Duane Zappitelli

Responsible for setting strategy, organizational structure and distribution of all insurance and investment products across Canada. Member of the Executive Leadership Team providing strategic direction to the company and the Board of Directors

• Successfully led advisors and clients through a company rebranding in 2022
• Increased insurance premium results by over 25% YoY from 2019 - 2023 while setting company records for annual placed premium 4 out of 5 years
• Exceed plan in both Career Channel and Brokerage Distribution on number of advisors, average productivity per advisor, number of new policies, amount of new premium every year
• Strategically repositioned and appointed several leaders annually to align team and set a higher bar of sales expectations
• Executed on 5 Strategic Partnerships to provide advisors and clients more options to fulfill financial needs

Accountable for all Advisor and Manager recruiting/selection process governance nationally and evolved the process to stay relevant with consumer preferences. Additionally, I would source and secure speakers for all national programs

• Built the team and overhauled the advisor selection process from 41 steps to under 20 steps and shorten timeframe in the process by 20%
• Average productivity for new advisors increased by 32% through changes implemented to onboarding and early development
• Led and facilitated national advocacy group sessions which gave insight to improve speaker satisfaction rating at events to 95% from the low 70% range
• Average productivity for Experienced Advisors increased by 15% with client retention improving to 96% during the time in role

Provided leadership to 2 of Sun Life’s 8 Regions in Ontario and Manitoba. My responsibility was to exceed all sales and net gain targets by ensuring the proper leadership and processes were in place

• Exceeded Insurance and Investment targets in 8 of 10 years in the role
• Each region had approximately 800 advisors, managers and staff
• Qualified as the top region in the Career Sales Force 2009 and 2014 through exceeding all sales and growth targets
• Successfully opened 5 new Financial Centres in Ontario and Manitoba to increase distribution points and market share by 26%
• Net Gain of +57 advisors in the two regions, which was 43% over plan
• Partner with Legal, Compliance and other Officers of the Company to comply with regulators and represent Sun Life Distributors Inc
• Present to groups of up to 2000 people at Financial Centres, Sales Congresses and Conventions to compliment and implement the processes which ensured the company attained the results above

• Directly managed 20 experienced advisors to assist in developing new markets and cross selling existing clients
• Most work was done in the high net worth market with minimal responsibility in recruiting, training and coaching new advisors
• Also shared responsibility for overall leadership of the full Financial Centre of 45 advisors, 4 managers and 4 staff
• Led all Compliance education and implementation for the Financial Centre

• Prospected, sold and serviced insurance and investment clients through cold calling, referrals, target marketing, existing client base, and personal observation
• Mission was to ensure every client had a plan to achieve lifetime financial security