About our speakers

Dr. Andrew Aziz, Executive Vice President, Risk Solutions, Algorithmics

Dr. Andrew Aziz is Executive Vice President of Risk Solutions at Algorithmics, leading the firm’s buy-side and sell-side business lines. He is also responsible for the newly launched, Algo Risk Service, a managed service offering targeted towards hedge funds, asset managers, and prime brokers. Andrew has held a number of senior positions at Algorithmics including Vice President of Professional Services and Executive Director of Financial Engineering. In addition, he currently teaches in the Financial Engineering program at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto.

Rachid Bouchaib, Senior Insurance Risk Manager, ING Group

Rachid is a fellow of the Institute of Actuaries with 14 years experience in the field of risk management, asset and liability modelling and investment strategies in Europe and Asia-Pacific. He recently published a paper in The Annals of Actuarial Science presenting a methodology on dynamic investment strategies that he developed and implemented successfully in the UK. The method uses Option Based Portfolio Insurance techniques to minimise the cost of investment guarantees.

Curt Burmeister, Director, Risk Solutions, Algorithmics

Curt Burmeister is the Director of the Risk Solutions group at Algorithmics, where he manages the business strategy, product design, business development, partner relationships, and marketing of the market risk solutions for the buy side. As a member of the research group, Curt developed Algorithmics’ first generation of credit derivative models and contributed to many of the solution enhancements designed for buy-side clients. Curt has also spent time studying the computational performance issues related to risk management and led Algorithmics’ effort to support grid computing. Curt holds an MBA in Financial Engineering from MIT and a BA in Computer Science and Mathematics from Cornell University. He has a software patent for complier technology.

Roger Dix, Independent expert

Roger commenced work after university as an actuarial trainee at Commercial Union, in the City. After qualifying, he moved to Canada Life in Potters Bar, where he became Appointed Actuary. He moved to Swiss Re in Zurich in 1996, where he was Head of Financial Management (a sort of CFO/Appointed Actuary role) for the life reinsurance written in mainland Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia. In 2003, he returned to London to join Prudential UK as Capital Management Actuary. From October 2006 to March 2009 he was Head of Group Insurance and Investment Risk at HBOS.

John Hibbert, Founder and Director, Barrie and Hibbert
A graduate in economics and accounting, and then operational research, John has more than 25 years’ experience in the life insurance, asset management and securities industries.
Before founding Barrie & Hibbert, he led the equity quantitative research team at a major investment bank and was voted the city’s top quantitative analyst. Until recently, John led the development of Barrie & Hibbert’s ‘Economic Scenario Generator’ (capital market modelling) business. He is now involved in a wide range of research and consulting activities as well as serving as a board director.
John has contributed to Barrie & Hibbert’s considerable library of research material as well as journals and other industry publications. In August 2008, John was appointed an Honorary Professor in the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at Heriot Watt University.

Bob Howe, Chief Risk Officer, EU entities, Swiss Reinsurance
Bob Howe is an experienced reinsurer with many years in the industry. He is currently the Chief Risk Officer for Swiss Re’s EU legal entities. His prior experience includes Chief Actuary and CRO for Swiss Re’s global Life and Health business.

Victoria Raffe, Head, Prudential Insurance Policy Department, Financial Services Authority
Victoria Raffé heads up the FSA's Prudential Insurance Policy Department which is responsible for ensuring that there is a coherent and effective prudential policy framework for UK insurance firms across the spectrum of life/non-life and retail/wholesale. This work includes both ensuring that the current framework is clear, implementable and appropriate through both steady state and through periods of market disruption, and working to secure that future frameworks deliver the best achievable outcomes for the supervision of UK firms, most notably through Solvency 2 and IAIS policy developments. After a decade working in insurance and investment management firms, and later as a management consultant, Victoria joined the FSA in 1995 where she has worked in a number of roles.

Dr. Reinhardt Schink, Vice President, Allianz SE
Dr. Reinhardt Schink specializes within Group Economic Research & Development on Allianz Group wide pension initiatives and group strategy. Additionally he is deputy chairman of the advisory board of the Allianz international employee benefits network (All Net). Before being Assistant to the CEO he was Head of Corporate Client Department at Allianz Life. As Senior Consultant with Allianz Dresdner Pension Consult (2001 – 2004) he was, with his team, responsible for advising the top 200 listed German companies on pension matters. Reinhardt holds a Masters Degree in Business Administration and gained his PhD on "Knowledge Management in Strategic Management".

Pamela Schuermans, Administrator, CEIOPS
Ms. Pamela Schuermans has joined the CEIOPS Secretariat as an administrator on 1 January 2007. She is responsible for the coordination of the Solvency II project and for the support of the CEIOPS Financial Requirements Expert Group. She is also responsible for third country regulatory dialogues. Before that she has worked as an insurance supervisors for the CBFA, the Belgian banking, finance and insurance supervisors, where she has been active in the supervision of bancassurance groups and international policy cooperation regarding insurance supervision. She holds a law degree (Namur, Leuven, Heidelberg), an MSc in Finance and Financial Law (London) and a university degree in actuarial sciences (Louvain-la-Neuve).

Josef Seigner, Head of ALM, Allianz Investment Management SE, Munich
After his graduation summa cum laude from Regensburg University in 1993, Josef acquired a Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Jena, on a German Research Society (DFG) scholarship. Josef started his business career as Risk Manager at Hanover Life Insurance as Head of Risk management. Josef has joined Allianz in1998 initially as risk manager in Munich including responsible e.g. for the SEC market risk disclosure in Allianz’ filings. Later he led the Financial Risk team, which is now part of Allianz Investment Management SE. His responsibilities entail all ALM related analyses and strategies for Central Europe. In 2004 he implemented Allianz’ first hybrid hedge for a GMIB. Josef is one of the Fellows in Allianz’ Investment Lab, which is responsible for research and development projects in investment management and capital markets.

Karen Tan, Head of Global Life Risk Analysis, Zurich Financial Services
Karen Tan is Head of Global Life Risk Analysis at Zurich Financial Services (ZFS), responsible for the analysis and quantification of Global Life risks, including the calculation and analysis of risk based capital. Prior to joining ZFS, Karen worked 10 years at Swiss Re, where she co-led the implementation of the Swiss Solvency Test (based on internal risk models) and engaged in Solvency II developments. At Swiss Re, Karen also led efforts to streamline legal entity capital flows, and worked on developing and implementing Swiss Re's Economic Value Management framework. Karen qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2001.

Dom Tobey, Head of Risk Management & Reserves, PartnerRe Global
As Head of Risk Management & Reserving, Global, at PartnerRe, Dom Tobey leads a global support unit responsible for reserving, underwriting office, legal and claims, global operational business support, and global risk management. Prior to joining PartnerRe in 2001, Dom worked for Commercial Union as Director of Financial Analysis and a range of corporate, personal lines, and commercial lines actuarial roles in the U.S., U.K., and France. An economics graduate of Tufts University, Dom is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

Peter Vipond, Director, Financial Regulation and Taxation, Association of British Insurers
Peter Vipond is Director of Financial Regulation and Taxation at the Association of British Insurers (ABI). He represents the UK insurance industry on these matters in discussions with the regulators, government and EU authorities as well as the Comité Européen des Assurances (CEA). In addition he co-ordinates the business planning activities of the ABI. Previously he worked at the British Bankers Association (BBA) dealing with market risk (CAD) and credit risk (Basel 2), as well as risk-based supervision. Initially he was a university professor in political economy, then in financial services strategy and regulation.

Mark Wood, Chief Executive, Paternoster
Mark began his career with Price Waterhouse where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant specialising in financial services and particularly life insurance. He has held a number of senior positions in the financial services industry at Commercial Union, Barclays, Axa UK plc (Chief Executive, 1996 – 2001) and Prudential - UK and Europe (Chief Executive, 2001 – 2005).
Initially backed by Numis, and then with £500 million of equity financing from a number of institutions including Deutsche Bank, Mark founded Paternoster in December 2005. Paternoster is a regulated insurance company that takes on the risks associated with companies’ final salary/defined benefit pension schemes.