KAREN CLARK
Job title: President and chief executive officer
Company: Karen Clark & Company
www.intelligentinsurer.com
Karen Clark is president and chief
executive officer of Karen Clark
& Company (KCC), a firm she cofounded
in 2007 to build advanced
catastrophe risk management
tools. Clark previously founded
the first modelling company, AIR,
and developed the first catastrophe
model which revolutionised the
way insurers, reinsurers, and other
financial institutions assess, price,
and manage catastrophe risk.
Along with the models, Clark developed several open data
standards so that risk could be transferred more efficiently between
insurers and global reinsurers.
Clark continues to innovate and under her leadership, KCC
has developed new catastrophe models that are more efficient,
transparent, and accurate along with the first commercial grade open
loss modelling platform, RiskInsight.
Over the past 30 years, Clark has devoted a significant portion of
her time to the education of industry, governments, and the public
on all aspects of catastrophe risk. She paved the way for model usage
by conducting numerous educational sessions with regulators, rating
agencies, and bureaus.
Clark provided expert testimony for hearings around the first rate
filings based on the models, and her involvement was instrumental in
the issuance of the first catastrophe bond in 1997.
Clark is frequently an invited speaker at industry conferences
and a contributor to industry journals. She has been featured on
TV news programmes and in documentaries on hurricanes and
earthquakes. Clark’s unparalleled expertise in catastrophe modelling
and contributions to the insurance industry have been recognised by
numerous honours and awards.
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ISABELLE DUBOTS-LAFITTE
Job title: Chief executive officer, EMEA
Company: Odyssey Reinsurance Company
Isabelle Dubots-Lafitte is the chief
executive officer of the Europe,
Middle East & Africa region of
OdysseyRe, based in Paris. In this
position, she manages the Paris
and Stockholm offices and oversees
the operations for OdysseyRe’s
EuroAsia Division. She also serves
as the chief executive officer for
Odyssey Re Europe, which was
established in France in 2017.
Armed with a passion for
mathematics and economics, and an education focused on actuarial
methods, Dubots-Lafitte began her career as an actuary. In 1989,
she joined the Compagnie Transcontinentale de Réassurance (CTR),
which was acquired by Fairfax Financial Holdings in 1997 and
ultimately became a part of Odyssey Reinsurance Company in 2000.
Her early responsibilities included pricing and reserving excess of
loss business in the actuarial department. She also spent eight years
underwriting credit and bond reinsurance worldwide.
During Dubots-Lafitte’s 30 years of service, she assumed greater
levels of underwriting, marketing and management responsibilities,
culminating in her appointment as the head of underwriting and
marketing of all treaty business within France in 1999. In 2015, she
was appointed to her current position as CEO for the EMEA region.
Dubots-Lafitte is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Statistics
(ISUP) and a member of the French Actuary Institute.
Diversity and Inclusion Report 2019
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Clark has devoted a significant portion
of her time to the education of industry,
governments, and the public on all aspects
of catastrophe risk.
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She manages the Paris and Stockholm
offices and oversees the operations for
OdysseyRe’s EuroAsia Division.