Blockchain: How insurers are building up trust by breaking down barriers

Guido Baroncini Turricchia, a Blockchain enthusiast, is an Environmental Engineer and an expert in GIS and Remote Sensing. Since 2006, he has worked in universities and the private sector in Europe. Over the last 3 years, he focused his interest on Blockchain technology and promoting the use of cryptocurrency in Italy. He also organised the first conference on Bitcoin in Montecitorio. In addition to co-founding Bitcoin Foundation Italia and Assob.it, he is a partner at Coin Capital. As CEO of Helperbit, he contributes to the decentralised transparency revolution.

David G.W Birch is Director of Innovation at Consult Hyperion, the secure electronic transactions consultancy. He is an internationally-recognised thought leader in digital identity and digital money; named one of the global top 15 favourite sources of business information (Wired magazine) and one of the top ten most influential voices in banking (Financial Brand); listed in the top ten Twitter accounts followed by innovators, along with Bill Gates and Richard Branson (PR Daily); ranked in the top three most influential people in London’s FinTech community (City A.M.), voted one of the European “Power 50” people in digital financial services (FinTech Awards) and ranked Europe’s most influential commentator on emerging payments (Total Payments).

Perianne Boring founded the Chamber of Digital Commerce building it into the world’s largest trade association representing the blockchain industry. Perianne was named among CoinDesk’s “10 Most Influential People in Blockchain 2016” and “Top Woman in Bitcoin 2015” by a leading industry publication for her public policy accomplishments.

Ms. Boring is a communications expert and avid public speaker. She has presented at leading industry events including the Consumer Electronic Show (“CES”), Money 20/20, South by Southwest and many others. She also contributes to Forbes through her column, “The Beauty of the Blockchain.” Prior to forming the Chamber, Perianne was a television host and anchor of an international finance program that aired in more than 100 countries to over 650 million viewers. Ms. Boring began her career as a legislative analyst in the U.S. House of Representatives, advising on finance, economics, tax and healthcare policy.

Ms. Boring graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and economics. Raised in Florida, she currently resides in Washington, DC.

 

David Edwards is the founder and product lead for ChainThat. ChainThat provides enterprise decentralised solutions & services based on Blockchain and smart contracts for the commercial & specialty (re)insurance sector.

David has proven his industry leading experience repeatedly during his work with large enterprises and start-ups alike over the past 20 years. His wide-ranging technical skills span the provision of high-level architecture design & strategy down to detailed, low-level technical solutions. He has been working with architecting Blockchain and smart contracts solutions since 2014. Prior to ChainThat, David held the role of Enterprise Infrastructure Architect for London’s leading insurance services provider. In this role, he provided cloud strategy, complex data migration planning, cyber security guidance, total cost of ownership modelling for applications / services and infrastructure / storage strategy. Previously, David held architecture positions at Capita, ATOS & Siemens.

Taylor Gerring is a co-founding member of Ethereum Foundation. After graduating with a BSBA in Management of Information Systems, he deployed wide-scale enterprise systems before joining the blockchain industry in 2012. Since working on Hive wallet, Taylor has served on the Board of Directors for Ethereum Foundation and is currently an international speaker and blockchain consultant.

Ian Haycock is Chief Operating Officer for Swiss Re Asset Management. In this role Ian has responsibility for and was instrumental in designing the operating environment for Swiss Re's investment management activities. His main responsibilities include strategy, information technology, business operations, data governance and compliance topics.

Ian has almost 30 years of technology expertise spanning the defence and nuclear industries as well as financial markets, much of which has involved pushing the limits of technology to exploit commercial advantage and at the same time provide robust, controlled platforms.

Leanne Kemp is the founder & CEO of Everledger - a digital, global ledger that tracks and protects items of value. With a wealth of successful startup companies under her belt, Leanne is pushing boundaries in protecting the global market of diamonds and luxury goods. Using her extensive background in emerging technologies, business, jewellery and insurance - Leanne and Everledger are working towards ensuring global transparency by constructing a digitally encrypted certification system that assists in the reduction of fraud, black markets and trafficking.

Everledger is leading the market in real world application of blockchain boasting an impressive set of industry awards including the Meffy Award 2015 for Innovation in FinTech, BBVA Open Talent 2015, FinTech Finals 2016 for Best in Show and European Financial Tech Awards 2016 for Best Blockchain Company.

Casey Kuhlman is the cofounder and CEO of Monax Industries which is building a platform for smart contracts and legal applications of blockchain technology. Prior to cofounding Monax Industries, Casey was the head of legal information systems at the US Open Data Institute. A lawyer and international development practitioner for nearly a decade, Casey has worked extensively in the Horn of Africa, including cofounding the first law firm in Somaliland which he was the Managing Partner of for over four years. Casey has also been a New York Times bestselling author, an infantry officer in the Marines, and an avid participant in open source software development.

Caitlin Long is Chairman and President of Symbiont, the market-leading smart contracts platform for institutional uses of distributed ledger technology. She previously spent 22 years on Wall Street in senior roles, working for Morgan Stanley (2007-2016), Credit Suisse (1997-2007) and Salomon Brothers (1994-1997). During her career she started and ran three new businesses, was a top-rated equity research analyst for the life insurance sector, and worked directly for the co-CEOs on the restructuring of Winterthur Group in Zurich. Her publicly disclosed pension clients include GM, Verizon, Motorola Solutions, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Timken and JC Penney, and earlier in her career helped place the IPOs of MetLife, Manulife, Prudential, Principal Financial Group and John Hancock. She was previously president of Morgan Stanley's life insurance subsidiary and officer/director of two Bermuda reinsurance subsidiaries of Credit Suisse. Institutional Investor named Caitlin to its list of the most influential people in pensions during her final 3 years on Wall Street. She has been active in bitcoin since 2012 and blockchains since 2014, and she served on Morgan Stanley's internal blockchain working group. Caitlin blogs at www.caitlin-long.com. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School (JD, 1994), the Kennedy School of Government (MPP, 1994) and the University of Wyoming (BA, 1990).

Paul Meeusen is Head of Distributed Ledger Technology at Swiss Re. He has over 25 years of experience in advising, building and operating teams in an international environment in the disciplines of finance, accounting, operational treasury, audit and risk control. He leads Swiss Re's team in the recently launched B3i (Blockchain Insurance Industry Initiative) that is overhauling the way insurance companies exchange data and trade risks.

Prior to reinsurance, he was a Director in the Financial Advisory practice of PwC and he started his career with a provider of treasury, cash management and financial planning software. Paul is passionate about applying new and disrupting technology for a good purpose, and is a thought leader on Blockchain-enabled insurance operating models. He holds a Masters in economics from Leuven university (Belgium) and is a Certified Internal Auditor.

Mariusz Nowostawski is a Programmer, Computer Scientist, and Teacher who is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He was previously an academic lecturer at the University of Otago, New Zealand. The focus of his MSc studies was artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, while the focus of his PhD research was autonomous systems and computational modelling of the biological process of life. Mariusz is passionate about self-organising systems, adaptive and autonomous computation.

Mariusz has worked on high-end networking applications on GPUs and multicore systems with Sun Microsystems and Oracle. He is currently involved in forensics research with Europol, Bitcoin anonymity, and Cryptocurrencies. He teaches game and graphics programming, mobile, peer-to-peer and blockchain technologies. A hardcore explorer and thinker, Mariusz also enjoys rock climbing, paragliding and long distance running.

Gabrielle Patrick is a UK Barrister & US lawyer specializing in cryptofinance and Distributed Ledger (DL) technology. She is the co-founder and general counsel of Epiphyte which enables instant settlement of trades and transactions using DL tech. She has 10 years financial services experience, including as an executive of a regional financial institution spanning 31 countries. Her experience spans legal, regulatory and compliance matters with a deep understanding of distributed ledger technology and cyrptocurrencies as an emergent property. She has also chaired and driven the driver of the International Bar Association's committee that deals with virtual currencies and related legal issues

Richard Phipps, Group Retro Platform lead at Swiss Re, has overseen the development of a group-wide Retrocession administration tool that introduced a standard calculation process and is based on a single source of ledger certified data. He has also contributed to Swiss Re's SAP ledger programme over the past two years, bringing project and change management expertise. His most recent activities have included providing Retrocession subject matter expertise for the Blockchain Proof of Concept.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, Richard worked for GE Insurance Solutions, where he led Insurance projects in the Underwriting and External Retrocession areas, winning a GE-wide award for process improvement. He has 18 years of practical experience across many critical business processes within Reinsurance. He holds a Masters in Physics & Space Science from the University of Kent. Professionally, he is a PROSCI certified Change Manager, PMI Project Manager and is CII certified.

Kamesh Raghavendra is an early-stage venture capital investor at The Hive - a studio to co-create, fund and launch data-driven companies. The Hive, based in Palo Alto, California, partners with entrepreneurs to create companies focused on data and artificial intelligence (AI) driven applications in enterprise, IoT and on-line segments. The Hive also has locations at Palo Alto, Bangalore and Sao Paolo.

Kamesh has a successful track record as an investor, entrepreneur and operating executive in enterprise, industrial IoT, cyber-security and financial services market segments. He also leads The Hive’s blockchain technology investments, having prior educational background in cryptography and collaborated with early distributed ledger communities. He has backed four blockchain technology based startups, which apply the technology across a wide spectrum of use-cases including clearance & settlement, remittances & payments, compliance & risk intelligence and cyber-security.

Prior to working in Venture Capital, Kamesh was an operating leader at NetApp – an enterprise storage, cloud & distributed systems market leader – across product management, field operations and corporate development roles. Before that, he had a stint at Goldman Sachs trading mortgage based securities in the pre-2008 era. Kamesh has received his M.B.A. from IIM Bangalore, and majored in Computer Science as an undergraduate at IIT Madras.

Jags Rao joined Swiss Re in 2015 as the Solutioning Lead for Strategic Initiatives at Swiss Re Global Business Solutions in Bangalore, India where he helped form the company's first start-up accelerator program. In April 2016, he joined the Reinsurance Technology Initiative team in Zürich and is currently focused on driving Swiss Re's strategic agenda on blockchain.

Jags has 20 years of experience in solution consulting, innovation management, IT service delivery and sales leadership. Prior to Swiss Re, Jags founded and served as executive management for InCH Info Solutions GmbH, a Swiss consultancy firm. He had served in various management roles for Teksels SA, an IT services firm focused on financial services with clientele such as Nestlé, Glencore International, Swiss Life, Swiss Mobiliar etc.  Jags also had experience in new venture creation and management in India.

Jags Rao has been a resident of Switzerland since 2001 and has lived in India, Japan and in the USA. He has earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Mangalore University in India.

Matthew Roszak is Co-founder and Chairman of Bloq, a blockchain enterprise software company. Mr. Roszak is also founding partner of Tally Capital, a private investment firm focused on blockchain-enabled technology with a portfolio of over 20 investments, including BitFury, Blockstream and Factom. Mr. Roszak is a blockchain investor, entrepreneur and advocate. He has spent over 20 years in private equity and venture capital with Advent International, Keystone Capital Partners, Platinum Venture Partners and SilkRoad Equity, and has invested over USD 1 billion of capital (from start-up to IPO) in a broad range of industries. Mr. Roszak is a director and beneficial owner of Eboost, MissionMode, Neu Entity, Onramp, SolidSpace and TrueLook.

Mr. Roszak serves as chairman of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, the world’s largest trade association representing the blockchain industry. In addition, Mr. Roszak serves on the board of BitGive, a non-profit foundation targeting public health and the environment. Mr. Roszak is also the founder of the Chicago Bitcoin Center, and was a producer of the blockchain industry’s first ever documentary, The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin. Mr. Roszak is a sought after thought leader on blockchain technology and has testified before US Congress and spoken at The Brookings Institution. Mr. Roszak has been featured on CNBC and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine. In addition, Mr. Roszak has presented at FinTech conferences worldwide, including Money20/20, CES and American Banker.

Andreas Schertzinger leads Swiss Re's Reinsurance Technology & Innovation Initiative. This is a global Initiative to advance Swiss Re’s digital and technology strategy, conduct business building and investment exploration, engage clients and other partners in business dialogue, and to increase internal awareness and engagement.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, Andreas was a partner at McKinsey & Company, where his focus was strategy, finance, M&A, as well as corporate transformation. He also has extensive experience in the reinsurance, insurance and banking sectors. He holds a Masters in Industrial & Financial Engineering from the University of Karlsruhe, and a PhD in Corporate Finance from the European Business School Oestrich-Winkel.

Sriram is a passionate entrepreneur looking to bring efficiencies into the Supply Chain. He has previously built Risk Management software at Salomon Bros., founded an ecommerce startup during the dot-com heyday and played EIR with a small fund.

He has been a qualified Captain of ocean going merchant ships, enjoys hackathons and has done the Executive Program at Stanford GSB.

Elizabeth Stark is Co-Founder and CEO of Lightning, a company building blockchain infrastructure for fast, scalable transactions. She's a fellow at Coin Center and has worked extensively in the realm of digital currency and open internet policy. Stark previously taught at Stanford and Yale about the future of the internet and decentralized technology. She served as an EIR with Stanford StartX, and has advised a variety of startups including Blockstream, creator of sidechains, and Comma.ai, an autonomous driving company. She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Co-author of Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World.

Alex Tapscott is the CEO and Founder of Northwest Passage Ventures, a consulting firm focused on early-stage, high growth companies in the Canadian and US capital markets. Alex was Director of Institutional Equity Sales at Canaccord Genuity Inc from 2008 to 2015. He managed a diverse client base of value, growth, long/short equity, merger-arbitrage and activist investors, including many of the largest asset managers in Canada and some of the largest hedge funds in New York.

A graduate of Amherst College and a CFA Charterholder, Alex serves as a research fellow for the Global Solutions Network (GSN) program at the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Business in Toronto and sits on the board of CAMH Engage, a young leadership council he co-founded at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Jürg Unger is a seasoned Custody and Network Management as well as Asset Management / Banking Operations expert with 20 years' industry experience. Throughout his career, he held many different roles and functions within Securities Operations as well as Global and Domestic Custody not only on the sell side, but also on the buy side.

He is currently responsible as Head Custody & Vendor Relationship Management for Swiss Re's custody, network management and vendor strategy. The role also includes Regulations & Market Intelligence and well as FinTech, Digitalization and RegTech. Jürg Unger is a regular speaker and panelist at leading industry forums.
 

Gene Vayngrib, Tradle CEO & Co-founder is a software executive whose products run at 90% of Fortune 500 companies. Gene is applying his extensive distributed networks expertise from running his prior global supply chain management startup to a new blockchain-based industry utility, starting with the Know Your Customer (KYC) product that is uniquely designed for all sectors of banking and insurance. Tradle is KPMG award winner, Fintech50 company, McKinsey - KYC innovator, Citigroup - KYC company to watch, was chosen for FCA regulatory sandbox to work with Aviva, and recently completed a program with MAS in Singapore.

Elizabeth Wesson is a Director of Digital Strategy for Reinsurance at Swiss Re. She's spent eight years at Swiss Re in various strategy and operational roles. Prior to Swiss Re, Elizabeth worked in technology investments at Goldman Sachs and Battery Ventures, an early stage Silicon Valley venture capital firm. She holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.