Future Urban Risk Landscapes and the Role of Insurance – #RiskConversations

Snigdha Garg is Senior Manager, Adaptation Research and Integration at C40, where she is responsible for managing adaptation research projects and mainstreaming adaptation across C40’s projects and programmes. Before joining C40, Snigdha graduated from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies with a Masters in Environmental Management. She previously worked with ICLEI South Asia for three years on building climate resilience strategies, disaster risk reduction, developing climate change mitigation and adaptation plans for cities, and bench-marking basic services against national standards for South Asian cities. She has experience in sustainability consulting, project management and urban resilience. In addition, she also holds a Masters of Environmental Studies from TERI University, India and a Bachelors of Science from Delhi University, India.

Arne Holzhausen is head of Economic Research’s Insurance, Wealth & ESG team at Allianz, Munich. He is responsible for analysing and forecasting global insurance and pension markets, monitoring worldwide private assets and liabilities and assessing the impact of ESG issues on economic and capital market outcomes. He regularly writes on economic trends impacting insurance including low yields, regulation, technology, and demographics.

Before joining Allianz in 2009, Arne has spent almost eight years with Dresdner Bank’s Economic Research. From 1995 to 2000, he was Assitant Professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies of the Free University of Berlin.

Arne holds a doctorate in Japanese studies and a diploma in Economics.

Cassidy Johnson is a Professor of Urbanism and Disaster Risk Reduction at the Bartlett Development Planning Unit at University College London in the United Kingdom. She researches, teaches, and publishes about disaster risk, post-disaster recovery and climate change adaptation and is particularly focused on improving the quality of life and livelihoods of low-income groups living in urban areas of the global South. Her work engages internationally with local communities, policy institutes and governments, and she recently authored a strategy paper for UK Research and Innovation on Risk and Insurance in Low-income and Informal Urban Environments. Her research spans across Asia and Africa, including Turkey, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi. 

Lykke Leonardsen has more than 25 years of experience in various fields of urban development – from regeneration to economic development and physical planning.

During her 13 years in the Technical and Environmental Administration in the City of Copenhagen she has been heading the development of the adaptation programs of the city which includes the adaptation plan, the citywide cloudburst management plan and the storm surge management plan. She has also worked with the development and implementation of the Climate Action Plan of the city – aiming to become carbon neutral by 2025.

Currently she is running the program for Sustainable and Resilient City Solutions in Copenhagen as an ambassador for Copenhagen’s climate solutions. The program aims at sharing Copenhagen’s results in the process of becoming carbon neutral and in implementing ambitious climate adaptation solutions.

Since 2020 Lykke Leonardsen has been seconded part-time to C40 as senior manager for the Water Safe Cities program, providing technical assistance to cities regarding climate change-related water challenges.

MODERATOR

Kai-Uwe Schanz was appointed Deputy Managing Director and Head of Research & Foresight of The Geneva Association in November 2019. Before joining The Geneva Association, Kai spent 12 years co-running a reinsurance-focused strategy, business development and communications consultancy, which he co-founded in 2007. During those 12 years, he served as an external advisor to The Geneva Association. From 2016 to 2018 he was a non-executive Member of the Board of Directors of Trust International Insurance and Reinsurance Company in Bahrain. Kai started his career in re/insurance in 1995, as a senior economist at Swiss Re, before moving to Hong Kong as the company’s chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region and returning to Zurich as Managing Director Global Communications Content. In 2004, he joined Converium (which was later acquired by SCOR) as Head of Corporate Development and Communications. Kai holds a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Konstanz (Germany) and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland). In 2003 he received a life-time appointment as Research Fellow at Peking University.