Speakers

Emma Vitz
Analyst
Finity Consulting

Emma Vitz is an analyst at Finity Consulting, based in Auckland. Over the past year, much of her work has focused on pricing for natural perils such as flood and storm in New Zealand and Australia. She is particularly interested in geospatial analysis and how this can inform the insurance industry as climate change affects the frequency and severity of natural disasters. Emma enjoys applying data science and machine learning to her work in and performs most of her analysis in R.

In addition, Jillian contributes to new intellectual capital and integrating responsible investment within Mercer globally, including delegated solutions. She was project manager and co-author for Mercer’s Investing in a Time of Climate Change (2015) research and The Sequel (2019). Jillian has also presented and written about water and various sustainability issues and helped many Boards to establish the governance required to balance risk, return, and reputation.

Jillian has 20 years of financial services experience. She began at Mercer in 2004, transitioning to the Responsible Investment team in 2011, including four years in the London office. Prior to Mercer, Jillian spent five years at an Australian multi-manager, after beginning her career in teaching.

Jillian holds a Master of Arts in Development Studies; a Bachelor of Arts; a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment; and a Diploma of Education from the University of Newcastle and the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Pulkit is a senior consultant at Finity, providing actuarial and strategic advice to the insurance industry.  Pulkit has spent the last eight years consulting primarily on pricing strategy and natural hazard management. He has worked extensively with the insurance effort to rebuild Christchurch following the 2010/11 earthquakes and has also been helping insurers price for natural perils. Pulkit has a passion for understanding the effects of climate change and has more recently been working on projects to model its effects on extreme events.

Rita has worked at Stone & Chalk for 3 years, Asia-Pacific's largest Fintech hub, as the Head of Corporate Partnerships and Insurtech lead. During her time there she worked with over 25 large corporate partners in the financial services space with the goal of bridging the gap between the startup ecosystem and corporate Australia, whilst promoting growth and commercialisation for the fintech startup community. 

Rita has 20 years of experience spanning health, NFP and insurance and financial services industries. Rita is on the founding leadership team for Insurtech Australia and advisory committee, helping grow the ecosystem and supporting Australia to become a world leader in insurtech.

Rita commences in her new role of CEO of Insurtech Australia as of 1 May 2019. 

Adam is the Head of Vitality Product and Pricing for AIA Australia and has 14 years’ experience in financial services.  After qualifying as an actuary in Australia in 2004, Adam has spent the majority of his career overseas including 5 years in London with PruHealth (now VitalityHealth) and 3 years in Johannesburg with Discovery (the largest South African health insurer). 

Adam is now responsible for the strategic direction of the Australian Vitality product, ensuring that Vitality is able to achieve the objectives of AIA’s underlying insurance business whilst retaining its consistency, clinical integrity and financial sustainability.

Vivian is a qualified actuary with over 15 years’ of corporate and consulting experience. She is currently a Senior Actuary at icare which delivers world-class insurance and care services to the businesses, people and communities of NSW. Prior to joining icare, she was the Director of Analytics at IAG, where she was a key contributor to and influencer of the vision and strategy for analytics activities across a range of commercial and personal lines portfolios. Vivian has also worked as a consulting actuary at PwC, providing actuarial advice on Workers’ Compensation and CTP schemes across Australia. 

Sharanjit Paddam
Head of ESG Risk
QBE Insurance Group

Sharanjit is Head of ESG Risk at QBE Insurance Group, where his responsibilities include reporting under the FSB’s climate-related disclosure recommendations.  He was previously an actuarial consultant to general insurers and banks in the UK and Australia, specialising in climate risk measurement, management and disclosure.