Q-Re announces new management team

Gunther Saacke, Chief Executive Officer, Q-Re, said, "On behalf of the Board of Directors, I am pleased to announce the members and responsibilities of our Management Team. By appointing the Chief Underwriting Officer, the Chief Risk Officer, the Chief Actuary and the line of business and regional executives, we have successfully put in place the core team which will be instrumental in establishing Q-Re as a truly global reinsurance franchise based on superior technical expertise. I consider it a privilege to work with this high-calibre group and welcome everyone to their new role."

Team members and individual responsibilities

Willi Schuerch - Chief Underwriting Officer: Willi Schuerch has more than 30 years of experience in non-life reinsurance. He started his career at Swiss Re and joined PartnerRe in 1993 where he served as Chief Underwriter Catastrophe until 2008. In 2009, Willi was instrumental in establishing the reinsurance start-up, Novae Re. He also serves as board member and chairman of the investment committee at Solidum Partners, an investment advisory company specialized in Insurance-Linked Securities. Willi has mathematical and actuarial qualifications from the University of Zurich, and is a diploma holder of the Australian Insurance Institute.

Mark Cockroft - Chief Actuary: Mark Cockroft has almost 20 years of experience in general insurance actuarial work, primarily gathered at London market and international reinsurance operations such as GE Frankona and Endurance. He has covered pricing, reserving and capital modelling for a variety of lines of business and firms. Mark also managed teams of actuaries. As well as publishing on pricing for long-tail reinsurance, he most recently chaired the Institute of Actuaries working party researching the effects of Periodic Payment Orders (PPOs) in the UK. Mark holds a BA Hons (2:1) degree in Mathematics from the University of Oxford.

Peter Frei - Head of Underwriting Risk: Peter Frei has more than 20 years of experience in leadership positions in the insurance and reinsurance industry. His areas of expertise are underwriting, enterprise exposure management, major event loss reserving, retrocession and model development. Following a career of 15 years at Winterthur Re and PartnerRe, Peter was a major contributor to the establishment of the European catastrophe index provider, PERILS AG, in 2009. He received a special award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) for developing a GIS (geographic information system)-based enterprise exposure management system and was involved in multidisciplinary loss assessment projects. Peter holds a Master's degree in civil engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich with specialization in earthquake engineering and is member of a number of professional associations (e.g. SIA, SGEB, SSA, EERI).

Peter Bitterlin - Head of Energy: Peter Bitterlin has over 25 years of underwriting experience in the property and energy lines of business. He started his underwriting career in the reinsurance department of the Baloise Insurance Company. In 1991 Peter moved to Rhine Re where he was heading up the Facultative Department. In 1997 he joined Winterthur Re as a Senior Underwriter specialising in Energy and writing a worldwide account of Oil & Gas and Utility risks. When the reinsurance book of the Winterthur Group was purchased by PartnerRe in 1999, Peter was instrumental in establishing the two Energy underwriting teams in Zurich and Paris. He left PartnerRe in 2009 to head up the Global Energy team of XL Insurance, one of the leading global Energy players in the market. Peter has vast experience in writing large Refining, Petrochemical and Utility risks on a global basis. He joined Q-Re in September 2012. Peter's educational background includes 2 years of Commercial College of the Canton of Basel and 3 years of Business School at the Swiss Mercantile Society in Basel, Switzerland.

Alain Chiolero - Head of Property Catastrophe: Alain Chiolero has over 12 years of experience in the reinsurance industry, having worked for one large multi-line reinsurer (Swiss Re), medium-sized reinsurers (PartnerRe, in its well-regarded Catastrophe unit, and Converium), smaller operations, including one start-up, and Bank Leu. During that time, he has gathered a rich experience spanning pricing, underwriting and acquisition of traditional business, modelling and management of large catastrophe portfolios as well as investing in Insurance-Linked Securities. Alain has a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics and is a CFA Charterholder.

Patrick Cove - Branch Manager, Zurich, and Head of Aviation & Marine: Patrick Cove has 20 years of experience in insurance and reinsurance specialty lines business. He started his career in 1993 in the Marine Department of the Terra Nova Insurance Company in the London company market. After periods at Lloyd's and in Bermuda, Patrick switched from insurance to reinsurance in 2001, when he joined Global Aerospace Underwriting Managers in the outwards reinsurance department. He joined XL Re in 2004 where he served as Senior Aviation Underwriter until 2013. Since 2009 Patrick was global line of business head for Aviation reinsurance business at XL Re. This period was marked by various industry awards and achievements, including three consecutive wins at the Reactions London Market Awards in the category 'Reinsurance Company Team of the Year - Underwriting Aviation', in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Patrick has a reputation for driving operational transformation and places a high emphasis on granular analytics and a solid infrastructure. Patrick has economics qualifications from the University of Bath and Associate status with the UK Chartered Insurance Institute.

Manfred Dennler - Head of Property Risk: Manfred Dennler has over 30 years of experience in the reinsurance industry. He started his career at Union Re. In 2000 Manfred became Chief Underwriting Officer Reinsurance and in 2007 Head of Inward Reinsurance at Helvetia Insurance Company. In 2009 he joined a newly established reinsurance operation in the Lloyd's market and successfully oversaw the worldwide development of the property per risk portfolio. Thanks to his excellent network with brokers and clients around the world, especially in the Asian and European markets, he is able to generate, maintain and cultivate business opportunities with sustainable profit expectations.

Johannes Goebel - Head of Engineering: Johannes Goebel has more than 20 years of experience in insurance and reinsurance. Working for large and medium-sized insurance and reinsurance companies including start-up operations he has gathered a wealth of experience in reinsurance underwriting and pricing. Johannes has successfully managed teams of underwriters across continents and has worked in Asia as well as in Europe. He has built substantial portfolios of business focused on engineering classes and consistently made valuable contributions to product development in the sector. Johannes holds a Master's degree in semi-conductor physics.

Stefano Lorenzini - Head of Credit & Surety: Stefano Lorenzini has more than 20 years of experience in the credit and surety industry, working for large and medium-sized reinsurance companies in various markets. Before joining a Lloyd's Syndicate in 2010, Stefano held senior underwriting and management positions at Swiss Re, including territorial responsibilities for Europe and Asia. Prior to joining Swiss Re, he worked at DG Bank in commercial banking and at Credit Suisse in export finance. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration.

Luke Roden - Underwriting Manager North America and Branch Manager, Bermuda: Luke Roden is a widely regarded market influencing Senior Underwriter and Underwriting Manager for property classes. He has a proven track record in developing and maintaining large profitable portfolios of short tail business. Having started in the market in 1992, he has gained extensive experience with short tail treaty lines (Cat XL, Pro-rata, Risk XL and Retro XL), high-level aviation and marine XL. Luke has worked in the UK (Lloyd's and Company Market), USA, Bermuda and Republic of Ireland reinsurance markets. He is highly proficient with AIR and RMS (ALM & DLM) modelling software and has presented a series of lectures on Non-Marine XL Reinsurance at the C.I.I. College of Insurance, London. Luke joined Q-Re in June 2012.

Karl Schneider - Head of Agriculture: Karl J. Schneider is a seasoned agriculture insurance and reinsurance specialist. He started his reinsurance career 28 years ago with Munich Re. Karl has successfully built agriculture underwriting teams and trained numerous underwriters. He brings to the table an in-depth knowledge of the global marketplace as well as long-standing robust client relationships. As a senior underwriting specialist he places particular emphasis on portfolio management and technical pricing and has made outstanding contributions to product development both in reinsurance and direct insurance. Karl holds a PhD in Agricultural Policy from the University of Hohenheim.

Alan Tomlinson - Head of London Representative Office: Alan Tomlinson has been involved in reinsurance for over 35 years specializing in motor and liability reinsurance for more than 25 of those years. He has consistently and professionally contributed to the structure, price and interpretation of major reinsurance programmes for these classes at Novae, Liberty Syndicates and Converium. Alan is well known to intermediaries and clients alike. He joined Q-Re in October 2012 and heads up the London-based representative office. Alan qualified as a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute in 1981 and as a Chartered Insurer in 1989.

Rob Lee Womack - Underwriting Manager North America: RobLee Womack, Jr. began his professional career almost 30 years ago as a primary insurance underwriter in personal, commercial and auto business classes. After moving to reinsurance RobLee underwrote professional liability, long-tail casualty lines and property risk and catastrophe at companies such as CNA (Chicago) and CNA (UK). For the past 20 years his focus has been on leading and building teams of underwriters for short-tail property lines, while assisting in the development and build out of a number of Bermuda start-ups. He joined Q-Re in June 2012. RobLee graduated from the University of North Texas with a degree in Finance.