responsible for all aspects of the tool globally. He also oversees services provided to some of our largest and most complex clients globally, and has led a number of GET implementations.