Operationalize Climate Change Risk Analytics in the Quest for Net Zero

Joss Matthewman Senior Director, Product Management & Strategy, RMS

Joss Matthewman recently rejoined RMS as Senior Director of Climate Change Product Management & Strategy. Prior to this Joss was Head of Catastrophe Exposure Management at Hiscox, responsible for natural catastrophe, war, terror and political violence exposure management and reporting across the group.

Before joining Hiscox, Joss spent seven years in model development at RMS where he worked on the North Atlantic Hurricane and Asia Typhoon models, before being appointed Head of Storm Surge Modelling. During this period Joss joined the PRA working group on climate change which he continues to engage with today.

Prior to entering the insurance industry Joss obtained a PhD in Applied Mathematics from UCL and worked as a postdoctoral researcher in climate science at the University of California, Irvine. His published areas of research during this time include stratospheric sudden warmings and the impact of sea-ice on global atmospheric teleconnections.

Laurence Carter Manager, Risk Advisory, RMS

Laurence manages the Risk Advisory team in Hoboken, NJ. He works on a broad range of projects aimed at helping both public and private entities assess and manage their exposure to catastrophe risks across the globe. 

Laurence has worked on several projects that have been designed to translate RMS’ catastrophe modeling results into decision-useful metrics for the public sector and corporate clients. This has included delivering actionable insight for an entity looking to develop a new windfarm installation, and advising on optimal forest management steps to protect communities in California from wildfire events. 
 

Matthew Kahn Environmental economist and author of 9 books including his latest, Adapting to Climate Change.

MATTHEW E. KAHN is a Provost Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California. He is also the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research fellow at IZA. He has taught at Columbia, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, UCLA, Harvard, Stanford, and as the Low Tuck Kwong Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and the London School of Economics and holds a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. He has two recently published books: Adapting to Climate Change (Yale University Press, 2021) and Unlocking the Potential of Post-Industrial Cities (Johns Hopkins Press, 2021, coauthored with Mac McComas). Matthew has also written or cowritten four more books and published three Amazon Kindle books on urban economics and microeconomics. His research focuses on urban and environmental economics.

Robert Muir-Wood, PhD Chief Research Officer

Robert Muir-Wood is the Chief Research Officer at Moody's RMS. He works to enhance approaches to natural catastrophe modeling, identify models for new areas of risk, and explore expanded applications for catastrophe modeling. Recently, he has been focusing on identifying the potential locations and consequences of magnitude 9 earthquakes worldwide.

In 2012, as part of Mexico's presidency of the G20, he helped promote government usage of catastrophe models for managing national disaster risks. Robert has more than 20 years of experience developing probabilistic catastrophe models. He was lead author for the 2007 IPCC 4th Assessment Report and 2011 IPCC Special Report on Extremes, is a member of the Climate Risk and Insurance Working Group for the Geneva Association, and is vice-chair of the OECD panel on the Financial Consequences of Large-Scale Catastrophes.

He is the author of six books, as well as numerous papers and articles in scientific and industry publications. He holds a degree in natural sciences and a PhD in earth sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Mohsen Rahnama, PhD Chief Risk Modeling Officer and Executive Vice President, Models and Data

Mohsen Rahnama is the senior executive for Moody's RMS models and data products, as well as the Chief Risk Modeling Officer. He leads a global team of scientists, engineers, and product managers responsible for the development and delivery of all RMS catastrophe models and data.

During his 20 years at Moody's RMS, Mohsen has been the passionate and hands-on leader of the largest and most global team of catastrophe modeling professionals in the industry across over two dozen fields of study. He is the publisher of the Moody's RMS Horizons series of modeling papers, has authored numerous scientific publications, leads many research collaborations throughout the world, and is a frequent speaker at scientific and risk management industry events.

He has 30 years of experience in structural engineering, catastrophe modeling, and risk assessment. He holds a master’s degree and doctorate in earthquake and structural engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Steffi Uhlemann-Elmer Direktor, Produktmanagement, Globale Flutlösungen

Based in Zurich, Steffi joined RMS as Director in Product Management in 2019. Coming from the industry she drives RMS global flood agenda translating market needs into new product ideas, model improvements and providing insight into risk modeling to optimize client experience and industry understanding of model results.

Matthew Nielsen Senior Director, Global Governmental and Regulatory Affairs

Matthew Nielsen leads Governmental and Regulatory Affairs. He is responsible for maintaining relationships with regulators, legislators, and rating agencies on behalf of the company to establish open channels of communication around RMS models and solutions. 

Matthew is a meteorologist and geographer with extensive experience in North American catastrophe risk. In his prior role at RMS, he was responsible for developing the RMS climate peril models for the Americas, including the severe convective storm, winter storm, flood, and hurricane models. He has conducted field reconnaissance for major catastrophes including Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. Before joining RMS, Matthew conducted remote sensing in satellite meteorology research at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA). He holds a BS in physics from Ripon College, where he won the Henry Knop Award in Physics, and an MS in atmospheric science from Colorado State University. Matthew is a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the International Society of Catastrophe Managers (ISCM), and the American Association of Geographers (AAG).

Laurent Marescot Senior Director, Market and Product Specialists at Moody's RMS

Laurent is a catastrophe risk management expert at Moody's RMS, advising some of the largest companies in the (re)insurance industry how to best manage their nat cat, agriculture, cyber and terrorism risks. He also interacts as an expert for governmental and regulatory authorities. Laurent initially joined Moody's RMS in 2008 as part of the account management team, servicing the European (re)insurance and ILS market. He then headed the model product management group for all EMEA and APAC climatic/weather risk perils, such as windstorm, typhoon, severe convective storm and flood, as well as Moody's RMS global agricultural risk.

Prior to Moody's RMS, Laurent worked 3 years at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) as a Research Associate and Lecturer, managing multidisciplinary research projects. Laurent still lectures regularly on catastrophe modeling and insurance risk quantification at universities and gives seminars and invited talks in international industry conferences. Laurent co-authored numerous industry publications, peer-reviewed scientific articles and proceeding papers. He holds an MSc in Geology from the University of Lausanne and a PhD in Geophysics from the University of Lausanne and the University of Nantes.

Becky Leeper Client Executive at RMS

Becky Leeper is a Client Executive at RMS, working for the past 9 years with insurance and financial services organizations on catastrophe models to understand climate and climate change risk. By clearly understanding the impact from climate change, these organizations can quickly and accurately respond to regulatory reporting and be prepared when a large event such as a flood, wildfire, earthquake, or hurricane happens.

Prior to RMS, Becky spent over 10 years partnering with financial firms in the use of models for valuation and risk management within fixed income, including mortgage-backed securities. This unique combination of experience in financial services, along with her background in catastrophic risk modeling have allowed Becky to develop climate change risk management recommendations to a wide set of customers including lenders, investment managers, and insurance firms.

Becky holds a BS in computer science from Duke University.