Speaker information: Construction Risk Management

Company	Job Title	Name	Speaker Bio	Speaking At
HDI Global SE, UK & Ireland	Principal Risk Engineer	Mark Allan	Within the insurance industry, Mark works in Risk Engineering for the Construction and Engineering sectors, undertaking UK and international CAR and EAR surveys for projects valued anything between a £few million up to €1bn within the building, tunnelling, dams, transportation and industrial sectors. He also provides desk top review and technical guidance to underwriting and clients, as well as training and contribution to professional working groups including development of guidance papers. Prior to joining the insurance industry in 2010, Mark worked for 10 years within Civil Engineering Industry, working on heavy civil engineering projects within transportation, power distribution, and aviation sectors in both site and design based roles.	Workshop: Green construction – new materials
WINT Water Intelligence	UK Country Manager	Scott Kingsbury	With a career spanning multiple years, Scott has collaborated with construction firms, facilities management entities, and large enterprises, offering expertise in the built environment sector. Before joining WINT, Scott made significant contributions at Matterport, a leader in the digital twin space. There, he helped numerous businesses in digitizing their physical assets, thereby optimizing processes, meeting sustainability targets, and delivering tangible returns on investment to clients. Prior to this, Scott played a pivotal role at Rightmove, the UK's no 1 property portal. Driven by his passion for building high-performing teams that help customers in resolving critical business challenges that align with their strategic objectives, he remains dedicated to driving innovation and success for customers.	Workshop: How to mitigate water damage risks and why should risk managers care?
Aon	Head of construction Asia	Vincent Banton	Vincent leads Aon’s regional Construction and Infrastructure practice across Asia and has 23 years of experience in the insurance and construction industries. He has managed underwriting portfolios in facultative reinsurance and direct market insurance together with working as a practicing project engineer for major civil and building construction contractors in the United Kingdom, West Indies and Australia.	Panel discussion: Emerging risks and insurance market response
GlobalData	Economist – Construction	Tom Hopgood	Tom specialises in assessing market trends within the construction sector of the Americas and Europe. He conducts market sizing, as well as forecasts for the global construction industry and provides scrutiny for construction project opportunities and risks. Tom and the team have recently published GlobalData’s Global Construction Outlook to 2028, which provides comprehensive benchmarking of 91 leading construction markets according to market value and growth, while also offering analysis of the latest macro trends.	Keynote address: European C&I Economic Forecast
Aon	Executive Director	Tom Anderson	Tom has 20 years’ experience in construction and construction insurance. His career was spent at one of the UK’s largest contractors where he led their insurance and risk management programme. Now at Aon he is now focussed on supporting the Professional Services team and their clients with insight and innovation.	Panel discussion: Professional Liability – What does the London Market have to offer?
SCOR	Global Segment Leader Civil Works & EMEA Head of Construction	Tim Chapman	Tim is a Chartered Civil Engineer and is currently Global Segment Leader for Civil Works and EMEA Head of Construction for SCOR. He commenced his career working as an engineer in the construction and detailed design of large infrastructure projects and then as a risk control engineer before becoming an underwriter.	Panel discussion: Contractual risk transfer – contract wordings
Swiss Re Corporate Solutions	Senior Structurer	Teresa Schorstein	Teresa is a Senior Structurer at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions Innovative Risk Solutions Team based in Zurich, Switzerland. She holds an Investment & Financial Risk Management Degree from Cass Business School London and Singapore Management University. With over 13 years or experience in the parametric space she has held various positions at re/insurance firms and insurtechs.	Presentation & panel discussion: NatCat trends accelerating alternative risk transfer solutions
Aon	CCO, Construction & Infrastructure	Tariq Taherbhai	Tariq is the Chief Commercial Officer for Aon’s Global Construction & Infrastructure (C&I) industry specialty. In his role, Tariq is tasked with developing and implementing the global growth and marketing strategies for the specialty. In addition, Tariq works with other leaders to ensure that the full capabilities and expertise of Aon are properly delivered to the firm’s global C&I clients. Tariq has significant experience with project finance and public private partnerships, having advised on multiple large, complex projects over the past two decades. Before joining Aon, Tariq was vice president of the project legal group at Infrastructure Ontario, with responsibility for all legal and procurement matters related to public private partnerships procured by the Province of Ontario, Canada.	Workshop: Developing risk management strategies
Copenhagen Infrastructure Service Company (CISC)	Risk and Insurance Specialist	Steven Carney	Steven is an insurance specialist at CISC, who deliver construction and operational services to CIPs market leading greenfield renewable pipeline of approximately 120 GW of energy projects across technologies and geographies.	Presentation & panel discussion: Climate change risk
AXIS Capital and Chairman, London Engineering Group (LEG)	Head of Construction & Power	Steve Cross	Steve Cross is a Chartered Civil Engineer and is currently the Global Head of Construction at AXIS. Prior to his insurance career Steve worked with both contractors and designers over a 10 year period, chiefly in the design and construction of tunnels. Since 2001 Steve has held a number of underwriting positions in the Company and Lloyd’s markets culminating in his current role at AXIS.	Panel discussion: Emerging risks and insurance market response
Aon	Energy Lead - Climate	sophie burnoud	Sophie is the Energy Lead for Aon’s Climate Risk Advisory Practice. She has more than 20 years of experience in the London insurance market. Prior to joining Aon she was the Regional Group Practice Leader at Allianz for Downstream Energy, Power and Renewables for 4 years. She spent most of her early career in broking roles, including 8 years within Marsh Energy Practice as a Lead Client Executive. As part of the Climate team – she focuses on understanding Natural Resources clients’ needs related to climate and how Aon solutions can increase clients’ resilience against physical risk, reduce costs, volatility and unlock growth opportunities. She is also actively involved in developing new products and solutions to insure the energy transition.	Presentation & panel discussion: Climate change risk
CCi, a Rimkus Company	Director	Simon Hay	Simon is an experienced Chartered Architect and Expert Witness. He has been appointed on many disputes, producing CPR 35 reports focused on the performance of architects, contractors, and the professional team. He has expertise in façade and fire compliance issues, cladding and roofing. Brickwork is of particular interest, having led the brick industry as CEO of the BDA for some years. Simon has led design teams, building an extensive portfolio of projects ranging from Grade 1 listed buildings to new builds such as a previous Green Building of the Year. He has designed and supervised significant facilities, understanding public and private commissions.	Workshop: Implications of the Buildings Safety Act (UK)
CCi, a Rimkus Company	Managing Director – EMEA	Robert Coupe	Rob has a wealth of construction and corporate management experience, particularly in the design and build environment, focusing on driving the best value. He has also been at the forefront of combining the early engagement of all parties to form collaborative teams to solve problems and ensure the success of projects. In recent years Rob has used his experience to provide a range of multidisciplinary solutions to disputes and major insurance losses in construction, renewable energies and infrastructure.	Workshop: Marine risks in construction – and how to mitigate them Panel discussion: Claims – trends & future
Clyde & Co	Senior Partner & Global Head of the Construction Professionals Group	Richard Moody	Richard is Head of Construction Professional Indemnity and a Partner at Clyde & Co based in the London office. He has more than 30 years’ experience in the defence of construction professional indemnity claims and related insurance disputes and is widely regarded as one of the leading practitioners in the country. Richard specialises in defending claims against tier 1 contractors and global consultants. He has advised clients in relation to claims arising out of the construction of every conceivable type of structure and has fought and won dozens of major trials with an impeccable record throughout the UK and globally.	Panel discussion: Professional Liability – What does the London Market have to offer?
HDI Global	Director of Engineering & Construction, HDI Global SE, UK & Ireland	Richard Beeby	Richard has 24 years insurance industry experience, 8 years of those at HDI Global and is responsible for a diverse portfolio covering; commercial and residential construction, renewable energy (BESS, PV and Wind), civil engineering and manufacturing. Products written include Construction and Engineering Annual Programmes and Project Specifics and Inherent Defects Insurance in the UK and Internationally.	Workshop: Green construction – new materials
Zurich Insurance Company	Credit Lines Chief Underwriting Officer	Piergiorgio D'Ignazio	Piergiorgio D’Ignazio is the Global Head of Credit Lines for the Zurich Group. He has more than 25 years of experience in financial markets, banking and insurance. Prior to joining Zurich in 2017, Piergiorgio was the Chief Risk Officer of SACE, the Italian export credit agency, and held various positions as senior executive or board member for various trade insurance and factoring companies in the group and in other financial institutions. Before SACE, he worked for several major financial institutions in Italy and Europe. He holds a M.Sc. in Computer Engineering from University of Pisa.	Workshop: Contractor / subcontractor insolvency
SCOR	Global Practice Lead for Construction Claims	Paulina Herrington	Paulina joined SCOR UK in June 2022 as Global Practice Lead for Construction Claims. Prior to joining SCOR, she spent almost 11 years at Liberty Specialty Markets as Senior Claims Specialist handling large and complex energy and construction claims. Before Liberty, Paulina spent almost 4 years working in the energy loss adjusting division of Charles Taylor. Paulina is originally from Poland and has been in the UK since 2007. She also lived in Qingdao in China for two years where she studied Mandarin Chinese. Paulina has an outstanding story in terms of her career journey and demonstrates that hard work and determination can enable you to achieve your goals in life.	Panel discussion: Claims – trends & future
Bechtel	Risk Manager	Paul Aird	Paul has been a corporate risk and insurance manager for over 30 years on a global basis. He has been a Risk & Insurance Manager for Bechtel (a global engineering and construction company) for most of his career (23+ years). He is currently based in London and the Risk Manager for Bechtel’s Infrastructure Division. This work has involved being responsible for the placement of insurance and the allocation of contractual risk for a variety of business lines including Power, Oil and Gas, Government and Infrastructure and he has worked extensively in both the USA and London with additional time living in Singapore, Dubai and Zurich.	Fireside discussion: Leadership approach to managing risk on large construction projects Panel discussion: Emerging risks and insurance market response Panel discussion: Professional Liability – What does the London Market have to offer?
Descartes Underwriting	UK & Ireland Business Development Director	Ola Jacob	Ola has enjoyed working in the London Market Insurance Sector for over twelve years on UK Retail, Product Recall, Terrorism, Onshore Energy and Parametric. Ola's background in Human-Computer Interaction and Psychology has fuelled his passion for working on new approaches to risk transfer and managing risk for clients. He's proud to be named Insurance Times Technology Champion of the Year. He has just become the Business Development Director for the UK & Ireland for Descartes Underwriting, a specialist parametric insurance MGA and insurer who covers natural catastrophe exposure globally.	Presentation & panel discussion: NatCat trends accelerating alternative risk transfer solutions
Zurich Insurance Company	Senior Underwriter, Cyber Liability	Nicholas Pritchard	Nick Pritchard is a Senior Cyber Underwriter for Zurich UK. Since 2019, Nick has specialised in underwriting large and complex cyber risks across a range of industries and territories. Alongside this, Nick has supported the development and launch of key cyber risk consultancy propositions aimed at improving customer risk posture. Prior to this, Nick worked in roles across underwriting, claims and sales as part of Zurich’s Graduate Programme.	Presentation: Cyber risk