The Lord Mayor of the City of London, Alderman Alan Yarrow, on Monday visited a training event being held by Prudential Life Insurance Ghana, highlighting the contribution Prudential is making to the development of the country’s financial services industry.

The October 5 visit is part of a tour by the Lord Mayor of four countries in Africa – Mozambique, South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana – in which he is focusing on the UK’s contribution to capacity-building, infrastructure finance and capital market development.

The Lord Mayor is particularly interested in seeing where companies based in the UK are implementing best practices and international standards of training and development, and the visit to the prudential event provided an example.

The event saw 14 top-performing Prudential Ghana agents promoted to Team Leaders, roles in which they will in turn use their experience to train and coach teams of agents reporting to them. Prudential Ghana, which is part of the global financial services group Prudential plc, now has more than 750 agents and over 70 staff, and serves more than 1.3 million customers.

Prudential Ghana’s agency model offers the company’s agents a clear career path and brings the expertise developed in the Group’s large and growing Asian markets into Ghana for the benefit of both agents and customers. The Ghanaian training team is in turn taking those skills and innovations to Prudential’s younger African businesses in Kenya and Uganda.

Alan Yarrow, the Lord Mayor of The City of London, said at the event: “It is a pleasure to see such a vibrant example of a trusted UK brand collaborating with Ghana to build a sustainable and effective insurance industry. Innovative skills transfer of this nature is an important part of that story.”

Emmanuel Mokobi Aryee, Chief Executive Officer of Prudential Life Insurance Ghana, said: “It is an honour to have as distinguished a guest as the Lord Mayor visiting our training event. We are strongly committed to developing the financial services industry in Ghana, and the Lord Mayor’s presence is a sign that our commitment is recognised at the highest levels.”