Mr. Denis Duverne is a graduate of the École des Hautes Études Commerciales (HEC). After graduating from the École Nationale d’Administration (ENA), he started his career in 1979 at the Tax Department of the French Ministry of Finance, and after 2 years as commercial counsellor for the French Consulate General in New York (1984-1986), he became director of the Corporate Taxes Department and then responsible for tax policy within the French Ministry of Finance from 1986 to 1991.

 

In 1991, he was appointed Corporate Secretary of Compagnie Financière IBI. In 1992, he became a member of the Executive Committee of Banque Colbert, in charge of operations. In 1995, Mr. Denis Duverne joined the AXA Group and assumed responsibility for supervision of AXA’s operations in the US and the UK and managed the reorganization of AXA companies in Belgium and the United Kingdom. From February 2003 until December 2009, Mr. Denis Duverne was the Management Board member in charge of Finance, Control and Strategy. From January 2010 until April 2010, Mr. Denis Duverne assumed broader responsibilities as Management Board member in charge of Finance, Strategy and Operations. From April 2010 to August 31, 2016, Mr. Denis Duverne was director and Deputy Chief Executive Off icer of AXA, in charge of Finance, Strategy and Operations. Mid-2014, Mr. Denis Duverne became a member of the Private Sector Advisory Group (PSAG), which brings together international leaders of the private sector whose shared goal is to help developing countries improve their corporate governance, co-founded in 1999 by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

 

Since September 1, 2016, Mr. Denis Duverne has been non-executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of AXA. Since September 2018, he has been Chairman of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). The IDF is 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.

Achim Steiner became UNDP Administrator on 19 June 2017 and will serve for a term of four years. The United Nations General Assembly confirmed his nomination on 19 April 2017, following his nomination by Secretary-General António Guterres.

Mr. Steiner is also the Vice-Chair of the UN Development Group, which unites the 32 UN funds, programmes, specialized agencies and other bodies that work to support sustainable development.

Over nearly three decades, Achim Steiner has been a global leader on sustainable development, climate resilience and international cooperation. He has worked tirelessly to champion sustainability, economic growth and equality for the vulnerable, and has been a vocal advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Prior to joining UNDP, he was Director of the Oxford Martin School and Professorial Fellow of Balliol College, University of Oxford. Mr Steiner has served across the United Nations system, looking at global challenges from both a humanitarian and a development perspective. He led the United Nations Environment Programme (2006-2016), helping governments invest in clean technologies and renewable energy. He was also Director-General of the United Nations Office at Nairobi. Achim Steiner previously held other notable positions including Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and Secretary General of the World Commission on Dams.

Achim Steiner has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America and the United States. He graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (MA) from Worcester College, Oxford University and holds an MA from the University of London/School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

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). Ekhosuehi has extensive experience working with Governments, international development agencies, private sector entities and academic institutions on public financial management and strengthening risk management and financing systems and the role of insurance. She has been directly involved in establishing and operationalising a number of pioneering initiatives including regional risk pools in Africa (African Risk Capacity), the Caribbean (Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility) 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 is a graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government and was selected as a 2018 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Resident Practitioner Fellow. 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. In 2021 she was appointed a Non-Resident Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

Eric Andersen serves as President of Aon plc, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions.

He also plays a key role as a member of Aon’s Global Executive Committee, which guides the operations of the firm, and he also leads Aon’s Operating Committee.

Eric most recently served as Co-President of Aon. Prior to that Eric was Chief Executive Officer of Aon Benfield, the world’s leading reinsurance intermediary and full-service capital advisor. Aon Benfield provides treaty and facultative brokerage service and advice, and provides investment banking, analytics, claims, and management consulting services and advice to insurance and reinsurance companies. In May 2018, Eric announced the start of a brand transition from Aon Benfield to Reinsurance Solutions.

Prior to this role, he served as Chief Executive Office of Aon Risk Solutions Americas, based in New York City. In this role, he was responsible for leading Aon’s largest geographic unit with 14,000 colleagues on teams in the United States, Canada, Bermuda and throughout Latin America.

Throughout his over 20-year career at Aon, Eric has served in a number of important leadership positions including Aon Risk Solutions U.S. retail field leader, Chief Executive Officer of Aon Global Americas’ global account segment, national co-Managing Director of Aon’s Financial Services Group, and Resident Managing Director of Aon in Southern California. Eric first joined Aon in 1997 via the acquisition of Minet. Prior to that, Eric also worked in London for a period at Alexander Howden in London’s Devonshire Square.

Andersen earned a MBA in Finance from Fordham University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Colgate University.

Andersen sits on the board of trustees of Colgate University. He is actively involved with the Federal Advisory Committee on Insurance (FACI), as well as the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). He is a board member of Covenant.

Mami Mizutori is the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction, and head of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, based in Geneva, Switzerland. She assumed her role on 1 March 2018. The role of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction is to support countries and stakeholders in the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015-2030). The Special Representative ensures the strategic and operational coherence between disaster risk reduction, climate change and sustainable development agendas as well as the linkage with the UN Secretary-General’s prevention agenda and with humanitarian action. Ms. Mizutori served for twenty-seven years in various capacities in the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to joining the UN, Ms. Mizutori was Executive Director of the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures, University of East Anglia, UK, since 2011. Ms. Mizutori graduated in law from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo and obtained a Diploma in International Studies from the Diplomatic School of Spain. A Japanese national, Ms. Mizutori speaks Japanese, English and Spanish.

Rowan Douglas is Head of the Climate and Resilience Hub at Willis Towers Watson, a leading global advisory and re/insurance broking company and Chair of 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. He was a member of the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science & Technology 2011-2016; the Royal Society’s Working Group on Resilience to Climate Risk and Extreme Weather, and serves on the Executive Committee of the International Insurance Society (IIS), New York from which he received the Kenneth R Black Award in 2014. Following degrees in Geography at Durham (BA Hons) and Bristol (M.Phil) Universities, Rowan began his career underwriting reinsurance at Lloyd’s Syndicate 1095 before founding the international risk information company WIRE Limited in 1994 which was purchased by Willis Group in 2000.

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.  

Mr. Branagan joined RenaissanceRe in 1998 to open the Dublin branch and lead the company’s modelling and client risk intelligence activities. He relocated to Bermuda and most recently London, assuming underwriting authority for several classes of business and ultimately becoming Group Chief Risk Officer in 2009.

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. Mr. Branagan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and European Economic History from Manchester Metropolitan University. He currently serves as Chair of the Risk Modelling & Mapping Group of the Insurance Development Forum.

In her current role Mrs. Thyme promotes, explores and executes on opportunities to drive the use of disaster risk financing and insurance to increase countries’ resilience and protect their development gains. Ms. Thyme has more than twenty years’ experience in the insurance industry and has been with AXA XL since 2008. Prior to her current role, she held the position of Director Strategy & Business Groups, Communications & Marketing. Before joining XL, Mrs. Thyme held different senior strategic communications and marketing roles at Zurich Insurance, during ten years. While leading global teams and acting as strategic advisor to global and regional business leaders, Mrs. Thyme has successfully formulated and executed strategies to drive business development and market penetration. She has vast experience working with both mature and emerging re/insurance markets, including Africa, Asia and Latin America. Mrs. Thyme is also a Diversity & Inclusion sponsor, member of the Global CSR Committee and Chair of the EMEA CSR Committee. Ms. Thyme started her career as a branding, communications and marketing consultant, advising companies across different industries on strategic (re-)positioning and change management, a focus she has maintained throughout her career. She holds a BA from Georgetown University, Washington D.C., an MBA from City University London Business School and a Certificate on Behavioral Economics from the Academy of Behavioral Economics/ GDI. She is based in Zurich, Switzerland.