Athene appoints Doug Niemann as chief risk officer

Athene Holding has appointed Doug Niemann as executive vice president and chief risk officer at Athene.

Niemann replaces John Rhodes, who is stepping down from the role for health reasons. He takes up his post on May 18 and will serve through the transition in an advisory capacity over the next several weeks.

Niemann has more than 20 years of experience in risk management related to insurance, as well as experience in asset liability management. He was formerly senior managing director of investment management and chief investment risk officer for Guardian Life Insurance.

Before that he was managing director and chief investment strategist of global insurance solutions at JP Morgan Asset Management. He has also served as the managing director and head of asset liability management at AIG Asset Management, and held the positions of head of investment and financial risk and head of group risk modeling at Zurich Financial Services.

He will report to Bill Wheeler, president of Athene Holding, and the board chair of Athene’s risk committee.

Wheeler praised Rhodes’ leadership of Athene’s risk management programme for the last four years, which has included oversight of its 2016 initial public offering and a more than doubling of its invested assets. He described Rhodes as “the key driver in embedding risk management in every aspect of our business.”