7th Insurance Linked Securities Summit Past Speakers:
60+ outstanding ILS thought leaders including...
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Aashh Parekh
Director, Global Public Markets,
TIAA-CREF
Aashh Parekh is a Director in the Structured Securities Research area of the Global Public Markets Group at TIAA-CREF. He has covered the ILS market for the past several years.
Alex Krutov, FCAS, ASA, MAAA
Managing Director
Century Atlantic Capital Management L.P.
Alex Krutov is Managing Director of Century Atlantic Capital Management, L.P.
He has broad expertise in insurance securitization, insurance, and reinsurance having founded Navigation Advisors, a management-consulting firm focused on the insurance industry, capital markets, and general management, and having been employed in a variety of roles, including officer level positions, at companies such as Transatlantic Reinsurance Company, American International Group, Reliance Group, UBS Warburg, and AXA Financial.
Alex Krutov's expertise includes insurance securitizations, portfolio issues in investing in insurance-linked securities, reinsurance underwriting, pricing of catastrophe insurance risk, and general management. His expertise in insurance-linked securities ranges from property catastrophe bonds to extreme mortality securities to life settlements.
Alex Krutov is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, the Society of Actuaries, the Casualty Actuarial Society, and the International Actuarial Association. He has served on the Risk-Based Capital Committee (current chairman) and the Committee on Extreme Events of the American Academy of Actuaries; the Task Force on Insurance Securitization and Risk Transfer; the Committee on Valuation, Finance and Investments; the Committee on Asset/Liability Management; the Committee on Reinsurance Research of the Casualty Actuarial Society; and other industry committees. He has spoken at investment, insurance and actuarial meetings and conferences on the topics of insurance-linked securities, insurance risk transfer, and reinsurance. His book on insurance-linked securities, insurance securitizations, and reinsurance is expected to be published this year.
In addition to his actuarial credentials, Alex Krutov holds an MBA in Management and Finance from the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. He also holds an M.S. in Physics.
Amer Ahmed,
Chief Risk Officer,
Allianz
Dr Andreas Müller
Head of Origination, Distribution, ILS Investments
Munich Re
Dr. Andreas Müller is Head of Origination | Distribution | ILS Investments with Munich Re's Risk Trading Unit. Andreas joined Munich Re in 1998 in the Finite Reinsurance / Alternative Risk Transfer division. Before taking over responsibilites of his current function at the Risk Trading Unit he was in Munich Re's Group Transactions division working on the Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Finance side. He is author of various publications on risk management, alternative risk transfer and life insurance and holds a PhD in economics.
Beat Hess,
Managing Partner,
AA Partners
From February 2005 until founding AA-Partners Ltd Mr. Hess was as Vice President responsible for product management and product development of fund of hedge fund and equity products at Bank Leu. From 2000 to 2003 Mr. Hess was Compliance Officer at Fondvest Ltd., a subsidiary of UBS Ltd., and responsible for fund research and education. Following the integration of Fondvest into UBS Mr. Hess headed the fixed income- and real estate fund research, before he was entrusted with the overall responsibility for the strategic fund research in March 2004.
Beat Hess holds a degree as Dipl. Ing. Agr. from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and a master degree in business administration from the University of Zurich.
Beat Holliger
Managing Director
Munich Re Capital Markets
Beat Holliger is the Managing Director of Munich Re Capital Markets, the New York-based division of Munich Re's Risk Trading Unit. His main responsibilities include the transfer of insurance risks to and from capital markets and the origination of related transactions here in the United States. Mr. Holliger has been part of Munich Re's capital markets initiatives since its inception and has been involved in all of Munich Re's catastrophe bonds. He joined Munich Re in Munich in early 2000 and was transferred to New York in the fall of 2002. A citizen of Switzerland, he started his career in banking and consultancy after graduation from the University of St. Gallen with a master's degree in international relations.
Brian Casey
Partner
Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell
As co-leader of Locke Lord's Insurance Practice Group, and a member of the firm's (a) Corporate and (b) Healthcare Practice Groups, Mr. Casey focuses on (i) corporate, (ii) merger & acquisition, corporate and structured finance and other transactional, and (iii) regulatory matters for corporate clients in the insurance, financial services and health care industries. His clients include insurance companies, insurance holding companies, managing general agents and insurance agencies, third party and claims administrators, banks and other financial institutions, investment banks and reinsurance companies.
Brian Smith
CEO
Life Equity
Brian, a co-founder of LIFE EQUITY in 2000, formulated the Company's objectives of bringing a professional business approach to the industry by adhering to the highest ethical and legal standards. Brian also serves as the President of the Life Settlement Institute (LSI), which is a not-for-pro. t trade organization that LIFE EQUITY co-founded. Brian is the former President, Chief Operating Of. cer and Director of Cole National Corporation, a $1 billion NYSE company, which he took public in 1994. Brian holds a BS and MBA from Cornell University and received his license in the state of Illinois as a CPA.
Chase Toogood
CEO
Iris Re
Chase is the Chief Executive Officer of Iris Reinsurance, Ltd., a Bermuda reinsurance company formed in conjunction with Cartesian Capital Group. Prior to forming Iris Re, Chase was a Director at Credit Suisse, where he established and managed a catastrophe-risk business within their Proprietary Trading Group. Before joining Credit Suisse, he worked for ACE Capital Re where he specialized in structured products and financial guaranty reinsurance. Chase is a CFA charter holder and holds a BA in History from Trinity College in Connecticut.
David Lalonde, , FCAS, FCIA, MAAA
Senior Vice President
AIR Worldwide
Mr. David Lalonde is Senior Vice President responsible for the Consulting and Client Services group, the members of which work one-on-one with clients to help them understand their risk profile and identify where and how catastrophe loss information can best be used in decision-making. Mr. Lalonde has a wealth of experience in the securitization of insurance risk and the use of dynamic financial analysis models for pricing, reserving, and corporate planning. He is responsible for ensuring AIR models meet all regulatory standards and he regularly assists clients in responding to Department of Insurance requests for information relating to the use of catastrophe models in ratemaking. He has appeared as an expert witness in rate arbitration hearings and has provided catastrophe modeling expertise on due diligence teams.
Prior to joining AIR, Mr. Lalonde was a Director of Coopers & Lybrand. His team of actuaries provided a wide variety of consulting services to help insurance companies and self-insured organizations assess and manage their risk. He signed loss reserve opinions, performed classification studies, and provided ratemaking support. Prior to that, Mr. Lalonde was Chief Actuary at the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, where he reported to the company’s Board of Directors on a wide range of strategic and operational issues, including recommending appropriate levels of surplus based on stochastic planning models. He was responsible for both pricing and reserving functions.
Mr. Lalonde is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. He received his B.Math. (Honors) in Actuarial Science with Statistics from the University of Waterloo.
Mr. Lalonde’s additional posts and affiliations include:
Current- Member, AAA Extreme Event Risk Committee
- Member and Past Chair, CAS Advisory Committee on Securitization/Risk Financing
- Member, AAA Insurance Securitization Task Force
- Member, AAA Catastrophe Management Task Force:“Insurance Industry Catastrophe Management Practices”
- Member, AAA Task Force on Complex Models:“ASOP 38: Using Models Outside the Actuary’s Area of Expertise (Property and Casualty)”
David Rawson-Mackenzie
Fund Director
Centurion Fund Managers
Franz-Philippe Przybyl
CEO
Berlin Atlantic Capital
Franz-Philippe Przybyl is the CEO and one of BAC's founders and is responsible for the development of investment products and fund management. With his background in business administration, he has overseen over 80 public capital market transactions with more than 40,000 investors and has long-time experience in advising semi-public companies on asset and liability management. Franz-Philippe Przybyl was Spokesman of the Board for Publity AG and a board member at Virbus AG, both of which were Landesbank subsidiaries. Additionally, he was CFO and Deputy Managing Director of Telemedia GmbH, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG. Mr. Przybyl has worked and lived in New York, Hong Kong, London and Berlin. He holds a BA (Hons.) in European Business Administration from the European School of Business in Reutlingen.
Greg Hagood
Principal & Co-Founder
Nephila
Since 1997 Mr. Hagood's primary responsibility has been as co-portfolio manager, along with Mr. Majors, of the funds managed by Willis Asset Management/Nephila. He coordinates all discussions with capital providers, strategic relationships and oversees operations management. Mr. Hagood began his career with AT&T, and in December 1993 joined Bear, Stearns & Co. in New York where he managed the mortgage servicing trading desk. Mr. Hagood was responsible for trading and brokering mortgage servicing portfolios, advising on mortgage banking mergers and acquisitions and structuring hedging instruments for institutional clients. Mr. Hagood left Bear, Stearns & Co. in February 1997 to join Willis Group Ltd. in London, specifically to start what is now Nephila Capital. Mr. Hagood was a licensed broker at Lloyds of London and received his B.S. in Finance from the University of Tennessee in 1990.
Ivan Zelenko
Head of Derivatives and Structured Finance
World Bank Treasury
Ivan Zelenko has been with the World Bank Treasury since 2000, and is currently Head of Derivatives and Structured Finance. Prior to joining the Bank, he was Head of Asset-Liability Management (ALM) for the Credit Agricole group. Most of his professional life has been with the French state-owned financial institution Caisse des Depots, where he has held various positions related to risk management, financial management and ALM.
Ivan started his career in 1990 at the Strategy Department of the Banque Nationale de Paris, where he set up the ALM function within the group. Ivan graduated from Ecole des Ponts et Chaussees and from Sciences-Po (Institute for Political Studies) in Paris. He holds a post graduate degree in Finance from the University of Paris Dauphine and a PHD in Financial Economics from the University of Paris Sorbonne.
He wrote a textbook on financial economics and coauthored a book on credit risk modeling (3rd edition in 2006) published in French by Dunod editions. He wrote a World Bank Working Paper: "What Determines US Swap Spreads" in 2005.
Jean-Luc Besson
Chief Risk Officer
SCOR
Jean-Luc Besson is an actuary and holds a PhD in Mathematics. He served as a Professor of Mathematics at university level, before being appointed Director of Research, Statistics and Information Systems at the FFSA. He was appointed Chief Reserving Actuary of the SCOR Group in January 2003 and has been Group Chief Risk Officer since 1 July 2004.
Commissioner Gennett Purcell
Commissioner
DC Insurance Department
Dr John Seo
Co-Founder and Managing Principal
Fermat Capital Management, LLC
Dr. John Seo is Co-Founder and Managing Principal at Fermat Capital Management, LLC. Based in Westport, Connecticut, Fermat Capital manages $2 billion in catastrophe bond investments, making it one of the leading catastrophe bond investors in the world. Prior to forming Fermat Capital with his brother Nelson in 2001, John was Senior Trader in the Insurance Products Group at Lehman Brothers, an officer of Lehman Re, and a state-appointed advisor to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. John received a B.S. in physics from M.I.T. in 1988 and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1991.
Jose Garcia
CEO
Carlisle Fund Management
Having established a nine year track record of success across several sectors of the Life Settlement industry, Jose Garcia has put his experience to work as both a life settlement Fund Manager in Luxembourg for Carlisle Investment Group, as well as Senior Advisor for The Peninsula Group. Recognizing that many of the industry standards and ancillary sectors are outdated, Mr. Garcia (in cooperation with Peninsula) is launching new investment vehicles utilizing Life Settlements as underlying assets.
Mr. Garcia's industry experience extends from industry brokers, to life settlement providers, fund management, fund structuring, and investment marketing. Having served as the CEO and equity partner of one of the industry's largest life settlement providers, Mr. Garcia, has in depth working knowledge of all internal aspects of the asset class. Through his extensive fund management and structuring experience, Mr. Garcia has knowledge of life settlement investment vehicles as well as the institutional investment environment. During his career in the secondary market for life insurance, Jose Garcia has led and overseen the purchase of more than $2 billion in Life Settlements as well as helping to raise more than $750 million for investment into this asset class.
In addition to his industry experience, Jose Garcia has worked in many other investment areas, ranging from real estate transactions to carbon credits. Mr. Garcia graduated with honors from Old Dominion University with degrees in Finance and Economics. He also holds a Masters of Business Administration from George Mason University. Mr. Garcia's academic work concentrates in the fields of capital markets and econometrics; however his professional career has taken him to most aspects of global finance and investment.
Karsten Bromann
Managing Partner
Solidum Partners AG
Dr. Karsten Bromann is a Managing Partner of Solidum Partners AG. Karsten holds a Ph.D. in physics (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne) and qualified actuary DAV, is responsible for the investment portfolio and risk management of the accounts and funds managed by Solidum Partners. From 1998 to 2005 he worked with Zurich Insurance Company as a pricing actuary, head of quantitative analysis, and vice-president and technical deal architect, responsible for Zurich Corporate Solutions' alternative risk transfer portfolio in Europe. In 2005 he joined as Chief Risk Officer Solidum Partners' predecessor ISP ARA, which after a management buyout in December 2006 was newly branded Solidum Partners AG.
Dr. Bromann lives in Zurich with his wife and a little daughter. Leisure time left he likes spending rowing on Lake Zurich.
Dr. Kenneth Froot
André R. Jakurski Professor of Business Administration
Harvard Business School
Kenneth A. Froot is André R. Jakurski Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University's Graduate School of Business. He teaches courses in Capital Markets, International Finance, and Risk Management. From 1991-1993 he held the Thomas Henry Carroll-Ford Foundation Visitor's Chair at Harvard, while on leave from MIT's Sloan School of Management. At MIT, he held the Ford International Development Chair. He has taught executive education programs at MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, and for many corporations and institutions in addition to his regular teaching of MBAs and Ph.D.s.
Professor Froot received his B.A. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He spent the 1988-89 academic year as an Olin Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he is now Research Associate. His research on a wide range of topics in finance and international economics has been published in many journals and books. He is Editor of the Journal of International Financial Management and Accounting, Associate Editor of the Journal of International Economics, and edited The Financing of Catastrophe Risk, Foreign Direct Investment, and The Transition in Eastern Europe, Vols. 1 and 2. He is a member of the American Finance Association, the American Economics Association, and the Behavioral Finance Working Group, and served as a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Professor Froot is a founding partner of State Street Associates, LLC and FDO Partners, LLC, firms that serve and advise global investors. Froot has worked with numerous companies, countries, and official institutions, including the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve on international financial, risk management and investment management issues. He serves on boards and policy review committees of several financial institutions. He has also acted as a Financial Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia and to the Finance Minister of Poland, and served on the staff of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers and the Economic Advisory Board of the Export-Import Bank of the US.
Dr Kerry Emanuel
Professor of Atmospheric Science
MIT
Dr. Kerry Emanuel is a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1981, after spending three years as a faculty member at UCLA. Professor Emanuel's research interests focus on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, recently released by Oxford University Press and aimed at a general audience, and What We Know about Climate Change, published by the MIT Press.
Kirk Van Brunt
Partner
Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell
Kirk Van Brunt focuses his practice on the taxation of financial institutions and products, with a particular focus on insurance companies and insurance products. Within the insurance arena, Mr. Van Brunt has substantial experience with bank/corporate owned life insurance (BOLI/COLI) and is very active within the structured settlement industry. Mr. Van Brunt also has substantial experience in the tax treatment of asset-backed securities (especially tax issues relating to REMICs) and derivative financial instruments.
Kurt Gearhart
Managing Director, Life Finance Group
Credit Suisse
Kurt Gearhart is a Managing Director of Credit Suisse in the Investment Banking Division, based in New York. Mr. Gearhart works in the firm's Life Finance Group which operates in all segments of the life settlements market - originating and distributing in both physical and synthetic formats. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Mr. Gearhart was a Partner in the Insurance and Financial Services Group of Sidley Austin LLP and regularly advised investment banks and hedge funds in connection with the life settlement market, including transactions involving the accumulation, disposition and/or financing of life insurance and annuity products. Mr. Gearhart also serves as President of the Institutional Life Markets Association, a trade association formed by top investment banks to educate consumers, investors, and policymakers about the benefits of the mortality and longevity related marketplace.
Kyle Freeman
Catastrophe Risk Management
USAA
Kyle Freeman is an Actuary at USAA where he is responsible for structuring and purchasing their property catastrophe reinsurance program. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. He graduated with a BS in Mathematics from Virginia Tech and with an MA in Mathematics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also served as a nuclear engineer and submarine officer in the US Navy.
Dr Lenny Smith
Professor of Statistics
London School of Economics
Professor Lenny Smith is Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Time Series (CATS). He received his undergraduate degree in "Physics Mathematics and Computer Science" from the University of Florida and a PhD in Physics at Columbia University (USA) in 1987. He has held visiting or fixed term research positions at Cambridge (UK), École Normale Superior (France), Warwick (UK) and Potsdam University (Germany). Since 1992 he has been a Senior Research Fellow (mathematics) at Pembroke College and Research Associate, Mathematics Institute, University of Oxford, (UK), and also became a Professor of Statistics (Research), at the London School of Economics (LSE) in October 2004. He has held grants funded by many bodies including ONR (US Office of Naval Research) and NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) as well as from Australia, the European Commission and the UK Research Councils. Two successful projects - DIME (Direct and Inverse Modelling in End-to-End Environmental Estimation) and REMIND (Real-time Modelling of Nonlinear Data-streams) - were funded under the UK EPSRC Maths Faraday program, and a current project NAPSTER (Nonlinear Analysis and Prediction Statistics from Time Series and Ensemble forecast Realizations) is a UK NERC Knowledge Transfer grant. Professor Smith was active in the formation of strategy for THORPEX (he was co-author of the Socio-Economic Impacts Chapter) and the original experimental design(s) of climatepredition.net. He has supervised doctoral students in departments of physics and engineering, as well as mathematics and statistics. His interest in the public understanding of science lead to a Selby Fellowship from the Australian Academy of Sciences, and a recent book A Very Short Introduction to Chaos, published by OUP. In recognition of his contributions to mathematically-coherent user-relevant developments in meteorology, the Royal Meteorological Society awarded Professor Smith its Fitzroy Prize in 2003.
Lixin Zeng
Portfolio Manager
AlphaCat Fund
Lixin Zeng is the Portfolio Manager of the AlphaCat Fund Ltd., an insurance-linked security (ILS) fund managed by Validus Managers Ltd., a subsidiary of Validus Holdings Ltd. Prior to this role, he was Executive Risk Officer of Validus Re Ltd., responsible for developing and executing the cat risk strategy of the firm. Lixin's prior positions include Chief Catastrophe Risk Officer at the ACE Group and Head of Development at Willis Re. Lixin is a recognized expert in insurance portfolio optimization and risk management; he has published extensively in professional journals on these topics. Lixin has a PhD of atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington and is a holder of the CFA designation.
Luca Albertini
CEO
Leadenhall Capital Partners
Luca Albertini is Chief Executive officer of Leadenhall Capital Partners LLP, an asset management company active in managing insurance linked strategies. Luca has over 16 years of securitisation experience, having worked in the securitisation departments at Citibank, GE Capital, Credit Suisse First Boston and Swiss Re Capital Markets. Within his career Luca gained 7 years of insurance securitisation experience, first at GE Frankona Re and then becoming responsible for the European Insurance Linked Securities team at Swiss Re Capital Markets, where he originated and structured a number of transactions in the P&C, Life, Cat Mortality, and Credit Reinsurance sectors, before founding Leadenhall in 2008.
Dr. Marcel Grandi
Senior Portfolio Manager
Credit-Suisse Asset Management
Marcel Grandi is a Senior Portfolio Manager in the Insurance-linked Strategies team of Credit-Suisse Asset Management (CSAM) in Zurich. CSAM is managing over USD 1.4 bn of insurance risks. Marcel Grandi is in charge of IRIS Life, a dedicated Life Insurance linked Strategies fund operative since June 2009.
Before joining Credit-Suisse in April 2008, Marcel Grandi worked 10 years for Munich Re in various functions at last as Senior Manager in their Risk Trading Unit. He was responsible project manager for all cat bond issues of Munich Re until the end of 2007.
Marcel Grandi studied law and economics and has a professional background in reinsurance and banking.
Mark Gibson
Head of Non-life Insurance Solutions
BNP Paribas
Mark is Head of Non-life Insurance Solutions within the Capital Markets Structuring team at BNP Paribas in London. The team is itself part of the Fixed Income operations of the bank. He concentrates on all aspects of insurance securitisation including originating, structuring and distributing transactions. He joined the bank in May 2006.
Prior to joining the bank in May 2006, Mark was a Managing Director at reinsurance broker Guy Carpenter. During his almost nineteen years there he worked in the traditional reinsurance arena for the early years. He then concentrated on non-traditional solutions, including securitisation, since the mid-1990s. Indeed his experience in the insurance linked securities space includes completing one of the earliest catastrophe options contracts at the Chicago Board of Trade on behalf of a London-based client.
Martin Bisping
Head of Non-Life Risk Transformation
Swiss Re
Martin Bisping heads the capital markets and retrocession activity at Swiss Re. Martin Bisping graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich with a degree in natural sciences and joined Swiss Re in 1994 as a nat cat specialist. In 1999, he became head of the Atmospheric Perils group and transferred to the Financial Services Business Group in 2001. In 2005, he became head of the Group Retro & Syndication unit where he was responsible for all strategic Group P&C protections including ILS. Since April 2009, Martin is in charge for insurance linked capital markets solutions, which is a core part of Swiss Re's product offering to clients and Swiss Re's own hedging strategy.
Swiss Re has one of the strongest track record in the ILS market and has sold more than 180 cat bond issuances, transferring approximately USD 12 bn of cat risks to the capital markets.
Matthew Browndorf
Founder & Chief Investment Officer
Browndorf PEM
Matthew C. Browndorf is the founding and managing member of Browndorf PEM, LLC. Mr. Browndorf has successfully led Browndorf PEM during the past two years and navigated the Firm through perilous credit climates to form four successful and emerging Funds with absolute return features and diverse asset classes such as Longevity, film equities and other illiquid assets. Mr. Browndorf is a pioneer in risk-mitigation strategies involving longevity-linked principal protection and structured products.
Prior to joining Browndorf PEM, Mr. Browndorf was an attorney in Manhattan, New York (most notably at Bryan Cave LLP and Buchanan Ingersoll PC), where he represented securities brokers and private clients in securities and white collar criminal litigation, including the notable People of New York v. Kozlowski and Swartz litigation involving TYCO.
Mr. Browndorf has also counseled clients on operating broker dealers, merger and acquisition consultancy, setting up reinsurance and insurance captives in the European and American markets and was involved in setting precedent law in the area of automobile franchise. Mr. Browndorf has represented fortune 500 companies including Valspar Industries, Gerling Global and Volkswagen of America. Mr. Browndorf has represented financial institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of New York and practiced extensively in the area of creditors rights and bankruptcy.
Mr. Browndorf graduated from Widener University School of Law as a scholar and with honors and authored several law review notes for the Widener Journal of Public Law. Mr. Browndorf attended undergraduate studies at Arizona States University, with an emphasis on forensic debate and rhetoric. Mr. Browndorf has also appeared in the National Law Journal, Legal Week, Legal IT, the Pennsylvania Law Journal and other publications and seminars throughout his practice. Mr. Browndorf is licensed as an attorney in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and is a Registered Investment Advisor Representative.
Michael Freedman
Senior Vice President, Government Affairs
Coventry
Michael Freedman is Senior Vice President, Government Affairs at Coventry, the leader in the secondary market for life insurance and the company who pioneered the life settlement industry. With a primary focus on the continued growth of the secondary market for life insurance in the United States, Mr. Freedman represents Coventry and the secondary life insurance market before government officials.
Prior to joining Coventry, Mr. Freedman served as Vice President of Public Affairs/Public Policy for Global Crossing Limited. He also previously served as Associate Attorney for the law firm of Nixon, Hargrave, Devans and Doyle in New York where he was responsible for state and local government relations. Mr. Freedman received his Juris Doctor from the University of Buffalo.
Morton Lane
President
Lane Financial, LLC
After a distinguished career in the world of financial derivatives, Dr. Lane has devoted the last decade to specializing in the intersection of insurance and capital markets. As a pioneer in the move to securitize insurance he has provided advice, been engaged in consulting for a wide list of clients as well as conducting several securitizations directly. He has also edited Alternative Risk Strategies, voted runner up to the Kulp-Wright risk management book award of 2002, describing the burgeoning world of insurance securitization. While in derivatives Dr. Lane was President of Discount Futures, voted 1989 Futures House of the Year by The International Financing Review and co-authored two books, The Treasury Bond Basis and Eurodollar Futures and Options, which have become industry standards. He has taught at the London Graduate School of Business, The University of Chicago and the University of New South Wales. Dr. Lane is a graduate of the University of Birmingham and earned his Ph. D. at the University of Texas.
Neil Breslin
New York State Senate
Neil David Breslin, Democrat, is currently serving his seventh term as New York State Senator. He represents the 46th District, which consists entirely of Albany County. Born as one of six children on June 9, 1942, Neil is a lifelong resident of Albany. On academic scholarship, Neil attended Fordham College from which he graduated in 1964 with a BS degree in Political Science. While in law school at the University of Toledo, he was named the editor-in-chief of the Law Review and was also selected as outstanding student in his class. Upon graduation from law school, Neil became an associate in the firm of Garry Cahill & Edmunds and two years later became a partner in a new firm entitled Garry, Cahill, Edmunds & Breslin. In 1981, Neil formed a partnership with his two brothers, Michael (currently Albany County Executive) and Thomas (currently Albany County Court Judge). Currently, Neil practices law as "of counsel" to the firm of Hiscock & Barclay.
Neil has been a community leader for many years. His involvement in civic and social areas in Albany includes 15 years as a board member of Arbor House, a residence facility for women in need. He also served as president of Arbor House for a period of seven years. Neil has been the attorney for St. Anne's Institute in Albany and has done work for Hospitality House, the International Center and Hope House, a drug treatment facility. Further, Neil was Vice President of the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless from 1994 to 1998.
An active member of the New York State Bar Association, Neil has served as a lecturer on real estate law; editor of the newsletter of the New York State Bar Association General Practice of Law Section from 1980-1984; member of the Executive Committee of the General Practice of Law Section from 1980-1985 and from 1989-1998; chairperson of the General Practice of Law Section from 1993-1994; and member of the House of Delegates of the New York State Bar Association from 1992-1994. Additionally, he has been a member of the Character and Fitness Committee of the Appellate Division, Third Department since 1987 and was chairman of the Grievance Committee for the Albany County Bar Association from 1985-1993.
Neil serves as a member of the Executive Committee and is the former Chair of the State/Federal Relations Committee of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL). In recognition of his dedication and commitment, Senator Breslin has received awards from numerous organizations including Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood, Caregivers Respite Services of Catholic Charities, University at Albany's Presidential Honors Society, New York State Bar Association, American Civil Liberties Union, KidsPeace National Centers, Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy ("Distinguished Public Service Award") and Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club ("Profiles in Courage Award").
Niraj Patel
Managing Director, Credit Derivatives and ILS
Genworth Investments
Niraj is a Senior Derivative Trader and Portfolio Manager at Genworth Financial. In his current role, he is responsible for helping with the development and implementation of derivatives strategies for income generation and capital / risk management. Niraj leads the efforts to evaluate trade and manage credit derivatives, structured credit and insurance linked securities.
Prior to his current role, Niraj was part of the new products team at GE Capital Market Services focused on structuring innovative capital markets solutions to achieve risk transfer, ROE enhancement and manage capital for GE businesses. He has worked at Genworth and its former parent GE for over 14 years in various roles including portfolio management, capital markets and marketing and product development. He holds 9 patents, which were used to develop proprietary solutions for GE customers.
Niraj has earned a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University, an MBA from SUNY and is a CFA charter holder.
Patti Guatteri, PhD
Director
Swiss Re Capital Markets
Mariagiovanna (Patti) Guatteri, PhD is a Director at Swiss Re Capital Markets ("SRCM") in New York and is responsible for the trading of a broad range of insurance-linked products. Dr. Guatteri joined SRCM in 2006 and since then has been applying her extensive background in cat modeling and quantitative analysis to assess secondary cat bond pricing and to analyze ILWs and new insurance-linked structures in the market. Prior to this role, Dr. Guatteri worked for almost four years for Swiss Re America as nat cat modeller with a focus on earthquake risk.
Dr. Guatteri holds a Phd in Geophysics and a Masters in Statistics from Stanford University. She currently serves in the Advisory Board of the Southern California Earthquake Center.
Paul Schultz
President, Investment Banking
AON Benfield
Paul Schultz is President of Aon Benfield Investment Banking Group. Mr. Schultz joined Aon Benfield in 2000 after spending 15 years in the commercial and investment banking industry. Prior to joining Aon Benfield, Mr. Schultz was the head of Chase Securities' Midwest-based Insurance Investment Banking Group, advising clients on M&A, leveraged finance, structured products and debt issuance. Mr. Schultz has a MBA from J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Northwestern University. Mr. Schultz is also Treasurer of Northwestern University's Public Issues Committee.
Dr Pauline Barrieu
Reader in Statistics
London School of Economics
Dr Pauline Barrieu is an associate professor in the Statistics department at the London School of Economics. She has two PhDs (one in Applied Mathematics and one in Finance). For the latter she was awarded the Prix Actuariat 2003 for the best Actuarial PhD in Europe. In June 2006, one of her research papers « Inf-convolution of risk measures and optimal risk transfer» received the award for the best research paper in quantitative finance by the Europlace Institute of Finance. In December 2006, her publication "On precautionary policies" was awarded the European Union (Responsible Investment Forum) prize for best research paper in "Finance and sustainable development".
Her research interests are mainly on the study of problems at the interface between finance and insurance, in particular the design of illiquid products and the securitization of non-financial risks. She also works on quantitative methods for risk measurement and robust decision taking, with applications in finance and environmental economics.
She recently co-edited the Handbook of Insurance-Linked Securities with Luca Albertini.
Dr Jay Olshansky
Professor of Epidemiology
University of Illinois at Chicago
S. Jay Olshansky received his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Chicago in 1984. He is currently a Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Research Associate at the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The focus of his research to date has been on estimates of the upper limits to human longevity, exploring the health and public policy implications associated with individual and population aging, forecasts of the size, survival, and age structure of the population, pursuit of the scientific means to slow aging in people (The Longevity Dividend), and global implications of the re-emergence of infectious and parasitic diseases. Dr. Olshansky is the first author of The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (Norton, 2001).
Scott Willkomm
Senior Vice President, Business Development
Coventry
Scott Willkomm is Senior Vice President, Business Development for Coventry. As a key figure in Coventry's Capital Markets Group, Mr. Willkomm is responsible for building strategic relationships with leading financial institutions worldwide and expanding Coventry's leadership position within the global longevity and mortality market.
An accomplished insurance industry leader, Mr. Willkomm was President and CEO of Scottish Re, one of the world's leading life reinsurance specialists where he pioneered many ground-breaking insurance-linked securitizations. He also served as Chief Executive Officer, Mortality-Linked Products at J.G. Wentworth, where he led the firm's expansion into the longevity and mortality market.
Urs Ramseier
Head of ILS
Horizon 21 Alternative Investments
Urs Ramseier is the Head of Insurance Linked Securities of Horizon21 Alternative Investments since January 2007.
Urs Ramseier has extensive experience in the banking industry. He began his career in 1995 with Credit Suisse, Zurich, Switzerland. In 1996, he started to work for Credit Suisse Financial Products in London, United Kingdom, where he was responsible for managing credit risks with insurance companies. He was also a Member of the Global Credit Committee at Credit Suisse First Boston in Hong Kong, Peoples' Republic of China.
From 1999 to 2001, he worked for Lombard Odier & Cie, Geneva, Switzerland, as a Sellside Equity Analyst for insurance and real estate stocks. In 2001, he rejoined Credit Suisse First Boston in Zurich, Switzerland, as a Buy-side Analyst and Portfolio Manager. He was responsible for all investments of Credit Suisse Asset Management in European insurance stocks.
He holds a PhD from the University of Berne, Switzerland, where his major study was economic geography. Urs Ramseier was born in 1965 and lives in Switzerland.
Wai-Keung Tang
Managing Partner
Kappa Life
Dr. Wai-Keung Tang is President and Founder of Kappa Life Corporation. He is an expert in life settlement and insurance risk management. He was a managing partner of Alpha-Value Asset Management. Alpha Value has developed and delivered several short-duration and mid-duration asset based lending strategies in life settlement assets. Back in 2006, backed by Plainfield Asset Management, he co-founded Caldwell Funding and its affiliates to engage in the mortality arbitrage business. Through Caldwell Funding and its affiliates, Dr. Tang managed a more than $300 million portfolio of mortality arbitrage assets. He began his investment banking career as quantitative analyst at the equity derivative trading desk of UBS . While in Seabury Insurance Capital, he successfully raised $63 million through the securitization of a life settlement bond, which was granted aa- from A.M. Best. Dr. Tang holds a Ph.D. in elementary particle physics from Columbia University.
Ward Bukofsky
Chief Operating Officer
NorthStar Life Services
Ward Bukofsky joined Pacifica Group (NorthStar's predecessor) as Chief Operating Officer in January 2008, and continued in an expanded role with NorthStar upon its spin-off from Pacifica in April 2009. He is responsible for supervising and coordinating all departmental functions related to NorthStar's portfolio management services, including Policy Servicing, Underwriting, Pricing & Analytics, Finance, Legal, IT, Business Development and Client Relations. Prior to joining Pacifica Group two years ago, Mr. Bukofsky had a 33-year career in the accounting profession, the last eight years of which he was Managing Tax Partner of the Los Angeles office of Moss Adams, LLP, the nation's 11th largest accounting and consulting firm. In addition to overseeing the office's entire tax practice, he specialized in estate and tax planning for high net worth families, including insurance-based wealth preservation strategies.
Eddie Stone
Managing Partner
Stone Beach Capital
Elaine Caprio Brady
VP, Ceded Reinsurance Operations
Liberty Mutual
Heinz Kubli
Managing Partner
Fundabilis
Michael Leybov
Managing Director
Horton Point
Michael Stahel
Head of ILS
Clariden Leu
Patti Guattari
Director
Swiss Re
Stephen Velotti
Chief Underwriting Officer
Juniperus Capital
Vincent Prabis
ILS Fund Manager
Acheron Capital
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