Speaker information: Construction Risk Management

Company	Job Title	Name	Speaker Bio	Speaking At
McKinsey & Company	Associate Partner	Birgit Biemans	-	Keynote address: Construction market economic outlook
HDI UK & Ireland	Captive Manager	Dan Sammons	Dan Sammons joined HDI in February 2025 from AIG, where he held a variety of roles across the Alternative Risk Transfer and Captive Underwriting units, most recently as Head of Alternative Risk Solutions UK. In this newly created role at HDI, Sammons brings extensive experience in International Programmes, Captives and Alternative Risk Transfer to further enhance the firm’s proposition to deliver strategic long-term growth. Dan will lead HDI's Captives growth strategy across UK and Ireland, and help further cement HDI’s position as a global leader in Captives and Alternative Risk Transfer.	Panel discussion: Europe's changing captives landscape
Aon Credit Solutions	CEO	Stuart Lawson	As the CEO for Aon’s Credit Solutions global business, Stuart’s responsibilities include developing and executing Aon’s strategy in respect of Trade Credit Insurance, Structured Credit, Political Risk and related financing solutions. Stuart has over 30 years industry experience, gaining valuable experience in leading market leading teams, client management and sales with specialist expertise in global trade credit programmes and receivable trade finance.	Panel discussion: Implications of US tariffs for the construction industry
Aon	Chief Commercial Officer	Jon Thacker	Jon joined Aon at the start of 2025 having spent the past 20 years working within WTW’s Construction Team. Jon has 37 year’s experience working within the Construction Insurance Industry having started his insurance career in 1988. During that time he has handled insurances for major contractors arranging all aspects of their relevant insurance requirements both annual and more complex major one-off projects along with placing projects for developers. Jon has been involved in numerous major projects across the Construction Sectors in the UK and Overseas, including Tunnels, Roads, Bridges, Waste, Rail, Water Sector, major building projects and PFI/PPP’s.	Panel discussion: Delays on construction projects – managing and mitigating the risks
Aon	Chief Commercial Officer, 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.	Panel discussion: Implications of US tariffs for the construction industry
SCOR	Chief Transaction Officer	Harmender Kalirai	Harmender Singh Kalirai qualified as a solicitor in 2008 at Pinsent Masons into the Corporate department where he undertook Private Equity and M&A deals, prior to moving to the Corporate department at DLA Piper and subsequently to the in-house legal team of SCOR SE in 2012. Harmender worked in the SCOR legal team for 9 years attaining the position of Deputy Chief Legal Counsel for SCOR’s Property and Casualty Business Unit and Head of Legal for London with responsibility for developing and implementing globally an operating framework for the legal support function, as well as managing and advising on cross border legal matters. In 2021, Harmender moved into the business and is currently the Chief Transaction Officer for SCOR’s Property and Casualty Business Unit and heads up the Transactions Team whose objective is to be is a business enabler for the SCOR P&C Business Unit which delivers enhanced execution capabilities for P&C’s strategic transactions.	Workshop: De-risking ecological restoration projects
Descartes Underwriting	Commercial Director, UK & Ireland	Matthew James	Matthew is the Commercial Director at Descartes Underwriting, a climate-focused MGA in the UK and Ireland, where he leads business development and works with brokers and clients to offer parametric insurance solutions against natural catastrophes and secondary perils. Previously, he spent ten years at WTW in Alternative Risk Transfer, specializing in parametric solutions for weather risk. He then served as Head of Business Development at OTT Risk, a parametric insurtech, driving new business and product structuring. Matthew has extensive experience in (re)insurance, with a focus on innovation in climate, agriculture, and micro-insurance. He holds an Investment Management Certificate, an Advanced Certificate from the Chartered Insurance Institute, and a B.A. in Politics from Durham University.	Panel discussion: When parametric solutions work
Zurich Resilience Solutions UK	Construction Risk Engineer	Sam Mclachlan	Sam is a Construction Risk Engineer at Zurich Resilience Solutions UK. He is a Chartered Civil Engineer with over 12 years of experience, specialising in risk mitigation, protective design, and blast analysis. He has a range of site and consultancy experience within sectors including offshore, oil and gas, renewables, nuclear, commercial, and critical infrastructure.	Panel discussion: The importance of collaborative sharing
Wint	Country Manager	Pratik Patel	-	Workshop: Leaks, losses and liability: the AI revolution in water risk prevention
Aon	Design Firms Specialist Risks	Oliver Heaton	-	Presentation: Professional liability – what to expect next
Supplien Consulting	Director	Nick Wildgoose	Nick is a qualified accountant, supply chain and risk professional and has held a variety of global financial, procurement and commercial positions in several industry sectors. Working for companies such as PWC, Linde Group, The Virgin Group, Zurich Insurance Group and DHL Resilience360. He has served on the Board of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply which is the biggest procurement professional body in the world. He also served as a specialist advisor to the World Economic Forum and was Chairman of the Supply Chain Risk Leadership Council.	Presentation & panel discussion: Supply chain risk – identify, measure, manage and mitigate
Turner & Townsend UK	Director and Testifying Expert	Chris Hillier	Chris is part of the Turner & Townsend Expert Team based in the London HQ Office. He has over forty years of experience as a Chartered Engineer as part of the project management teams in many energy related major and mega projects worldwide, with over twenty of those years specialising in dispute resolution and expert witness work. He has acted as an expert in over 75 cases and has been cross examined 30 times in the Technology and Construction Court, Commercial Court and both domestic and international arbitrations on many continents of the world as both expert or witness of fact, along with representation in mediation, as a Dispute Board Member, being the Adjudicator, and as an Expert Determiner.	Panel discussion: Claims – how to navigate megatrends Workshop: Avoiding conflicts & disputes on construction projects
Royal BAM Group nv	Director Insurance	Bernard van den Berg	Bernard is a seasoned insurance professional with 30 years of experience, including 11 years at Royal BAM Group NV, 6 years as Insurance Manager at Ballast Nedam NV and 13 years in various sales roles at Rabobank.	Panel discussion: The importance of collaborative sharing
Swiss Re	Director, UK & Ireland Public Sector Lead, Public Sector Solutions	Aidan Kerr	Aidan leads on Swiss Re's engagement with Government and the public sector in the UK and Ireland. He has over 20 years' experience in banking, consulting, Government, and insurance. Before joining Swiss Re, Aidan was COO at Flood Re, which enables affordable home insurance to be available for people at risk of flooding in the UK. He led the design, build and operation of Flood Re which has, to date, helped over 500,000 homes access affordable flood cover. Prior to Flood Re, Aidan was the Head of Investment and Funding for Flood Risk Management at the Environment Agency.	Panel discussion: Climate change and extreme weather – who bears the risk?
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.	Presentation: Professional liability – what to expect next
Aon	Executive Director	Peter Rudd	Peter has been working in the London market for the past 20 years and is currently the Chief Broking Officer for the Construction & Infrastructure group. He is responsible for the design and placement of major global onshore construction programs working with clients and the Aon network. Prior to joining the Aon Construction Team in August 2005, Peter obtained extensive experience working on major global construction projects with Marsh where he was the territory leader for Asia/Australia for onshore construction.	Workshop: Understanding regional insurance variations
Aon	France Head of Construction and Natural Resources	David Gierski	David has more than 25 years of service in the insurance industry with 20+ years spent on carrier side from field risk engineering up to group head of commercial lines. David served in Asia for couple of years. Since 2018 David has moved to broking and he joined AON as EMEA Property Broking Director in 2022. In his role, David is supporting program structuring including parametric insurance and alternative risk transfer.	Panel discussion: When parametric solutions work
Aon	Global Claims Leader, Construction & Infrastructure Industry Specialties Claims Leader, Asia	Clarence Ting	Clarence has been working in insurance since 2003. During this time he has been effectively managing Energy, Construction, Machinery Breakdown, Delay Start-Up and Business Interruption claims globally. Prior to joining Aon, he worked with global reinsurance firms leading their major and complex losses in the region. In his current role, he is a member of Aon’s Global Construction & Infrastructure Leadership team and a member of the Global Claims Leadership team delivering significant client value through Aon’s escalation protocols, and dedicated Claims Advocacy. Clarence is empaneled with the Singapore International Mediation Centre (SIMC) and a member of the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID).	Panel discussion: Claims – how to navigate megatrends
Aon	Global Head Climate Risk Consulting	William Bruce	William has 25 years risk consulting experience and leads Aon’s global climate risk consulting team, which works to support clients through profiling and quantifying the risks and opportunities arising from the climate transition. Before joining Aon, William was at WTW from 2016-2022, where he was Global Head of Enterprise Risk Consulting, Risk & Analytics and responsible for Transition Risk engagements for corporates, working with organisations to help them identify and assess threats and opportunities from a changing climate and in so doing, meet guidance provided by TCFD. From 2007-2016 William worked at Marsh where he was responsible for consulting services across industries and a member of the management team. Whilst at MMC, William worked on secondment for Oliver Wyman where he led a large team, involved in delivering a large European banking engagement. William spent the first 8 years of his career at the Big 4 (1999-2007) on the advisory side of both EY (FS) and PwC (Sustainability).	Panel discussion: Climate change and extreme weather – who bears the risk?
Swiss Re Corporate Solutions	Global Head Engineering & Construction	Manuela Baroncini	-	Panel discussion: Major risks and insurance market outlook