Asia Pacific chief Hisham El-Ansary resigns after 15 years with the health insurance giant

Hisham El-Ansary says the time is right to transition to a new leader, having led Bupa through the aged care royal commission and funding dispute with Ramsay.

Bupa chief Hisham El-Ansary said his time at the health insurer has been “rewarding”.

Hisham El-Ansary will step down as Bupa’s Asia Pacific chief executive next March, and the company will commence an international search for his replacement

Mr El-Ansary, who was appointed chief executive in April 2019, led Bupa through the aged-care royal commission and more recently its funding dispute with Australia’s biggest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care.

It is understood he will not retire from corporate life, although he has not revealed what the next step will be in his career.

Bupa global chief executive Iñaki Ereño said Mr El-Ansary had made a “lasting contribution” to the organisation.

“He has led with clear purpose and strong conviction; a true exemplar of our values as he continued to evolve the culture and engagement of our people,” Mr Ereño said.

“On behalf of all of us at Bupa, I wish Hisham and his family all the very best.”

Mr El-Ansary joined Bupa as chief financial officer in 2008, serving several executive roles before becoming chief executive.

He said that after 15 years it was now time to transition to a new leader and he had grown “both as a leader and as a person”.

“Renewal is vital for organisations and the individuals within them. As we embark upon the start of our new three-year plan (2023-25) and after four years as APAC CEO, it’s time to hand over the reins to a new leader who will guide Bupa through the next phase of its evolution,” Mr El-Ansary said.

“It’s been an amazing journey over nearly 15 years – one that has enabled me to meet so many wonderful people and share so many wonderful experiences.

“My time at Bupa has been deeply rewarding, and I’m very proud of what we have collectively been able to achieve. I’m particularly proud of the way we have been able to balance performance with care, enabling us to continue to evolve our culture.”

Mr El-Ansary said “while challenges remain”, he believed “Bupa is well positioned to deliver strong and sustainable performance which meets the changing healthcare needs” for its customers.

Bupa Asia Pacific chief executive Hisham El-Ansary has been with the company 15 years.

Bupa is a $9bn business. Its aged care and its health delivery services, which include dental clinics, optometrists and medical centres, account for $2bn. Health insurance is the main game, generating about $6.8bn.

In December 2020, Mr El-Ansary said he had learnt a lot from the aged-care royal commission, which revealed stories of abuse and neglect towards elderly residents.

When asked why Bupa did not seek to divest its nursing homes – about 20 per cent of which were at one point under sanction, meaning they could not accept new residents, among other conditions – he said he “didn’t want to cut and run”.

“I wanted to do the hard yards,” Mr El-Ansary said at the time.

“We had been the market leader but somewhere along the way we lost our way. One of our key priorities was to get the business back on track and restore our credibility and reputation.

“We went through everything, hiring a new executive managing director, new executive team.

“We went through each part of the business step by step to work out what went wrong.

“We had lost some of that discipline that is a key feature to running any clinical business. At the end of the day it is about changing the culture and that takes time.”

Earlier this year, Bupa was embroiled in a funding dispute with Ramsay, which issued it a notice of termination. Such a move would have left Bupa members facing potentially hundreds of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.

But under Mr El-Ansary’s leadership, his health insurance boss, Chris Carroll, continued to negotiate with Ramsay and managed to salvage the agreement before it was set to expire in early August.

Bupa Australia and New Zealand chairman Bryan Mogridge paid tribute to Mr El-Ansary’s “steadfast manner”.

“I’d like to acknowledge some of his key achievements, including his significant involvement in the highly successful merger and integration of Bupa’s acquisition of MBF in 2008; his establishment and leadership of our health provision business, Bupa Health Services, from 2015; and in more recent times, the steadfast manner in which he led the company through the challenges of the aged-care royal commission and the Covid pandemic,” Mr Mogridge said.

“He leaves Bupa APAC in a better place with a unique culture and a wonderful team ready to meet the healthcare challenges of the future.”

Bupa expects to provide an update on Mr El-Ansary’s replacement before his departure.