Athora taps Ms Amlin executive to be group CRO

Bermuda-based life re/insurer Athora Holding Ltd has appointed former MS Amlin chief risk officer Michael Koller to be group chief risk officer.

Athora, which primarily focuses on European savings and retirement services, has also appointed Chantal Waight to be managing director of group risk.

Koller succeeds Lukas Ziewer who stepped down as Group CRO in May. Koller will also become a member of Athora’s management committee subject to regulatory approval.

Koller has more than 30 years’ industry experience and was most recently CRO at MS Amlin. Previously, he was group risk director at Prudential plc for almost a decade where he also served as a member of key subsidiary board audit and risk committees. Before joining Prudential plc, Koller served as CRO for Aviva’s European operations where he built and led the risk team.

Waight has 25 years’ insurance industry experience, the last 15 of which were at M&G plc and Prudential plc, most recently as director of strategy and corporate development for M&G plc and director of investor relations for Prudential plc.

Michael Wells, Group CEO of Athora said: “Robust risk management is central to our business model. The appointments of Michael and Chantal adds two seasoned senior leaders to our risk function. They join Athora at an exciting inflection point and will each play an important role as we prepare for the next phase of our growth and maturity journey.”

In the last year, Athora completed the acquisition of Italian life insurer Amissima Vita and a closed book individual life portfolio from NN Insurance Belgium. It has also agreed to acquire a closed book portfolio of deferred annuities and endowments of the former DBV-Winterthur Life (DWL) from AXA Germany and raised approximately €2.75bn of Common Equity Capital and completed its inaugural bond issuance in public capital markets.