Melissa Hyak

Melissa is the Head of Corporate Communications at ACR Capital Holdings Pte. Ltd., the parent company of Asia Capital Reinsurance Group Pte. Ltd.. Her responsibilities include marketing communications, media relations, branding and employee communications.

Melissa joined ACR with more than 15 years of experience in broadcast media. Prior to joining ACR, Melissa was a primetime news and current affairs television anchor with Mediacorp News’ Channel NewsAsia. Melissa has anchored many of Channel NewsAsia's live programs covering significant Singapore and world news events, including the 9-11 terror attacks, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars (2001/2003), the SARS and H1N1 epidemics, the Asian Tsunami as well as the Singapore General Elections, including the ground-breaking televised debate in 2011 between representatives of the ruling and opposition parties. Apart from Melissa’s 1-year stint as Channel NewsAsia’s Hong Kong Correspondent, she has also reported out of the US, Europe, Indonesia, Cambodia and Taiwan.

Melissa remains active as a host, both on stage and in front of the camera. She was the host for the three seasons of TV talk show, Let’s Think About It, in 2015 and 2016, featuring prominent Singapore politicians such as then Education Minister, Mr Heng Swee Keat, and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam. She has also continued to emcee/chair select corporate events and conferences for both public and private sectors, including the Official Opening of the M+S Developments, Cultural Medallion and Young Artist Awards 2017, and Singapore-Switzerland Business Forum 2016.

Melissa holds a Master of Art degree in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia.

Sivam Subramaniam

Coming soon...

Soo Hoon Hauw

Director and Independent Board Member
SEADRIF Insurance Company

Mrs Hauw Soo Hoon is a Director and independent Board member of SEADRIF Insurance Company. She has close to 30 years of corporate experience in the insurance industry. She was Executive Director of the Insurance Supervision Department at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (2000-2005). Soo Hoon is currently an Operating Partner in a Venture Capital firm headquartered in Singapore.

Soo Hoon qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS). She currently serves on the Board of Singapore Deposit Insurance Corporation and the non-profit Special Needs Trust Co. Ltd. She is currently a member of Medishield Life Council (MOH) and CPF’s Medishield Life & Insurance Schemes Committee (MISC).

Rico Hizon

Rico Hizon is the award-winning news anchor of BBC World News´ daily business and finance program Asia Business Report and general news based show Newsday live from Singapore and London, every weekday morning.

Produced out of Singapore, Asia Business Report offers viewers up to the minute economic and market news from the Asia-Pacific region, with in-depth analysis of the latest trends from the movers and shakers in the business world.

His reports have taken him all over the region from Hong Kong, to Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines.

On Newsday, Rico reports on the latest political and social issues from the people who make the news, and also a thorough viewpoint from more than 200 BBC correspondents around the world, and its impact on the global scene.

In his more than 25 years as a broadcast journalist he is the only South East Asian male anchor to work for two of the world’s most prestigious global news networks CNBC Business News and BBC World News.

He has interviewed personalities in the financial, political and sporting world from Microsoft´s Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, World Trade Organization Chief Pascal Lamy, Air Asia's Tony Fernandes, Virgin´s Sir Richard Branson, billionaire Warren Buffet, Hedge Fund gurus George Soros, and Mark Mobius, Loida Nicholas Lewis, Former US President Bill Clinton, Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, European Union President Jose Manuel Barroso, ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, Nobel Prize Laureate Mohammad Yunus, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yughoyohono, U-S President Bill Clinton to Philippine President´s Fidel Ramos, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III.

In Sports, he has interviewed Olympic Gold Medalist Sebastian Coe, Football World Champion PELE, World Boxing Champion Manny Pacquiao, NBA Superstars Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Grant Hill, David Robinson, top women golfers Michelle Wie and Lorena Ochoa, Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson, David Beckham and Rio Ferdinand.

In Entertainment, Jamie Foxx, Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Michelle Yeoh, K-Pop phenomenon PSY, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, Journey's Arnel Pineda, Emma Stone, Musical stars Lea Salonga and Charice, pop music composer David Foster, celebrated photographers Steve Mccury and Annie Leibovitz, internet sensations Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza also known as Aldub. Best-selling author Amy Chua.

John Neal

In September 2018, Lloyd’s announced the appointment of John Neal as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He was previously Group CEO of QBE, a global insurance and reinsurance business with a significant Lloyd’s footprint. In this role, he was responsible for running a AUS$14 billion gross written premium (GWP) business with over 14,000 employees in 37 countries. John refocused QBE’s business around commercial and specialty lines, disposing of non-core portfolios and reducing costs by over AUS$350 million. Before becoming CEO, he held a number of roles at QBE including Chief Underwriting Officer and Chief Operations Officer of the firm’s European operations. Prior to this, he led a management buyout of Ensign to establish a dedicated Lloyd’s Managing Agency. As CEO of Ensign, he grew GWP to £150 million to create the leading specialist commercial motor underwriter in the UK. He also worked at Bankside Managing Agency, where he was the youngest active underwriter at Lloyd’s. He started his career at the Crowe Underwriting Agency, where over the course of a decade he grew UK GWP from £3 million to £100 million.

Amer Ahmed

Amer Ahmed was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Allianz Re in 1st January 2012.

Before, he had held the role of President of Allianz Re since 1st June 2010, with responsibility for the day to day operations of the company.

Amer Ahmed joined Allianz Re as Chief Risk Officer in May 2007. Prior to this he was Chief Risk Officer and Member of the Board at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty.

Amer studied Mathematics at Bristol University and started his career consulting at William M Mercer, subsequently serving in various actuarial and management positions at Odyssey Re. He joined Allianz Global Risks as Chief Actuary in 2002.

He is Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.

Rowan Douglas

Rowan is Head of Capital, Science & Policy Practice at Willis Towers Watson, supporting the management, regulation and financing of risks from climate, terrorism, cyber and other perils. Previously, he served on the Board of the Group's reinsurance division, Willis Re, as CEO Global Analytics and was appointed onto the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science & Technology 2011-2016. He founded the Insurance Development Forum with the World Bank, UN and global industry leaders in 2015 to address the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Agreements. He received a CBE in 2016 for services to the economy through risk, insurance and sustainable growth.

Benjamin Horton

Prof Benjamin Horton joined NTU June 2017. In July 2018, he assumed the appointment of Chair, Asian School of the Environment.

He was previously a Professor at Rutgers University and an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Horton obtained his BA from the University of Liverpool, UK, and PhD from the University of Durham, UK.

Professor Horton has won a number of awards in his career. For excellence in research, he has received awards from European Geosciences Union (Plinius Medal), American Geophysical Union (Voyager Award) and the Geological Society of America (W. Storrs Cole Award). He was made a Fellow of the Geological Society of America in 2013 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2018. Professor Horton was an author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report and is an Editor for the new 6th Assessment Report. Professor Horton’s research was cited by President Obama in his 2015 State of the Union Address at the United States Capitol on January 20th 2015.

Professor Horton has published over 200 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including 25 articles in Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Geology. Professor Horton is supervising or has supervised 23 students to the degree of PhD and 17 postdoctoral scientists, of which 15 now have permanent academic positions.

Professor Horton’s research concerns sea-level change. He aims to understand and integrate the external and internal mechanisms that have determined sea-level changes in the past, and which will shape such changes in the future. Professor Horton’s research impacts upon important ecological, ethical, social, economic and political problems specifically facing coastal regions.

Jérôme Haegeli

As Group Chief Economist for Swiss Re, Jérôme is responsible for the economic and insurance market research. The economic research functions include the macro and interest rate forecasts and associated consulting services for the Group. Within the Swiss Re Institute and for the Group, he also steers the scenario analysis and group plan projections while leading efforts on contributing to a sound global financial market architecture and making the world more resilient. He is particularly active in external committees and roundtable discussions with policymakers in strengthening the positive dual role of the insurance sector as a long-term investor and risk absorber.
At the Institute of International Finance (IIF), he is a member of the Council of Asset and Investment Management (CAIM), the Principles Consultative Group, Market Monitoring and Sovereign Risk Committees. At the World Economic Forum, he is a member of the Global Future Council on Long-Term Investing, Infrastructure and Development and chairs the efforts on infrastructure working group at the European Financial Services Roundtable (EFR).
Previously at Swiss Re, Jérôme was Head of Investment Strategy at Group Asset Management for nearly ten years. Prior to joining Swiss Re, he was appointed by the Swiss National Bank's Governing Board as Advisor for Switzerland at the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, and was a Senior Economist at the Swiss National Bank, UBS Warburg and Bank Julius Baer.
Jérôme holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Basel, an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University's Economic Department.

Herbert Fromme

Herbert Fromme, born in 1953, is a German insurance writer. He is the insurance correspondent of Suedddeutsche Zeitung, Germany’s largest quality daily, and publisher of the newsletter Versicherungsmonitor. His career includes positions with Reuters, Financial Times World Insurance Report, Lloyd’s List and Insurance Day. From 2000 to 2012 he was the insurance correspondent for the FT’s German sister paper Financial Times Deutschland, which closed down in that year.

His work includes numerous articles in Financial Times Deutschland, Capital, FT, Lloyd’s List, Insurance Day and on Reuters. He also worked as a broadcaster with features, interviews and comments for Deutsche Welle, WDR and Deutschlandfunk, Fromme wrote „German Insurance After Liberalisation", Financial Times Publishing, Pearson Professional, London 1997, and had other book publications in German.

James Nash

As head of Guy Carpenter’s International Division, James is responsible for defining and executing strategic growth priorities in EMEA, Asia Pacific and Latin America. He is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

James joined Guy Carpenter in 1985 after working for chartered accountants Panell Kerr Foster and has more than 30 years of experience in the reinsurance industry. In 1999, he relocated from London to Asia and was an integral part of the Regional Management team with responsibility for the Specialty Practices and the roll out of the Analytical platform. In 2008, he assumed the position of CEO, Asia Pacific.

Educated at Radley College, James is married with two children and enjoys a wide variety of interests including Asian paintings and ceramics. He is also an avid golfer amongst other sporting activities.

Claudia Salem

Claudia is Allianz’s CEO Property & Casualty for Asia Pacific. She is responsible for the P&L and functional development of Allianz P&C business in the region, including the long-term bancassurance relationship with Standard Chartered Bank.

In addition, Claudia is a member of the company’s Regional Executive Board, which is responsible for setting and executing Allianz’s growth strategy in Asia.

Claudia joined Allianz in March 2019 from AIG, where she was previously Singapore CEO and Head of Southeast Asia. In her 15 year career at the business, Claudia served in various leadership roles across operations management, business development and customer solutions, with a track record for driving large-scale change management, service delivery and bottom line results. Prior to this role, Claudia has spearheaded global transformation programs and led global operational teams with a focus on modernizing insurance through technology and new ways of working.

Claudia was Global Head of Shared Services, responsible for the six shared services delivery centers with a US$250 million portfolio and 6,000 operations specialists. She led all strategic, financial, and operational plans for the Global Shares Services organization, supporting AIG businesses in over 60 countries around the world, based in Kuala Lumpur.

Claudia was also Global Head of Operations Services, leading the design and deployment of digitization and automation programs across AIG including automation capability, robotic process automation, machine learning, end to end workflow and imaging solutions. Claudia’s other previous roles include leading Global Customer Solutions and Innovation, and Global Markets Operations.

She joined AIG in 2003, and is a globally oriented, strategic and people focused business leader with the breadth and depth of knowledge of insurance operations.

Claudia holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Communications Engineering from the American University of Beirut.

Talal Al Zain

Recognized as a leading financier and alternative investment professional, Talal Al Zain joined Trust Re as Group Chief Executive Officer in April 2019.
Mr. Al Zain has broad regional and international experience from the USA, Europe and the MENA region having held senior executive positions in the fields of banking and investment.
Most recently, Mr. Al Zain was Founder and Director of Jisr Capital. Previously he was Chief Executive Officer of PineBridge Investments Middle East BSC (C) and Co-Head of Alternative Investments at PineBridge Investments. Prior to that he was a founding board member and the CEO of Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat, managing over $10bn of assets.
Mr. Al Zain spent 18 years with Investcorp Bank as Managing Director and Co-Head of Placement & Relationship Management. Prior to that, he was Vice President of Private Banking International and Head of Investment Banking Middle East and Pakistan with Chase Manhattan Bank, Switzerland. Before that, he was a member of Citibank Corporate Banking Group.
He has chaired and served as a board member on many corporations including McLaren, the Bahrain Economic Development Board, Gulf Air and the Bahrain International Circuit.
Educated in the USA, Mr. Al Zain holds an MBA from Mercer University, Atlanta and a BA in Business Administration from Oglethorpe University, Atlanta.

Vijayasekar Kalavakonda

Vijay Kalavakonda has more than 18 years’ experience working on Insurance and Risk Management including the last 4+ years primarily focused on index insurance and micro insurance. During this period at the World Bank Group, Vijay worked on a range of insurance initiatives including – Catastrophe Risk Insurance Pool(s), Weather-Index Insurance, designed and developed one of the largest micro insurance (life, disability and cattle insurance) and Co-Contributory Pension Program for Low Income Households.
Vijay Kalavakonda has been involved with agriculture insurance since 2000, when the World Bank first started the index insurance work in North Africa (Tunisia and Morocco), and subsequently in Central America, Mexico, and Turkey.
Over the last 5+ years Vijay’s primary focus area has been in supporting financial risk resilience against climate change risks including agriculture insurance, and natural disaster risk financing and insurance.

Tobias Poensgen

Tobias set up Momentum Capital for its parent single family office in 2002 and led its operations since then. He is actively involved in deal sourcing and transactions, is the head of the investment committee and leads the family office and sovereign wealth fund advisory services. He is also actively involved in asset allocation and governance at the parent family office.

He started his career in industry working for Siemens AG and Stettner Group in Germany and France in strategic business development and corporate finance. In 1986 he joined SG Warburg in London where he worked in deal origination and syndicated lending and later on new product development as well as structured and acquisition finance. In 1990 he started a ground-breaking art investment management firm, investing in portfolios of paintings using portfolio management techniques. In 1995 he led the international operations of US Telecoms company, Access World Communications, to create strong European and Asian market positions before founding and scaling up Unica Communications in 1997 which became a leader in integrated communications services for SMEs in the UK.

Tobias is passionate about family offices and pursues many initiatives to improve professionalism, communication and governance in the space. He speaks fluent French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as some conversational Russian and Arabic.

Outside Momentum Capital, Tobias is forever learning new skills, is a keen sportsman, musician and gourmet while also pursuing personal investment and entrepreneurial interests.

Dominic Christian

Dominic Christian is a member of the Global Executive of Aon.

Prior to this he was co-CEO of Aon Benfield and CEO of Aon UK Limited. He was a Group Board Director of Benfield Group plc, CEO of its International Division and CEO of Benfield Ltd. Dominic began his career in the mid-1980s at specialist broker JK Buckenham, joined broker Greig Fester in 1989 and became a director in 1994. He has spent a significant portion of his career broking retrocession business and, when his colleagues allow, he endeavours to continue to do so.

Dominic is a Director of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, a Director of The Bermuda Society, Chairman of the Lloyd's Tercentenary Research Foundation and Chairman of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts (SCVA). In 2014 he was honoured to be elected as a Member of the Council of Lloyd’s. For 2015/16 he was President of the Insurance Institute of London. He was recently re-elected to the Court of Common Council of The City of London. He leads the Inclusion@Lloyd's Group – a contemporary approach to Diversity and Inclusion being in his view central to future business success. He was recently appointed Chair of ClimateWise.

Dominic holds an Honours Degree in History from the University of East Anglia and an Honorary Doctorate in Civil Law. His children describe his interests as family, conversation, history, architecture, football, tennis, lakes, cats and over-working. Not all are approved of.

Indranee Rajah

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office
Second Minister for Finance and Education

Ms Indranee Rajah is the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office. She is also Second Minister for Finance and Education.

She was in practice as a lawyer and Senior Counsel before joining Government.

Under her law portfolio from 2012 – 2018, she co-chaired the Committees on Family Justice, the formation of the Singapore International Commercial Court as well as the Committee to Strengthen Singapore as an International Centre for Debt Restructuring. She also helmed the Steering Committee on the strategic direction of Singapore’s third law school at UniSIM.

Under her MOF portfolio, Ms Rajah co-chaired the Working Group on Legal and Accounting Services, a sub-committee of the 2016 Committee on the Future Economy, the recommendations of which are aimed at transforming the legal and accounting industries in Singapore and catalysing the internationalisation of such professional services.

In her first tour of the Education Ministry from 2012-2015, she led the Committee for Applied Studies in Polytechnics and ITE (ASPIRE) resulting in SkillsFuture, a national movement to align education with economic demand, career guidance and lifelong learning.

As Second Minister for Education, Ms Rajah currently chairs UPLIFT – the “Uplifting Pupils in Life and Inspiring Families Taskforce”, an inter-agency team convened in 2018 aimed at strengthening support for students from disadvantaged families.

Devesh Srivastava

Mr Devesh Srivastava is a post-graduate in Physics from St Stephen’s College Delhi. He subsequently obtained a post graduate degree in Management, majoring in Marketing with a Gold Medal from the Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon in 2008.

Mr Devesh Srivastava has over 30 years of experience in the insurance industry. He began his career with Oriental Insurance Company Limited at Delhi. Subsequently in 1999, Mr Srivastava’s services were transferred to General Insurance Corporation of India.

Mr Srivastava was posted in the Reinsurance Department and was handling all speciality lines of Aviation, Marine Hull and Cargo, Oil & Energy, Miscellaneous and Liability till he was selected to head the UK branch of the Corporation in 2013. While at London, Mr Srivastava was instrumental in setting up of the GIC Re’s Syndicate ‘GIC Syndicate 1947’ at Lloyd's of London.

Presently, Mr Srivastava handles the departments of Human Resource & Training, Re-Insurance Worldwide (RIWW), Health, Corporate Communications, CMD's Secretariat, Innovation Centre, Ministry & IRDAI matters.