Charlotte Acton is a director in the Capital and Resilience Solutions group at RMS, helping public and corporate entities understand their risk, quantify the potential for risk reduction, and transfer risk into the (re)insurance and capital markets. Acton leads RMS involvement in the design and risk analysis of catastrophe bonds and other alternative risk transfer mechanisms.

Charlotte works on the application of catastrophe modelling in quantifying the cost-benefit of resilience and in innovative financing.

Rom joined Agritask in early 2020 as Managing Director – Head of Insurance, to lead and develop its Agricultural-Insurance Business. At Agritask, Rom focuses on combining cotton-edge technology and analytics to enhance agricultural risk transfer globally with focus on Latin America and Africa.

A former senior employee of insurance-linked securities (ILS) fund manager Twelve Capital and Israeli investors IBI ILS Partners, is leading insurance for Agritask, an ag-tech and agronomics focused start-up. He has diverse expertise in ILS market areas such as catastrophe bond investing, collateralised reinsurance transactions and overall ILS and reinsurance portfolio management.

Kabari has over 20 years market experience in insurance and reinsurance. In her current role, she leads EY’s Insurance Recovery and Resolution Planning globally. This includes liquidity risk management planning, contingency planning, systemic risk assessments, simulation advice. Kabari also leads on EY’s Insurance Brexit Practice.

Kabari joined Ernst & Young in 2006. Prior to that she spent 7 years in senior claims management roles at Equitas, reinsurer of certain underwriters at Lloyds of London, running part of Equitas’ inwards reinsurance book.  She has also negotiated complex property and industrial claims for two other global insurers: Allianz and Royal and Sun Alliance for 5 years. Kabari graduated with an MBA from Cass Business School in 2003. She majored in Law and minored in business science for her BA.

Charles Blanchet is the VP of Solutions at ICEYE where he is working with the insurance industry and governments to more effectively respond to natural catastrophes such as floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and wind events by harnessing ICEYE’s constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites. Prior to ICEYE, Charles helped launch four other venture-backed startups whose focus was on making governments such as the UN, World Bank, and the United States Congress more transparent.

Dr Duncan Booker is COP26 Stakeholder Manager for Glasgow City Council. He has worked on policy development in local government for more than twenty years in a range of areas. He drafted the Council’s report and recommendations on the climate emergency in 2019, which led to the city committing to achieve carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Duncan is currently working on arrangements for Glasgow to welcome the world to COP26 in November 2021. 

He is a graduate of the universities of Oxford and Glasgow.

Adam Bornstein had over 20 years of international finance, humanitarian, and development experience. Adam leads the Innovative Finance and System Change Team for the Danish Red Cross and sits on the Red Cross Movement’s global taskforce for innovation. Prior to joining the Danish Red Cross, Adam was based in Washington, DC where he was Global CFO for Ashoka, a foundation that supports social entrepreneurs in 60 countries.

Preceding Ashoka, Adam was Senior Advisor, Innovative Finance at USAID’s Global Development Lab. Before joining USAID, Adam lead the Innovative Finance team for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

Ian Branagan is responsible for all aspects of RenaissanceRe’s Enterprise Risk Management, manages the development of corporate strategy, and leads the company’s Insurtech endeavours. Mr. Branagan also represents RenaissanceRe on collaborative initiatives across public and private sectors to build resiliency in vulnerable communities around the world and lessen the impacts of natural disasters.

Prior to joining RenaissanceRe, Mr. Branagan led the international activities of Applied Insurance Research Inc. (“AIR”), which included the development and marketing of AIR’s catastrophe models and tools. He also worked in the London market at DP Mann Limited, developing pricing and risks analytics.

Nigel heads the firm's reinsurance team and leads the firm's global campaign on Resilience and Climate Change Risk, building a body of know-how and raising awareness of climate-related legal duties and potential liabilities.

Nigel has extensive knowledge of emerging technologies and has been active in the field of smart contracts, distributed ledger technology including blockchain, the Internet of Things and related technology since 2015.

Susan is the Director of Financial & Professional Services at the Department for International Trade. Prior to her role at DIT, Susan managed the strategic relationship between UK Government and the largest multi-sector companies trading & investing in the UK, as well as attracting international capital to invest into UK growth and infrastructure. She has also held roles at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office and the Home Office. 

Susan spent the majority of her career in business development of international banking at Barclays bank and in strategic management consulting before she joined the civil service 10 years ago.

James is an advocate for sustainability and a catalyst for creating significant positive change where it has the biggest impact on environmental challenges globally. Arising from his 30+ years’ experience in legal, academic and advisory professions across humanitarian, tech, government and financial services. Among his many roles, James was the co-founder and Chairman of Climate Change Capital. It was once estimated that during his time here, James and his team prevented one-hundred million tonnes of carbon from entering the atmosphere through connecting law, policy, finance and technology from across the globe to galvanise action.

Bruce Carnegie-Brown was appointed Chairman in June 2017. He is currently also Vice-Chairman of Banco Santander and Chairman of Cuvva, a digital motor insurance business. He was a Non-Executive Director of JLT Group plc from 2016 to 2017, prior to which he was Non-Executive Chairman of Aon UK Ltd from 2012 to 2015, Senior Independent Director of Catlin Group Ltd from 2010 to 2014 and Chief Executive for Marsh UK and Europe from 2003 to 2006. He was Chairman of Moneysupermarket Group from 2014 to 2019 and Senior Independent Director of Close Brothers Group plc from 2006 to 2014 and is a Past President of the Chartered Management Institute. He previously worked at JP Morgan for 18 years in a number of senior roles and was Managing Partner of 3i Group plc's Quoted Private Equity Division from 2007 to 2009.

Greg Case is Chief Executive Officer of Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. He is also a member of the company's Board of Directors and the Governance/Nominating Committee’s Inclusion and Diversity Sub-Committee of our Board of Directors.

Before joining Aon, he served on the governing Shareholders' Council at McKinsey & Company, a leading international management consultant, and led their Global Insurance and Financial Services Practice. Prior to McKinsey, he worked for the investment banking firm of Piper, Jaffray and Hopwood and at the Federal Reserve Bank.

Dominic Christian is Global Chairman of Aon’s Reinsurance Solutions business. He is a member of the Global Executive of Aon. He is Deputy Chairman of Lloyd’s.

Dominic is a Director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a Trustee of the StandUpFoundation, a Director of The Bermuda Society, Former Chairman of the Lloyd's Tercentenary Research Foundation and Chairman of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA).

For 2015/16 he was President of the Insurance Institute of London. In 2017 he was elected to the Court of Common Council of The City of London.

He leads the Inclusion@Lloyd's Group – a contemporary approach to Diversity and Inclusion being in his view central to future business success. He was recently appointed Chair of ClimateWise. He sits on the board of Race Commission and is part of the Government Advisory Board that recently published the Dasgupta Review the economics of biodiversity.

Dominic holds an Honours Degree in History from the University of East Anglia and an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law.

His children describe his interests as Family, talking, football, tennis, history, architecture, East Anglia, new countries, trees, lakes, cats and overworking. Not all are approved of.

Daniel leads the Centre for Disaster Protection’s work with national governments and international organisations to improve how the world prepares and pays for disasters.  He joined the Centre in 2017 as Chief Economist and became Director in 2019. 

He has been an actuary at the Government Actuary’s Department, where he advised the UK government on fiscal risk management.  Before this he was a Senior Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank and a Lecturer in Actuarial Science at the University of Oxford.

Lianne Dalziel is serving her third term as Mayor after serving for 23 years in the New Zealand Parliament, the last four terms as the Member of Parliament for Christchurch East. Lianne served for two and a half terms as a Cabinet Minister in the fifth Labour Government (1999 to 2008) under the leadership of Prime Minister Rt. Hon. Helen Clark.

In 2012, Lianne was invited to join the UNISDR’s Parliamentary Advisory Group on Disaster Risk Reduction. With this background, Lianne has become a champion of resilience, with Christchurch selected as one of the first tranche of cities to participate in the 100 Resilient Cities Network pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2013.

Conor Donaldson joined the IAIS in July 2012 and currently serves as Head of Implementation, a position he has held since November 2017. In his current role, he supports the Implementation and Assessment Committee and manages IAIS work in the area of assessment, capacity building and supervisory development, financial inclusion and supervisory cooperation. Conor also represents IAIS Members in global forums focused on the implementation of international standards and works closely with the implementation partners, such as the Financial Stability Institute, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Access to Insurance Initiative, Asian Development Bank, and others to advance capacity building initiatives. Conor is a member of the Toronto Centre’s Advisory Board on Insurance and Pensions, the Financial Stability Board’s Implementation Monitoring Network, and is a regular speaker and contributor to seminars and training events.

John Dora has thirty-nine years’ experience in managing infrastructure, including flood risk management, and asset management of railway structures. He is a recognised international expert on climate change adaptation and standards. John is frequently invited to advise upon and participate in events on infrastructure resilience matters, for example in speaking to the UNESCAP expert group on transport adaptation (Sept. 2020), running a rail climate resilience workshop for the World Bank in Delhi in 2018, running the London, and assisting the Beijing workshops on rail adaptation for the International Union of Railways (UIC) in April and June 2017.

John founded John Dora Consulting in 2012 and continues to work in the field of infrastructure resilience and engineering as owner of the firm. In 2019 he helped form Climate Sense and is a director of that firm. As well as his expertise in infrastructure, resilience and adaptation, John is an accomplished lecturer, designing and delivering courses on sustainability, asset management and resilience at the University of Birmingham and at the University of Surrey, where he is a visiting professor.

Rowan leads Climate and Resilience Hub (CRH) at WTW and Chairs the Willis Research Network. Previously, he served on the Board of the Group's reinsurance division, Willis Re, as CEO Global Analytics. The CSP Practice helps governments and corporates manage large scale risks and is a leader in developing sovereign and multi-sovereign catastrophe financing programmes.

In 2014-16 he led the creation of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) of industry, governments and international institutions to harness the role of re/insurance capabilities to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and wider Post-2015 Agenda and was appointed to lead the Implementation Group of the IDF in May 2016. He was made CBE in the 2016 UK New Year's Honours List for services to the economy through risk, insurance and sustainable growth.

Julian Enoizi is CEO of Pool Re. Julian has presided over the repositioning of the organisation including the renegotiation of Pool Re’s relationship with HM Treasury, introduction of a more sophisticated underwriting proposition requiring an amendment to an Act of Parliament, the purchase of the world’s largest terrorism retrocession programme, the launch of the world’s first terrorism Catastrophe Bond and a significant investment into a partnership with the Home Office in respect of risk mitigation projects. Julian is also multi-lingual lawyer who has practiced internationally.  He sits on the Advisory Board of the OECD International Network on the Financial Management of Large-scale Catastrophe and the CBI’s Financial Services Council.

Steve Evans is owner and editor in chief of Artemis (www.artemis.bm) and also of new venture, Reinsurance News (www.reinsurancene.ws). Artemis is focused on catastrophe bonds, the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market, alternative and innovative risk transfer. Reinsurance News covers the global reinsurance market, as well as the large commercial wholesale and specialty insurance sector. Steve has been tracking the development of the ILS market since its inception and also plays an advisory role in numerous start-ups and initiatives in that sector, as well as in the intersection of risk and technology.

David leads Hyperion’s Actuarial, Catastrophe Modelling, Advisory, Business Intelligence, and Research teams. David has held multiple positions in the sector including Global Head of Analytics, JLT Re and Global Head of Business Intelligence, Guy Carpenter.

He began his broking career as a member of the Industry Analysis & Research team at Benfield. Before that, he was an equity analyst at Merrill Lynch, covering European insurance. David holds an MBA in financial engineering from MIT.

Mike Gillooly was appointed the first Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Christchurch in 2014. Prior to becoming CRO, he was Land Drainage Operations Manager for the Christchurch City Council. During that time, Mike led the city’s response to flooding, which increased in some areas following the earthquakes that hit in 2010 and 2011.

Mike has more than 20 years’ experience in local government and consulting in the private sector. His cross-sector project management experience spans local and central government, and includes Land Information New Zealand, the Earthquake Commission, the Ministry of Building Innovation and Employment, and the Insurance Council of New Zealand.

Lord Grimstone of Boscobel Kt was appointed Minister for Investment jointly at the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on 18 March 2020.

Before joining government, his career spanned the private and public sectors. His roles have included: Chairman of Barclays Bank plc and Standard Life Aberdeen, Lead non-executive on the board of the Ministry of Defence, Chairman of financial services body - TheCityUK - from 2012 to 2015, Member of HM Treasury's Financial Services Trade and Investment Board.

Lord Grimstone has held board appointments across many sectors and served as one of the UK’s Business Ambassadors. Lord Grimstone was knighted in 2014 for public service to defence and business.

Simon Harrison is Group Strategic Development Director for global engineering, management and development consultant Mott MacDonald. He is interested in strategic change across the built and social infrastructures both in developed and less developed country settings.

With a career background in energy Simon is a past IET Vice President and Chair of its Energy Policy Panel, in which capacity he has led the IET’s work reimagining the energy system as it decarbonises, decentralises, democratises and digitises, and in particular its interdependencies with the other infrastructure systems society depends upon.

Tom is the Insurance Prosperity Specialist at the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT). He works at the overlap between the UK's international development, and trade agendas. His specific areas of focus include financial services technology, disaster risk financing, and climate resilience. Tom co-leads Tech for Growth, a cross-government programme aimed at enhancing the role of technology in deepening access to financial services across emerging economies. Tech for Growth both supports the growth of domestic tech sectors, across partner economies, and promotes the UK as a home for any global tech firm seeking a base for international expansion across these markets.

Previously, Tom led ClimateWise, the global insurance industry network on climate change risk - hosted by the University of Cambridge. There, he managed multiple projects highlighting the role insurance plays in closing the protection gap; across both their underwriting and investment activities. Before that, Tom led a research programme to understand the drivers of climate risk impacting the financial services sector in South Africa. Tom holds a PhD on insurance and climate development from the University of Cape Town. He has worked at the interface between the public, private and non-profit sectors for most of his career and has worked extensively with both developed and developing markets.

Emma Howard Boyd is the Chair of the Environment Agency, an Ex officio board member of the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, and has recently been appointed as the UK Commissioner to the Global Commission on Adaptation.

She has worked in financial services for over 25 years, in corporate finance and fund management. As Director of Stewardship at Jupiter Asset Management until July 2014, Emma was integral to the development of their expertise in the corporate governance and sustainability fields. Emma serves on a number of boards and advisory committees which include; ShareAction, Manhaden Capital PLC, The Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project and Green Finance Institute.

David started his career as a broker at Alexander Howden in 1981. He founded the Group in 1994 originally as a wholesale broker employing just three people. He has been the fundamental driving force behind its expansion into an international insurance group offering wholesale, retail and reinsurance broking, and underwriting.

As Chief Executive, David’s focus is on leading the Group’s M&A activities as well as directing and implementing the Group’s strategic growth and sustainability.

Hector has worked for over 20 years driving innovation in the financial industry for multilateral agencies, financial intermediaries and national/regional governments. As Lead Financial Officer at the World Bank, he designed and placed over $1 billion in disaster risk financing products.

Hector has also significant commercial experience; prior to his role at the World-Bank he was Assistant VP for Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) at Partner Re.

Ekhosuehi Iyahen is the Secretary General of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF), a public-private partnership led by the insurance industry and supported by the World Bank and the United Nations, aiming to enhance the use of insurance to build greater resilience against disasters and to help achieve the United Nations Global 2030 Agenda (www.insdevforum.org).

She has extensive experience in a range of finance and private and public sector areas and was directly involved in establishing and operationalising two globally pioneering initiatives - the African Risk Capacity Agency (ARC) and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) and the structuring of a novel tripartite agreement between the IDF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) to increase insurance protection in 20 climate-exposed countries. She serves as an expert advisor to the Centre for Disaster Protection and is a member of the SOAS Centre for Sustainable Finance Advisory Board and a High-Level OECD Advisory Group on Loss and Damages from Climate Change.

Jonathan has an impressive record in commercialisation having built 3 SME businesses to valuations totalling £40m in the Technology and Telecoms sector, including launching the UK’s longest running B2B internet business. Experienced in SaaS, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence across various industry sectors including consumer goods manufacturing, agriculture, hospitality and finance. 

To drive growth, Jonathan has raised over £12m of investment and loans from private equity, venture capitalists, banks and government funding.

Jan Kellett is disaster and climate partnerships advisor at the U.N. Development Programme. Before that, he was a senior research advisor with the Overseas Development Institute and programme leader at the Global Humanitarian Assistance programme.

John Lentaigne was appointed as the Global Head of Political Risk Trade Credit (PRTC) in August 2020. He brings a wealth of knowledge to Tysers and over 15 years of experience in the credit and political risk insurance market. Prior to this, he was appointed Acting CEO of the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI) in June, 2019. Prior to this appointment, he was the Chief Underwriting Officer of ATI, a position he assumed in late 2016.

Prior to ATI, John was the Co-Head of Political & Credit Risks at Brit, one of the largest syndicates at Lloyds. He helped to establish Brit’s presence in this area and built out Brit’s team to rapidly become one of the most competitively positioned London market participants. Prior to working at Brit, John had established a strong underwriting reputation at both AXIS, Chubb and XL Catlin in both London and Bermuda. He holds a Master of Modern History degree from Oxford University.

Michael Liebreich is Chairman and CEO of Liebreich Associates, through which he provides advisory services and speaks on clean energy and transportation, smart infrastructure, technology, climate finance and sustainable development and has recently joined Sustainable Development Capital LLP (SDCL)as a Senior Advisor. In September 2020, he became an official Advisor to the UK’s Board of Trade.

Nathanial (Nate) Matthews became CEO of the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) in December 2020. He has played a central role in the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) since 2017 as its Program Director. In this role, he led GRP’s resilience innovation investments that have supported over 7 million people and 1100 organizations to become more resilient.

Prior to joining GRP, he was Global Research Coordinator at the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems. Nate contributes to numerous international forums and advisory councils including as lead author in the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES), an Obama Foundation Mentor, a Munich Re Risk Award Judge and as part of the Economist Sustainability Summit Advisory Board. He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London and a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society. He has a PhD in Geography from King’s College London.

Dr Trevor Maynard is Head of Innovation at Lloyd’s.   He is responsible for stimulating a culture of Innovation in the Lloyd’s market.  Trevor’s team launched the Lloyd's Lab (www.lloydslab.com) in 2018, the technology incubator at the heart of the Lloyd’s market.  The lab has helped many Insurtechs grow to commercial success over the past two years. 

Trevor sits on the Insurtech Board run by Technation and supported by the UK Treasury; this board aims to develop collaborative initiatives that promote the UK Insurtech ecosystem, help insurtechs achieve scale. 

Trevor is a member of the Cambridge Centre for Risk studies advisory board; and is a Senior Visiting Fellow at LSE.Trevor has a Phd in Statistics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and Masters degree in pure Mathematics from the University of Warwick.  He is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in the UK.

Jim is Outfield’s Commercial Director and sales lead, engaging with companies and organisations across the fruit and agritech sectors. He is committed to impact through business, and believes strongly in using data and agritech to reduce environmental damage, improve food security, and inform decision making up and down the agriculture value chain. Before Outfield, Jim worked as a risk consultant advising private equity firms, with a focus on environmental and social governance.

Jim co-founded Outfield to make the global fruit industry more productive, more profitable, and more sustainable.  Outfield growers use self-flying drones to rapidly image fruit crops, then receive yield forecasts and productivity maps online from the Outfield cloud-based machine learning system. As the impacts of climate change are now being felt in the fruit production sector, the data driven forecasting, risk management and precision management Outfield enables are becoming a necessity. 

Catherine McGuinness is an elected member of the City of London Corporation and current chairman of the City’s Policy Committee. She has been very involved in the City’s relationship with London more widely, particularly in the fields of education and the arts and open spaces.

Professionally she is a specialist in financial law. For several years Catherine was a partner in a City law firm, advising a number of international financial institutions. Catherine was previously head of the London legal department of a major European bank and now works as a consultant in the financial sector.

Juliet is an experienced civil engineer who leads Arup’s Infrastructure Resilience capability across the UKIMEA region. She has extensive knowledge and experience of infrastructure systems having worked across the project life-cycle from strategic planning to design to asset management and across the transport, energy and water sectors. The role of infrastructure in supporting a safe, sustainable and resilient future is at the heart of all Juliet’s work. Since 2018 Juliet has taken a leading role, as Technical Director, then Deputy Executive Director, of The Resilience Shift, an innovative not-for-profit £10m+ initiative to catalyse the resilience of critical infrastructure, supported by the Lloyd's Register Foundation and led and delivered by Arup in collaboration with pioneers globally.

Juliet is also Global Leader for Arup’s City Resilience Skills Network, steering knowledge, innovation, research and learning for colleagues in Arup working across multiple sectors.

Andrew Mitchell was appointed the Department for International Trade’s Director General for Markets and Supply Chains in July 2020. In his current role, Andrew leads the department’s work on overseas markets and supply chains.

Andrew was previously Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner for Europe, responsible for the Department for International Trade’s work promoting trade and investment with the countries of Europe. Prior to this he held senior positions in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). Andrew led the government’s international work on Prosperity and was the FCO’s Director for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Andrew served in Germany and Nepal and was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Sweden. Andrew’s work in the private sector focused on major international events, including World Expos and Olympic Games.

Mathew Moore is President and Managing Director of Liberty Specialty Markets, a $6B Global Specialty and Reinsurance business.  He is responsible for a network of 23 countries covering all the major international insurance hubs and one of the largest Lloyd’s syndicates.  The formation of Liberty Mutual Reinsurance in 2018 also pulls together a network of reinsurance capabilities across the world. Matthew was previously LSM Group CUO, and Active Underwriter of Syndicate 4472 and has been with the organisation for over 19 years as its GWP has increased over twentyfold. As an underwriter he specialised in Political and Trade credit risks.  He is a board member of both the Lloyd’s Members Association and the current Chair of the London Market Group. He was educated at Oxford University and began his insurance career as a Lloyd’s graduate trainee.

Jim currently serves as Chief Resilience Officer (CROs) for Miami-Dade County. In that position he leads the 7th largest County in the United States in sustainability and resilience issues. He leads the Office of Resilience focusing on energy efficiency and conservation actions and addressing the impacts of sea level rise. Miami-Dade County joined with the Cities of Miami and Miami Beach to form the Greater Miami and the Beaches (GM&B) Partnership as a part of 100 Resilient Cities, a program funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He graduated with a BA degree in history from Denison University in Ohio and a JD in land use and environmental law from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Murley received a Bronze Star for Service with the US Army in Vietnam.

Lesley Ndlovu is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of African Risk Capacity Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd), a subsidiary of the Pan-African Risk Management Pool for Natural Disasters (ARC).

Lesley spent close to a decade in various senior management roles in insurance and asset management with the AXA Group in London, Paris and Singapore, including as CEO of a Lloyd’s of London insurance syndicate, Head of Corporate Development for AXA Global Asset Management and Chief Investment Officer for AXA Singapore. Lesley is a graduate of Christ Church, University of Oxford in England and INSEAD in France.

John D. Neal is the Chief Executive Officer & Director at The Society of Lloyd's and Chief Executive Officer of Lloyd's of London Ltd. (a subsidiary of The Society of Lloyd's) and Group Chief Executive Officer at QBE Ventures. Mr. Neal is also on the board of The Geneva Association.

In his past career Mr. Neal held the position of Group Chief Executive Officer & Executive Director at QBE Insurance Group Ltd. Chairman at QBE European Operations Plc and Chief Executive Officer of Ensign Motor Policies (both are subsidiaries of QBE Insurance Group Ltd.).

Siobhan O’Brien was appointed Head of the Cyber Centre of Excellence for International and Global Specialties in October 2018. She has a deep background in the financial services and cyber arenas which she draws upon the development of innovative strategies and products as cyber risks continue to emerge and new solutions are required.

Siobhan joined Guy Carpenter from Marsh where she held numerous senior positions, including: National Placement and Advisory Head for Financial Institutions at Marsh FINPRO New York; Head of the Marsh London Financial Services team; Client Service Director for Marsh FINPRO London and most recently Marsh UK Cyber Placement Leader and Product Development Team Leader.

Richard leads an ILS business that invests in climate-linked risk transfer instruments. His work at Nephila and Nephila Climate has involved: Building a global origination/business development channel for climate-linked risk transfer, specifically for renewable energy and agriculture. Prior to joining Nephila, he worked in the energy commodities industry from 2001 to 2008, focusing on different aspects of risk management, energy trading and quantitative analysis.

David joined Cranfield University as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean of Cranfield School of Management in September 2019.  Before that, he served as Dean at Sheffield University Management School for six years. 

As well as Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dean, David is also Chair in Environmental Sustainability and as a trained environmental and natural resource economist, David’s research has focused on the creation of, and demand for, externalities of production, principally food, taking a quantitative, operational research and mathematical modelling approach. Initially based on the land use sector, his research has expanded to examine the wider food supply chain and some of his recent research has tried to find optimal solutions to multi-dimensional environmental problems, examining trade-offs between triple-bottom-line objectives.

Paula Pagniez is Director of the Climate and Resilience Hub at Willis Towers Watson. She leads the America’s Practice for the firm, based in New Jersey, USA.  She is a global expert on climate and natural disaster risk management solutions for sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, corporates, and the development sector.

Paula has over 15 years of technical experience building and leading Public-Private Partnerships in Public Sector Disaster Risk Finance, Financial Inclusion and Global Development markets. Prior to joining the Climate and Resilience Hub in 2018, she was Senior Microinsurance Specialist at Swiss Re, expanding insurance availability and accessibility to the world's most vulnerable populations. Paula holds a Postgraduate Degree in Finance from Saint Andrew’s University and a Bachelors Degree in Economics from University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Julian is a Specialist advisor on insurance and resilience to the UK government Department for International Trade. He is also a CEO of Parhelion Underwriting, with 19 years’ experience in climate finance and 25 years’ experience in the re/insurance sector. He is a recognized innovator in climate risk and sustainable finance. He is a Specialist advisor on insurance and resilience to the UK government Department for International Trade. He spent 12 years as a broker at Marsh responsible for Middle East energy business before moving to GE where he was the senior underwriting risk manager responsible for the Global Markets portfolio. Parhelion works at the nexus of policy makers, private sector investors, re/insurers, development finance institutions and NGOs. Parhelion uses private sector insurance underwriting capital to support the deployment of other forms of capital in to sustainable development investment opportunities. Julian has an MBA from Cranfield School of Management and is a Research Associate of the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group at Texas A&M University. He is also an INSEAD Alumni and has spoken at numerous international conferences on sustainable finance and risk.

Aditi works across Energy and Fisheries sectors at Vivid Economics, with a focus on innovation and growth, policy design, ecosystems and natural capital, and climate and disaster resilience. She has worked with international organisations, country governments, NGOs, think tanks as well as the private sector spanning multiple geographies including Asia, Africa, the US and Europe.

Benedikt Signer is the Team Lead for the Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF) $250m+ fund to help countries safeguard development progress and recover more quickly from the financial impacts of climate shocks, disasters and crises. He is also the Team Lead for World Bank implementation support to the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF) - Asia's first regional financial protection mechanism for climate shocks.

Benedikt has supported over 20 countries to more actively manage the potential losses from climate and disaster shocks. This includes the development of Asia’s first multi-country risk financing mechanism, implementing the Philippine's Financial Protection Strategy, establishing a dedicated risk management unit in Serbia’s ministry of finance and co-leading the setting up of the World Bank’s first contingent line of credit to protect against disasters in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Benedikt has also launched multiple new initiatives including a training program reaching over 2000 people in 35 countries, a new partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, and supported the 2016 G20 presidency leading to the establishment of the InsuResilience Global Partnership. Previously, Benedikt worked at the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on strategy, program development, and policy partnerships. He has a Master's degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics.

David is the Head of Disaster Risk Financing in the Willis Towers Watson’s Climate and Resilience Hub. David has over 40 year’s re/insurance experience focusing upon catastrophic hazards.  He has a mathematics degree from the University of Bristol and is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Vice-President of the London Insurance Institute.

He was a pioneer in the development of models to understand the frequency and severity of catastrophic hazards and their impacts.  Recent work has looked to apply the risk management, modelling and mitigation techniques developed to support the commercial sector for humanitarian needs.   

As Executive Director, Lauren oversees global efforts to strengthen cities in the face of the complex and interconnected challenges they face. Leading a team of professionals in London, Mexico City, New York, and Singapore in collaboration with Chief Resilience Officers in more than 40 countries, she drove the co-design process to launch Global Resilient Cities Network as an independent city-led network organization.

Lauren serves as an advisor and spokesperson on urban resilience, women’s leadership sustainable finance, climate risk, stakeholder engagement, and urbanization trends. She is on the Advisory Board of several sustainability focused initiatives including Food Tank, the Singapore Sustainability Summit (S3), Natural Capital and Smart Cities World Editorial Advisory Board. She also served in the ADB Vietnam Resident Mission in Hanoi where she managed the integration of climate resilience into the Bank’s $7 billion investment portfolio in country.

Daniel serves as a special advisor to the United Nations on matters of risk, analytics and Finance. He is also the Deputy Chair of the Board of the Resilient Cities Network. Over the last 20 years, Stander has worked on every continent, advising governments, NGOs and financial services institutions on a variety of complex risks, from natural hazards and environmental stresses to pandemics and cyber exposure.

For over a decade, Daniel held various leadership positions at Risk Management Solutions (RMS), the world’s preeminent catastrophe risk modelling company. Most recently, he was Global Managing Director at RMS, leading among other things the firm’s relationships with all levels of government. In 2018, Mayor Francis Suarez presented Daniel with a City of Miami Proclamation recognizing his commitment to raise awareness, foster cooperation and deliver resilience to urban economies and communities in the face of sea-level rise and the threat of extreme events. Daniel is a non-resident senior fellow at The Atlantic Council’s Resilience Centre, as well as the Deputy Chair of Resilient Cities Network. He has a MA from the University of Oxford and has also studied at both the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin and the Center for Creative Leadership in Brussels.  

Graham Stuart was elected as the Member of Parliament for Beverley and Holderness in 2005. He joined the Department for International Trade in January 2018 as Minister for Investment. In February 2020 he was appointed Minister for Exports. The Minister for Exports’ responsibilities include: Export policy and promotion, including the export strategy, UK Export Finance (UKEF), UK Defence and Security Exports, climate change and COP26, GREAT campaign, trade missions, global events, investment policy in the House of Commons.

Ms. Thyme has twenty years’ experience in the insurance industry, more than ten years of which have been at AXA XL.

Before joining XL Ms. Thyme was with Zurich Insurance for ten years, where she held senior roles including Head of Communications & Marketing for the International Businesses Division and for the Growth Office. Ms. Thyme started her career as a communications and marketing consultant, also advising companies and their boards on change management strategies. 

Jeff has nearly 20 years of experience working in the political sphere of Westminster, Capitol Hill and the Southern African Development Community.

His expertise in foreign affairs and international development has led him to advise, senior Ministers, ambassadors and national leaders. Jeff is an expert at political strategy, campaigning and communications and has transferred these skills into the private sector providing political advice to FTSE100 and S&P500 companies. Jeff was born on a mine in Carltonville, South Africa and grew up in mining communities around the world following his father who worked in the sector. In 2011 he began the UK's All Party Parliamentary Group on International Mining and more recently founded the Critical Minerals Association and its political platform in Westminster.

James is the Chairman of Willis Re International and is co-head of Willis Re’s Public Private Practice Group which works in conjunction with Willis Towers Watsons’s Climate Resilience Hub to develop and provide services to Pubic Private Partnerships on a global basis.

He has extensive practical experience in the analysis, structuring and placement of large complex public private reinsurance programs.

Professor Richard Wilding OBE, is recognised globally for his thought leadership in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. In recognition of his outstanding achievements and impact in the area of logistics and supply chain management, Richard was appointed an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to Business.

William Russell has over 30 years’ experience in the financial and business City including holding senior positions in the national and international banking sector. In 1987 he went to work for First Boston Corporation before joining Merrill Lynch in 1992 as an investment banker in Institutional Equity Sales, working in Asia, New York and London.

William is currently Chair of CDAM a London based Asset Management business, and Senior Advisor to STJ Advisors. He is also on the Board of Innovate Finance, the industry body for the UK based FinTech community.

Dr Henri Winand left Intelligent Energy as Chief Executive in 2016 and founded Akinova Holdings as a new ventures, management and consulting company.

He was most previously Vice President of Corporate Venturing at Rolls-Royce plc, the power systems provider for land, sea and air. During his time with Rolls-Royce, Henri managed a power systems business, introduced new manufacturing technologies into the group and was responsible for defining and supervising the implementation of strategies for deriving additional value from the group’s technology assets (involving serving on the boards of directors of some of the joint ventures in which Rolls-Royce invested) Henri has a PhD from the University of Cambridge, a Masters of Business Administration from Warwick University and a BEng from Imperial College, London.

As Head of InsuResilience Secretariat since 2017, Astrid Zwick has supported the InsuResilience Global Partnership of the G2O/V20 in its goal to foster climate and disaster risk finance and insurance.

From 2010-2016 she worked for Munich Re Group as Head of Department for ‘Corporate Responsibility’ being in charge of setting up and implementing its Corporate Responsibility Strategy. Prior to that, Astrid Zwick was Head of Allianz Group Sustainability Office from 2000-2010.

She holds a doctoral degree in climate change sciences.