Ebix Announces New Senior Hires to Strengthen Insurance Business in North America

JOHNS CREEK, Ga., Dec. 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ebix, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBIX), a leading international supplier of On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, healthcare, financial and e-learning industries, today announced the addition of key new senior hires to strengthen and grow its core insurance business in North America.  The addition of these senior executives was in addition to a few senior realignments within Ebix, targeted at maximizing growth opportunities in the insurance sector for Ebix in the year 2019 and beyond. All these senior executives will report to Ash Sawhney, who was appointed President, Insurance Solutions ? North America in August of this year.

The Company announced that Roger Kahlon has joined in as Vice President of Market Strategy and Enterprise Network Sales for Ebix's North American Operations. Mr. Kahlon will spearhead revenue growth initiatives by working closely with the Division Heads and Account Owners to expand the Company's relationships with existing clients. His focus will be to position Ebix as a strategic vendor-partner across a client's entire business enterprise. As a financial services industry veteran, Mr. Kahlon brings 24 years of experience leading sales, account management and consulting teams for solution providers serving the financial services, banking and insurance verticals.

"This is an exciting time to be joining Ebix, as it launches into its next phase of growth," said Kahlon. "Ebix has a fabulous portfolio of products and services, and a terrific opportunity to combine these into creative solutions to address the high priority business needs of our clients, thereby solidifying our position as their marquee vendor-partner and contributing positively to our revenue growth."

The Company also announced the appointment of Chad Ross as Vice President of Annuity Sales.  In this pivotal role, Mr. Ross will be responsible for deepening Ebix's partnerships with Insurance carriers and Distributors, while expanding the reach of Ebix's Annuity and Annuity Maintenance (AMP) tools through new partnerships and innovative applications. Formerly Director of Broker Dealer Services at Pacific Life, Mr. Ross brings more than 15 years of experience in financial services to Ebix. Over the last decade, he also held leadership roles within the Life and Annuity industry, Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) and Operations Managers Roundtable (OMR).

"I am thrilled to join the Ebix team. The Company has proven to be the gold standard in providing cutting-edge technology solutions to financial advisors, broker dealers and BGA's," said Ross. "We have an incredible opportunity to use our intimate knowledge of our clients and the market, to offer innovative solutions across the entire ecosystem of the retirement industry and drive our business to its next stage of growth".

The Company also said that it had hired Cindy Price as the Vice President of Consulting Sales for North America.  Ms. Price will be responsible for growing the Ebix consulting business in the areas of Life and Annuities. Ms. Price has held various positions at ACORD, Prudential, and The Hartford and brings over 25 years of Relationship Management and Service Operations experience with a strong focus on the Life and Annuity industry. She was instrumental in chairing and participating in Industry Forums, such as LOMA Equity Products Annuity Committee (LOMA EPAC), Insured Retirement Institute (IRI), and Operations Managers Roundtable (OMR). 

"Ebix Consulting has always had a reputation for high-quality delivery and deep industry expertise, and I am very excited to lead the Company's continued focus on customer commitment in the consulting arena," said Price. "We have a real opportunity to grow the consulting business across our client base and throughout their enterprise."

In a key re-alignment, Ebix announced the appointment of Venu Garneni to head Consulting operations, which now includes a consolidation of Ebix's Life, property & casualty and Health insurance consulting operations. Mr. Garneni brings 23 years of experience in consulting and was previously one of the founders of PBSystems, which was acquired by Ebix in 2015.

"I'm focused on leveraging the combined strengths of the legacy, consulting organizations and our global delivery capabilities to benefit our clients," said Garneni. "Additionally, we intend to present a clear end-to ?end value proposition to our clients for a broad spectrum of insurance related services."

"We are excited about the addition of Chad, Cindy and Roger to the Ebix team", said Ash Sawhney.  "These individuals working alongside our existing, senior leadership team in North America will position us for growth.  We see untapped potential within our existing clients.  We also see opportunities to offer additional products and services, such as platform-based process outsourcing, analytics, and strategic management consulting. There are opportunities also for us to partner with our clients to give them access to our large network of B2B and B2C customers.  This will provide additional avenues for revenue growth." 

"We are now on an Ebix 2.0 journey path" said Ebix Chairman of the Board, president and CEO, Robin Raina.   "As we explore new avenues of growth worldwide in the financial sector, we will continue to grow our insurance businesses worldwide.  The appointment of Ash Sawhney to head up our insurance businesses in North America, the addition of new senior talent in the insurance arena, a few key leadership realignments, and additional new senior hires that we intend to make in the near future, are all a reflection of our commitment to that journey."

Robin added, "We also plan to supplement our organic growth in the insurance sector with synergistic insurance related acquisitions in North America.  We are continuing to explore accretive opportunities in North America that fit our disciplined and proven track record."

About Ebix, Inc.

With 50+ offices across 5 continents, Ebix, Inc., (NASDAQ: EBIX) endeavors to provide On-Demand software and E-commerce services to the insurance, financial, healthcare and e-learning industries. In the Insurance sector, the Company's main focus is to develop and deploy a wide variety of insurance and reinsurance exchanges on an on-demand basis, while also, providing Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") enterprise solutions in the area of CRM, front-end & back-end systems, outsourced administrative and risk compliance, across the world.

With a "Phygital" strategy that combines 260,000 physical distribution outlets in many Southeast Asian Nations ("ASEAN") countries, to an Omni-channel online digital platform, the Company's EbixCash Financial exchange portfolio encompasses leadership in areas of domestic & international money remittance, Forex, travel, pre-paid & gift cards, utility payments, lending etc., in an emerging country like India. The Company's Forex Exchange has an approximate 70% market share of India's airport Foreign Exchange business encompassing 25 international airports like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata International airports, while conducting over 1 million transactions per annum. EbixCash, through its travel portal Via.com, is also one of Southeast Asia's leading travel exchanges with over 110,000 distribution outlets and 8,000 corporate clients processing over 24.5 million transactions every year. For further details, visit www.ebixcash.com

Through its various SaaS-based software platforms, Ebix employs thousands of domain-specific technology professionals to provide products, support and consultancy to thousands of customers on six continents. For more information, visit the Company's website at www.ebix.com

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As used herein, the terms "Ebix," "the Company," "we," "our" and "us" refer to Ebix, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its consolidated subsidiaries as a combined entity, except where it is clear that the terms mean only Ebix, Inc.

The information contained in this Press Release contains forward-looking statements and information within the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. This information includes assumptions made by, and information currently available to management, including statements regarding future economic performance and financial condition, liquidity and capital resources, acceptance of the Company's products by the market, and management's plans and objectives. In addition, certain statements included in this and our future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), in press releases, and in oral and written statements made by us or with our approval, which are not statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Words such as "may," "could," "should," "would," "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "seeks," "plan," "project," "continue," "predict," "will," "should," and other words or expressions of similar meaning are intended by the Company to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. These forward-looking statements are found at various places throughout this report and in the documents incorporated herein by reference. These statements are based on our current expectations about future events or results and information that is currently available to us, involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and speak only as of the date on which such statements are made.

Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these forward-looking statements. Factors that may cause such a difference, include, but are not limited to those discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC, as well as: the risk of an unfavorable outcome of the pending governmental investigations or shareholder class action lawsuits, reputational harm caused by such investigations and lawsuits, the willingness of independent insurance agencies to outsource their computer and other processing needs to third parties; pricing and other competitive pressures and the Company's ability to gain or maintain share of sales as a result of actions by competitors and others; changes in estimates in critical accounting judgments; changes in or failure to comply with laws and regulations, including accounting standards, taxation requirements (including tax rate changes, new tax laws and revised tax interpretations) in domestic or foreign jurisdictions; exchange rate fluctuations and other risks associated with investments and operations in foreign countries (particularly in Australia, UK and India wherein we have significant operations); equity markets, including market disruptions and significant interest rate fluctuations, which may impede our access to, or increase the cost of, external financing; and international conflict, including terrorist acts.

Except as expressly required by the federal securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update any such factors, or to publicly announce the results of, or changes to any of the forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect future events, developments, changed circumstances, or for any other reason.

Readers should carefully review the disclosures and the risk factors described in the documents we file from time to time with the SEC, including future reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K, and any amendments thereto. You may obtain our SEC filings at our website, www.ebix.com under the "Investor Information" section, or over the Internet at the SEC's web site, www.sec.gov.