Next Generation Insurance Customer: Solutions for an ageing society

Jo (Jyotsana) Aggarwal is the founder and CEO of Touchkin, a predictive healthcare startup which uses mobile analytics to identify potential health issues.  

Jo has been the Managing Director of Pearson Learning Solutions in the UK and a part of the founding team of Silatech, a non-profit focused on youth empowerment in conflict zones in the Arab world. Her work on mobile employability post Arab-spring helped connect over a million young people to skills and jobs, and won the Silver at the Stevie Awards, as well as the Global Telecom Business Innovation award in 2013. She was recognized by the eLearning Center in the UK as one of the top three global thought leaders in education technology.

Jo is Board of Head Held High,a Trustee of the Rural Edge Trust, and an advisor to employability startups Edureka and Aspiring Minds. She has also served as an expert advisor to McKinsey & Co and National Skills Development Council.  

Jo holds a bachelor’s degree in technology from the Indian Institute of   Technology, Delhi and an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Nashina is the Chief Commercial Offier at LifeQ and leads the company’s commercial and go-to-market effort. LifeQ Platform delivers highly accurate physiological metrics derived through computational systems biology at scale. LifeQ generated physiological metrics can be used by payers, providers and wellness companies to enhance their programs with remote monitoring and early detection of issues and also derive risk analysis of members/users. Nashina's role includes leading short, medium and long- term go-to-market planning and commercialization. As part of the leadership team, Nashina contributes to product strategy definition, recruitment of new team members, identifying third party partners across the ecosystem and determining level of partnership and integration including business models and incentives.

Nashina also currently is an independent board member on the board of Cloudbreak Health.

From 2010 to 2014, Nashina has worked with Dr.Patrick Soon-Shiong as a senior member Nantworks Inc. Nashina was responsible for working with investors in NantHealth and NantMobile as subject matter expert on product and business development/commercialization.

In addition to the above, Nashina has a passion for digital health and is an investor/advisor to a number of start-ups in this space.

Prior to working with Dr. Patrick and advising digital health start-ups, Nashina lead Product, Implementation and Channel Development for Semtek, a start-up with a credit card data encryption solution that was acquired by Verifone. Before that Nashina was at Qualcomm where she lead business development for Qualcomm Mobile Commerce initiative.

Nashina has a degree from the London School of Economics, lives in San Diego, California and was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya.

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Riaan, co-founder of HealthQ and LifeQ, spent the past years focusing his entrepreneurial energies on his most committed vision: to create a truly democratized self-perpetuating health ecosystem, underpinned by computational biology, to dramatically improve health and wellbeing.
 
Riaan’s passion for systems has led him to develop a deep understanding of a wide variety of fields, spanning all the way from biology and physics to business ecosystems and networks. With an ability to find the underlying principles that connect disciplines, Riaan is able to convey the consequences of these connections with contagious enthusiasm.
 
In his past role as CEO of HealthQ, Riaan (who also holds a PhD in Biochemistry) built a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers in the heart of the Stellenbosch winelands in South Africa. This team continues to test and industrialize new life science based technologies that has the promise to dramatically improve human health. HealthQ has been voted most innovative company in South Africa by Fast Company.
 
In his current role as President and co-founder of LifeQ, Riaan is again focusing on building a highly multidisciplinary team of experts towards driving the core vision of dramatically improved individual and societal health and wellbeing.
 

Rob is currently the CEO of Curo, a technology start-up that is rebuilding the technology that underpins how in-home care is provided to older adults.

Prior to Curo, Rob held leadership roles within the Qantas Group, including oversight of the Commercial function for Jetstar, and subsequently management of the Digital and Innovation mandates for Qantas.

Before moving to Australia in 2014, Rob was CEO at Jetsetter, the world’s largest booking engine for luxury travel, with a team of 75 based in NYC, Boston and London. In April 2013, Rob sold the Jetsetter business to Tripadvisor.

Prior to that, Rob spent 8 years building early stage technology businesses in New York, across online news, ecommerce and travel.

Earlier in his career, Rob was a case team leader with the strategy consultancy Bain & Company.

Rob holds a masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from Nottingham University and an MBA from Harvard University.

Christian Elsasser joined Swiss Re in 2015 as a manager for data analytics project. In this role he is responsible for the development of new projects in connection with large external data sets and for the embedding of advanced analytics in P&C Business Management.

Before joining Swiss Re he worked for five years at CERN as a physicist where he was responsible for the analysis and interpretation of data samples collected by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

Christian studied physics, economics, and computer science and holds an MSc degree from the University of Zurich. For his research at CERN he was awarded a PhD in natural science. He is also currently appointed as a lecturer in scientific computing by the University of Zurich.

Paul Gaudin is a serial entrepreneur and investor, primarily in the health, age care and longevity sector. Through the NIA and CEP he has a range of health innovation roles supporting NHS innovation in health devices and technologies and is personal advisor to Professor Tony Young (Chief Medical Advisor to the Clinical Entrepreneurs Programme)

After training in Mechanical Engineering, he started his career in high volume food processing and set up the New York Bagel Company in the UK. After successfully launching this product into the consumer market, in 1994 he was invited to advise the UK Governments' Health Education Authority on consumer behaviour and developed the international Q Score (Now quealth.co) metric for assessing a range of chronic diseases, as a means of engaging people in managing their own health. After exiting this business in 2015 he has developed an investment portfolio in disease management and Care support businesses.

Paul is a member of two international longevity and health think tanks. He is currently developing the Carebnb business in the USA and UK to help to solve the issues of bed blocking in hospitals due to the lack of convalescence care homes and the ageing populations across many healthcare systems in developed economies.

In March 2014, Vishal launched GOQii, a fitness technology company based in Menlo Park, California. He is currently the Founder & CEO of GOQii Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and works out of the office in Mumbai.  

Vishal Gondal started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 16 founding IndiaGames and is best known as the Father of the Indian Gaming Industry. Having taken the company to amazing heights, in 2012, IndiaGames was acquired by the Walt Disney Company, post which he served as Managing Director Digital, Disney UTV. He is also a notable Angel Investor. Vishal was listed among the top 50 executives in the mobile content space by the UK based 'Mobile Entertainment' Magazine alongside noted people like Steve Jobs.

He enjoys running Marathons, Ultras, Trekking & Sky Diving. His love for the outdoors and pushing oneself physically dates to his growing years when he was a national level volleyball player. Vishal is a long time TEDster, gadget & gizmo freak and a judge on two television shows 'The Pitch' on Bloomberg TV & 'Your Wish is my App' on NDTV. His passion for technology, fitness & gaming led him to his next venture GOQii which is focused on helping people make a change towards a healthier lifestyle and be the force of good.

Steve Hopkins is the President of Curo, a technology start-up that is rebuilding the technology that underpins how in-home care is provided to older adults.

Steve previously was Chief Operating Officer with Evangelical Homes of Michigan in Farmington, Michigan.  Steve joined Evangelical Homes of Michigan as its Corporate Director of Wellness and Physical Health in 2007 after owning and operating several wellness businesses both in Michigan and Florida. His extensive Senior Services industry experience compliments his extensive experience in lifestyle coaching, leadership development and innovative program creation and execution.

While at Evangelical Home of Michigan, Steve created and led several innovative Aged Care health programs, including the first Michigan based “CCRC Without Walls” program. This program was a creative long term care insurance model combining preventative wellness with lifetime future care. Steve continues to assist other companies to launch programs similar to this throughout the country.

Steve currently resides in Ann Arbor, MI in the United States.

Ivo Hux is Managing Director at Swiss Re, responsible for both P&C and L&H markets in France, Benelux and Switzerland. Since 2017, he is equally Division EMEA's L&H leader across the continent. Prior to this role, he has been running Swiss Re's branch office in Paris for several years.

Ivo started his career at Swiss Re in 1993 as client manager for Central and Eastern Europe and built Swiss Re's portfolio in this region, led a financial controlling and strategy team before serving as head of service for Michel Liès, CEO Reinsurance.

He studied in Zurich, Paris and Saint-Petersburg, holds a PhD in Russian Literature as well as an MBA from Booth School of Business, University of Chicago.

Bronwyn is Head of Solutions Group for Australia and New Zealand, encompassing their Market Solutions team, which is responsible for proposition innovation including data and technology solutions across both life and general insurance lines, and the Distribution Solutions team, responsible for Swiss Re's life insurance partnership business.

Originally from New Zealand, Bronwyn has a background in IFA distribution management, having managed sales teams in New Zealand and the UK, and more recently as the CEO of one of New Zealand's most successful IFA networks (SHARE NZ).

Before joining the Swiss Re ANZ team in April 2015, Bronwyn led a specialist distribution team for Swiss Re UK, designing and launching a variety of direct and retail distribution partnerships with UK and Ireland clients.

Melissa Leitner holds a Bachelor of Business Science (Honours) degree from the University of Cape Town and is a Fellow of both the Actuarial Society of South Africa and the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries of the UK.  She is a Senior Products Actuary for Swiss Re's Life & Health Innovation & Product Development team for Europe, Middle East and Africa. 

Melissa Leitner joined the Zürich-based team in 2013, which was created in response to Swiss Re's extensive consumer research on the global gap for mortality and morbidity risk protection. The team's work is focused on better understanding the needs of the consumer, particularly in the areas of health and ageing, and applying a cross-functional and collaborative approach to develop alternative solutions that have the potential to close the protection gap and deliver growth for Swiss Re and its clients.

Melissa Leitner has worked for Swiss Re for eight years, previously as a Senior Client Manager for the African L&H reinsurance business.  She started her career as a pricing and product development actuary for group life and disability products in the Employee Benefits division of a major South African life insurer.  Her experience has provided her with an extensive knowledge of the South African life and health insurance landscape and the innovative products developed there which have contributed to South Africa having one of the highest insurance penetration rates in the world.

Alan heads up Swiss Re's product innovation team in EMEA. He has worked in a variety of technical and client facing roles within the Life and Health Industry for over 25 years. Alan is passionate about ensuring that insurers innovate solutions that solve real consumer problems and close society's protection gaps. Only by developing propositions that consumers see as relevant and good value, will we succeed in our aim of making the world more resilient. 

Alan is qualified as a Chartered Insurer, is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and holds the Diploma of Medical Underwriting from the Assurance Medical Society

Lefkos Middleton is Professor of Neurology and holds the chair of Neuroepidemiology and Ageing Research at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. Following his medical studies and Neurology residency in Strasbourg (France), he became Fellow at the Neurological Institute of New York, Presbyterian Hospital & Assistant Professor, Columbia University. He was founder and first Chairman of the US – funded Cyprus Institute of Neurology & Genetics, in years 1988-1999.He then joined Glaxowelcome and became Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine and Genetics (TMG) in GSK R&D. TMG combined medical genetics, imaging, biomarkers and experimental medicine.

He is, currently, the principal investigator of the Chariot register [a cohort of 30,000 healthy volunteers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevention studies, in West London] and several observational and interventional trials in Alzheimer’s disease and of genetic studies in Parkinson’s disease. He is the Chief UK Investigator of three AD clinical trials. He has served as Chair of the Clinical &Technology Expert Group of Integrated Development of the Global Dementia Initiative, following the G7 Dementia Summit, convened by the UK Prime Minster in years 2014-2015.

Christoph Nabholz and his team do applied R&D aimed at improving the understanding of trends and developments in human behaviour, morbidity and mortality. The gained R&D insights are used to strengthen the performance and innovation of L&H products. Through providing thought leadership on key strategic topics for L&H such as, genetic testing, ageing populations and consumer health behaviours, he and his team prompt debate and initiate the co-creation of novel insurance solutions.

From 2007 to 2016 Christoph Nabholz headed Business Development at the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue, where he and his team were mandated to develop dialogue and debate, with experts at world class institutions, on key insurance industry topics. The team addressed issues across the many lines of business written by the firm and helped position Swiss Re as a knowledge company and industry leader.

From 2002 to 2006, Christoph Nabholz was in Swiss Re Global Life & Health Underwriting and served as Swiss Re’s Global Genetics Consultant.

From 1999 to 2002, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in genomics and functional genetics at Harvard University.

Christoph Nabholz received a diploma in biochemistry from the University of Basel and a PhD with honours in molecular genetics from the University of Freiburg in Switzerland.

Dan Neuwirth is recognized for starting and leading healthcare technology and services solutions companies that make a difference in peoples’ lives. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Envera Health, a leader in Engagement Optimization focused on improving the experience of healthcare.

Prior to founding Envera, he helped launch and grow medCPU, a clinical decision support company, now majority owned by Merck and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He co-founded and led Agility Healthcare Solutions, a pioneer in process improvement technology, which was acquired by GE Healthcare.

He has a passion for building companies and driving innovation, leveraging his varied startup and Fortune 50 senior executive experience, including GE, McKesson, and PepsiCo.

Dan lives in Richmond, VA where he is active in fostering the startup community and serves on the boards of multiple community-focused organizations.

Dan graduated from the University of Minnesota and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Pepper was created by French company SoftBank Robotics but is a multinational wonder. Currently living in Middlesex University with Eris and his colleagues, Pepper is capable of identifying emotions and some very impressive movements. This Companion Robot has seen roles in waiting tables and shopfloor sales, but it's in the world of eldercare where Pepper has attracted a lot of media attention lately.

Initially an aeronautical engineer, Julian founded STASYS Ltd in 1987, specialising in interoperability and the military internet, and grew it to a staff of 230, with subsidiaries in the USA, Germany, Malaysia and Australia prior to sale to Lockheed Martin in 2005. Julian is an angel investor in more than 20 start-up businesses, including firms such as Hailo, DataSift and Astrobotic.

Julian is now Exec Chairman and founder of digi.me which enables the Internet of Me, where the individual is at the centre of their digital life, owning and controlling their own data – see www.digi.me.

Julian is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the IMechE and Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Engineers, and is also a Virgin Galactic Future Astronaut.

Séverine Rion Logean and the Life & Health R&D team provide cutting-edge R&D and applied expertise in human morbidity and mortality trends, novel diagnostics and genetics for product development, portfolio steering and risk management. In order to understand consumers' needs and behaviors, the L&H R&D team performs various consumer research projects, for example on the needs of ageing populations. The R&D insights are used to strengthen the performance and innovation of L&H products and inform risk management models. Séverine further explores new large data sources for informed decision making, contributing to the digitization process within Swiss Re.

Before joining Swiss Re Life & Health R&D, Séverine worked as a Senior Casualty Risk Engineer for Swiss Re performing risk assessments in the field of pharmaceuticals, life sciences and hospitals.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, Séverine worked in public pharmacies. She studied pharmacy at the Swiss Federal institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and the Ecole de Pharmacie in Lausanne to obtain her Federal Degree in Pharmacy.

Gillian is the responsible for the execution of strategy for Swiss Re's largest global Reinsurance clients. One of her key current (and highly intriguing) tasks is to profile Global client activities in the technology and digital space, to understand what motivates re/insurers to undertake a digital transformation, their approach and ultimately which solutions Swiss Re can offer. Previously Gillian worked in Group Underwriting translating broad themes impacting the insurance industry into business opportunities.

Gillian is an environmental scientist by training, holding BSc and MSc's from Auckland University, New Zealand and a PhD from the ETH Zürich. She has been with Swiss Re for 10 years.

Dan Ryan has an MA in Medical Sciences from Cambridge University, and was a member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council for Ageing for four years.

Dan until recently lead the Digital Analytics Catalysts based in London and Boston. The Catalysts provided Swiss Re with an outside-in perspective on the digital ecosystem along the full insurance value chain, working together with academia, start-ups and established technology corporates.

For 6 years before that, Dan was Head of Life & Health R&D at Swiss Re where he led a multi-disciplinary group that developed leading edge research in the insurance industry on behavioural economics and forward-looking models of disease and mortality.

Prior to this, Dan was Head of Mortality Consulting and Research at Towers Watson from 2002 to 2010, and was the founder and principal investigator of a research collective involving 12 major reinsurers and insurers.

Domenico Savarese is Swiss Re's director of Products Strategy and of Ageing for the Life & Health division. As a passionate advocate of innovation and customer centricity, Domenico helps to develop Swiss Re's global products and solutions, create differentiated propositions,  and shape the (re)insurance agenda across health, care, and funding.

Before joining Swiss Re, Domenico was head of Telematics for Zurich's General Insurance division, focusing on Motor (launched 10+ propositions in 6 global markets; insured self-driving vehicles in Europe and APAC) and Property (commercial and household). While at Zurich, he also led Proposition development for Personal Lines, and was programme director for several turnaround initiatives. Previously, he worked in finance for a global hospitality firm, and in consulting (McKinsey: pricing and sales for banking, telecom, retail).

Domenico holds an MBA with Honors from Columbia Business School, with concentration in finance and marketing.

Stuart is a founder of Canary Care and he started the business with a small team in 2013 to try to help bring technology to support home carers so that people could stay safe and happy at home for longer, but with a consumer approach. In order to achieve this, the technology must be affordable, simple to use and effective.

Prior to deciding to start a new business, Stuart was Managing Director of Capita Medical Reporting, Finance Director for Bupa Home Healthcare and Head of Corporate Finance for Bupa Group. Whilst Bupa provided knowledge and insight into health insurance markets worldwide, it also planted the seed for Canary. Stuart’s role at Bupa Home Healthcare sparked a passion for supporting patients in their own home, which as a wealth of evidence shows leads to longer, happier lives for those patients.

Matt is a Senior Business Analyst in Group Underwriting Strategy. He holds an MSc in gerontology – the study of ageing and ageing societies – from The University of Southampton and is a qualified marketer with 20 years' experience in the financial services industry. With two young sons to keep him occupied, Matt has very little time to pursue his onetime hobby of watching cricket, although he endeavours to age actively by playing regular five-aside football.

Oliver Werneyer is the Customer Technology Manager at global reinsurer Swiss Re Life Capital. He is responsible for driving innovation with a special focus on customer experience, customer engagement and insurance technology as well as developing new concepts that aid the integration of technology, new processes and concepts in the insurance industry as a whole. Oliver has more than 10 years' experience of working with innovation, technology and data through roles in product development, marketing and technical actuarial at major (re)insurers in South Africa (Liberty Life), United Kingdom (Genworth Financial, Swiss Re) and now Switzerland (Swiss Re).

Oliver was recently ranked as the #15 Top InsurTech Influencer by InsurTechNews and is also widely interviewed and published on topics relating to insurance innovation and technology. He is also himself also an avid entrepreneur at heart who started his own company at the age of 16 and has continued to be highly involved in the start-up market since then.

 

Tom Wright is Group Chief Executive of Age UK and Age International. Age UK is the leading charity supporting people in later life. 

Tom also chairs the Richmond Group of leading health Charities, and is also a Non-Executive Director of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Tom is also a Trustee of Doteveryone and the Leeds Castle Foundation.