Gallagher Re appoints chief science officer
Gallagher Re, the global reinsurance broker, has appointed Steve Bowen to the newly created position of chief science officer within Global Analytics & Advisory.
Based in Chicago and with a global role, Bowen will also work closely with Gallagher’s new Gallagher Research Centre (GRC), Global Catastrophe Analytics, and the Climate and ESG teams and will join the business on 3 October.
With a scientific background in meteorology and business analytics, Bowen joins Gallagher after 15 years at Aon, where he most recently served as managing director and the head of Catastrophe Insight.
A frequent collaborator with governmental agencies, academia and industry groups, Bowen is highly respected and well-known across the risk and insurance spectrum as an expert in his field and has co-authored several peer-reviewed journals, Gallagher Re said.
Brian Ingle, president of Global Analytics & Advisory at Gallagher Re, said: “Steve’s addition to our team of practical, solutions-oriented, data-led specialists ensures Gallagher Re’s clients and the public at large get objective, fact-based assessments of the evolving risks arising from climate change. With the world’s risk horizon looking increasingly turbulent, Gallagher Re is fully provisioned to help our clients successfully navigate the future.”
Bowen added: “We live in a solutions driven world. The growing and broad-reaching impacts of climate change and natural hazards are becoming more evident by the day, and there is a critical need to innovate and clearly communicate how risk is evolving. I am thrilled to be joining the Gallagher Re family where there is a strong commitment to collectively work together to help clients better understand their view of risk. We will strive to help move the climate change conversation forward by collaborating with various private and public sector entities to develop and deliver applicable thought leadership. It is an exciting time to be a scientist in the insurance industry.”
Led by Dr Tina Thomson as Global Head of Research, the GRC is a collaboration hub for academic, research and other institutions. It will provide access to independent, peer-reviewed academic work to support applied innovations across all Gallagher Re’s advisory and transactional products related to both natural and manmade perils.
To support the academic partnerships and collaborations, Dr Iain Willis has been appointed as research director of the GRC. Willis joins Gallagher Re from JBA Risk Management, where he spent the past seven years as managing director of its Singapore subsidiary, responsible for business development in Asia Pacific including data licensing and consultancy opportunities for JBA (CAT) probabilistic models, hazard maps, event sets, training and disaster scenarios.
Thomson said: “The vision of the GRC is to deliver invaluable insight through creating an ecosystem of academic partners and innovation that will provide a unique offering to our clients. It will drive research across the full spectrum of re/insurance–not just natural catastrophe risk.
“While natural catastrophe and climate change research continue to be a priority, the evolving complexity of risk over the past two years has clearly demonstrated why it is essential the GRC has a wider remit to more accurately capture and quantify the risks posed by unmodelled, emerging and man-made perils. All of which are becoming more self-evident.”
Willis added: “The launch of the GRC is an incredibly exciting venture for the entire industry. We’re aiming to build closer ties between the insurance sector and academia at a much-needed time. By collaborating with global experts in their respective fields, we’re able to help share the latest research findings, challenge existing views and develop new risk solutions for our clients.
“In such a rapidly changing risk landscape, the innovation and applied research generated by the GRC will provide an essential mechanism in how we solve the risk management challenges of the future,” he concluded.