Climate Risk and Resilience

Vipul leads the global development of Energy Transition advisory and insurance solutions at Howden. He helps to enable complex transition pathways, with particular focus on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), Low Carbon Fuels (LCF) and Carbon Credits (CC). He is responsible for shaping and delivering integrated insurance advisory and de-risking solutions for large-scale Energy Transition projects, be it in-country or transboundary. His work involves engagement with project developers, government regulators and financial institutions to align technical, regulatory and financial considerations across the project lifecycle. He provides strategic risk advisory to stakeholders and works closely with leading global insurers to structure and develop bespoke insurance solutions that address novel and evolving risks, enabling them in progressing towards investment decisions and long-term operational viability.
Prior to joining Howden, Vipul worked at the Singapore Economic Development Board, a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. As a Manager in the Energy and Resources division, he was responsible for facilitating investment opportunities and supporting negotiations with major Energy and Renewables companies, contributing to Singapore’s positioning as a leading global hub for business, innovation and talent. His role also encompassed Energy Transition strategy development, where he was actively involved in assessing and advancing emerging areas including CCS, LCF, and CC. Through this work, he supported policy formulation and industry engagement efforts aimed at accelerating Singapore’s transition towards a lower-carbon energy system.
Vipul began his career at Marsh, where he spent eight years as a Senior Risk Broker within the Energy Practice. He advised clients across onshore energy, power and renewable projects, covering both construction and operational phases. During his tenure, he also led the development of Marsh’s Offshore Subsea Cable construction programme. His experience at Marsh provided him with a strong foundation in technical risk assessment, insurance structuring and stakeholder management across large-scale projects.

Sandrine leads our Non-Financial Institutions team in the Financial Lines division, specializing in Directors’ & Officers’ Liability (D&O), Professional Indemnity (PI), Crime, and Cyber insurance solutions. With two decades of experience at leading international broking firms, she brings a unique blend of technical expertise and collaborative leadership to deliver innovative, market-responsive financial lines strategies tailored to client needs.

Merrilyn heads the Strategic Solutions team in Singapore, specialising in property and casualty risks. She is responsible for bid management, transitional management, advisory, design, and implementation of general insurance programs for corporate clients. Merrilyn has over 20 years of experience in international broking firms focusing on new business development and placements. Her experience has enabled her to structure cost-effective multinational insurance solutions for major corporate clients in both the private and government sectors.

Tony has over 25 years global experience in strategy advisory, risk management, disclosure and programme delivery, with over 17 years as a leader and expert in climate change, environment and sustainability issues affecting businesses and financial institutions.  

He joined Howden from the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) where he was Executive Director and Head of Transition Finance. He was responsible for delivering practitioner guidance on how financial institutions can achieve their Net Zero in their emissions reduction's targets. This included defining transition finance, transition planning and use of sectoral pathways and scenarios to work with counterparties on assessing and achieving their own emissions targets. He was also part of the delivery group for the UK’s gold standard on transition planning, and a reviewer of the World Energy Outlook 2022.   
Prior to GFANZ, Tony was Senior Director at WTW in the Climate Resilience Hub responsible for working with clients on their transition risk and decarbonisation strategy, including the creation of the corporate accreditation of Paris accord alignment, Climate Transition Pathways.   

Tony’s other experience includes 5 years as Global Technical Director at CDP (formerly known as Climate Disclosure Project), Director of Sustainability Consulting (EMEA and APAC) at Infosys, Consulting Director Sustainability and Head of Environment for Logica. 
Tony also is on the Global Association of Risk Professional’s (GARP) Sustainability and Climate Risk Certification advisory committee, a fellow of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Commerce and Manufacture (RSA).

Marc Lehmann is Head of Physical Climate & Nat Cat Risk Advisory for Howden’s Climate Risk and Resilience team in London. His team provides a wide range of bespoke modelling and engineering services to help Howden clients assess and manage their global asset and operational risks, both for present day and also in the future to account for impacts due to longer term climate change.

Marc has over 20 years experience within the insurance and risk management sectors. He joined Howden from Jupiter Intelligence where he was Head of Business Development & Partnerships for UK/Europe providing physical climate data and analytical services to a wide range of international clients. Prior to this Marc held several senior level roles across the re/insurance markets including Head of Client Service Development at AIG and Global Head of Natural Catastrophe Risk Management services for corporate clients whilst at insurance broker Willis Towers Watson.

Marc has master’s degrees in structural engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (ETHZ) and Imperial College, London.

Nadine is responsible for the climate and nature-related liability work, including stakeholder engagement, collaboration with legal and academic partners, development of advisory and analytics products and services, team management, and the delivery of client projects.
Nadine advises on how legal risks, that may relate to both low-carbon transition risks and physical climate risks, can arise from new climate-related regulations, law and litigation, as well as compliance with existing law and may impact on the business and financial services sectors.

With degrees in business and environmental law, peace and security studies with a focus on climate change and security issues, from University of Trier and University of Hamburg, Nadine brings an interdisciplinary skill set to complex challenges.
Nadine combines her legal expertise with over 15 years’ experience in climate change adaptation.

In 2021 Nadine established and led the Climate Liability unit at WTW’s Climate and Resilience Hub to respond to a growing demand for climate-related legal risk measurement and management services. She was previously a Senior Risk Advisor at Acclimatise Group Ltd.
Before joining Acclimatise, Nadine worked with GIZ and provided advisory services to the German Federal Ministries BMZ and BMU concerning issues of climate change policy and finance. She has extensive expertise in climate change adaptation in the context of technical development cooperation and contributed to the development of National Adaptation Plans and the implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions.

Charlie has a background in finance and technology.
He began his career at JPMorgan where in 2006 he helped start the Environmental Markets desk. There he focused on the origination, structuring and sales of carbon credits and built a successful global team with a profitable carbon portfolio generating hundreds of millions in revenue.

He then launched Trillion Fund, the first peer-to-peer renewable energy funding platform before founding Stowga, a warehouse marketplace that as CEO he led through to exit. At the time of the sale Stowga had thousands of warehouses across the globe operating on every continent. Most recently he led the commercial team at Toucan Protocol, a high growth blockchain startup that pioneered the tokenisation of carbon credits.

Andy is the Head of Energy Transition at Howden Group where he supports the various specialist teams across Howden to:

engage in strategic conversations with C suite executives about capital allocation, emerging risks and financing across the low carbon sector;
understand the risks associated with emerging business models and new technologies; and
develop innovative insurance solutions to address these risks through mitigation or risk transfer to aid financing and drive capital flows

Andy is a former senior partner and energy sector lead at KPMG where he served as a partner for 17 years. As a deal advisory partner for many years Andy’s clients were drawn from corporates, infrastructure funds, major Asian investors and private equity houses. In his last role he was Global Lead Partner for bp p.I.c. where he and his team supported the start of their journey to become an Integrated Energy Company.

Dan Fairweather leads the Food Systems and Biodiversity within the Howden Climate Risk and Resilience Team. Dan has over 20 years’ experience in dealing with agricultural risks, mainly focussed on the aquaculture and livestock sectors. Starting out as a specialist Lloyd’s broker, Dan then went on to be the senior aquaculture underwriter at RSA for 7 years before retuning to broking, heading up the Livestock and Aquaculture Divisions at WTW and then Gallagher Speciality.

Latterly Dan has explored the use of parametric insurance and novel insurance products to incentivise environmental stewardship and support small-scale farmers and climate exposed communities. This work has led to a number of work streams with global environmental NGO’s to assess the role of finance and risk in the world of conservation.

Dan is increasingly looking at the regulation emerging around Nature and Biodiversity and exploring what can be done in the field of Biodiversity Credits and Biodiversity Net Gain and how risk management and insurance can support this. This work looks to learn from, and build on, the carbon credit market initiatives and emerging regulation.

Dan is a trained fish biologist, and is also currently a trustee for The Shark Trust, a global charity for the conservation of sharks, skates and rays.

Paula joined Howden Group’s Climate Risk and Resilience team in July 2023, based in NYC.

Before, she led the WTW’s Climate and Resilience Hub Americas Practice, working towards societal climate resilience by creating solutions to large scale and multi-faceted challenges with corporate and public sector stakeholders across physical, transition and climate liability risks via strategic advisory and innovative risk finance and risk transfer mechanisms. Prior to WTW, Paula served as Sr. Microinsurance Specialist at Swiss Re, where she worked on the creation and operationalization of the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organization (MiCRO) and led multiple implementations of innovative insurance solutions in public-partnership settings. 

Paula also serves as Advisor to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator through her appointment at the National Advisory Council.  Until August 2023, Paula served as Director of the Global Board of ARISE, United Nation’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR).

Paula is a global expert on climate and natural disaster risk management solutions for the private, sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, and the international development sectors. She has a proven record spearheading global financial inclusion and humanitarian initiatives and conceiving of and executing strategic international business.

She is a multi-cultural professional and has worked in projects across the Americas, in Africa and in Asia. Paula holds a postgraduate Degree in Finance and a Graduate Degree of Economics. 

10 years industry experience with Hiscox and ACII qualified. Experienced commercial underwriter and underwriting manager, most recently Head of Underwriting Insight at Hiscox (right hand person to Global CUO).

Academic background in sustainability with a degree in Environmental Geography and laterally CISL Business Sustainability Management certification and pioneered sustainable underwriting strategy at Hiscox.
Joined Howden Markets to lead the Climate Risk & Resilience Markets team. Responsible for working with insurers to develop insurance capabilities to de-risk the future and protect our clients, through market engagement, strategic partnerships and consulting.

Passionate about sustainability engagement and education, as well as supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to become more sustainable.

Carlos is a Swiss-Colombian-US citizen, who holds a degree in Economics from the University of Bern, Switzerland.

In 1989, Carlos joined Swiss Re in Zurich starting a career that included P&L responsibility for Andean countries in LatAm, Office Head in Colombia and Mexico, before moving to Armonk, NY, as Commercial Director for Latin America. In 2011, he was ap-pointed Head of the Miami office, a start-up of Swiss Re in that city with focus on Latin America.

As of September 1st, 2014, Carlos was appointed CEO of MiCRO. Under his leadership, MiCRO has become a pioneer in the region in introducing index-based microinsurance that helps vulnerable and underserved populations recover more quickly from losses caused by natural disasters.

With Howden’s acquisition of MiCRO in May 2024, Carlos will lead MiCRO to “the next level”, one that sees inclusive insurance get the necessary traction to make significant contributions to sustainably closing the protection gap where most urgently needed.

Kim leads Howden’s Climate Risk and Resilience Client Solutions Team and is responsible for bringing together the solutions and services that best meet the needs of our clients. Kim was previously at WTW’s Climate and Resilience Hub where, as part of the Financial Services Business Development Team, she led on product development, outreach and advisory to the asset management, retirement and life insurance businesses.

Prior to this, she spent over 11 years in Investment Management and was the International COO for the multi-asset investments group at J.P Morgan Asset Management where she led the team’s sustainability agenda including ESG integration, the uplift of existing and development of new sustainable products, and the implementation of sustainability-related regulations and initiatives including SFDR, MiFID sustainability preferences, EU Taxonomy, SDR and TCFD..

Since joining Howden in 2013, Isabelle has held a number of roles. Most notably, building the Howden One network, which extended the Group’s global reach to 100+ territories. In 2022 Isabelle was appointed Chief of Staff and Head of Planning for the Howden Broking Division.  During that period, Isa focused on aligning and organising strategic priorities with other members of the senior leadership team.

In October 2023 Isa joined the Climate Risk & Resilience team as Chief Commercial Officer, to promote our CRR team and embed its proposition across Howden internationally. 

Prior to joining Howden, Isabelle has held a number of positions at KPMG (9 years, Paris, London and NYC) and Marsh Mclennan (6 years) where she was first appointed as Financial Controller for EMEA and then C.O.O for the UK Affinity Division.   Subsequently she spent 3 years at an Insurance provider start-up (Asurion Europe) as Launch Director responsible for the full implementation of business solutions including IT.

Isabelle is both a French and British national, originally from the island of Martinique in the French Caribbean.

Rowan has been a pioneer in the field of climate risk and insurance for over 20 years. He led the foundation of the Insurance Development Forum with UN, World Bank and Industry leaders and incubated the award-winning Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment. Previously Rowan served on the board of Willis Re as CEO Analytics and founded the Willis Research Network in 2006.
Beyond insurance Rowan was appointed to the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science & Technology 2011-2016 and served on the UK Green Finance Task Force. In 2016 he was made a CBE for services to the economy for risk, insurance and sustainable growth.

Rowan read Geography at Durham and Bristol Universities and lives and works in London.

Andrew leads and develops Climate Risk and Resilience relationship with clients, working across Howden business and from within the large and complex client team.

This follows 7 years in the insurance industry heading global client relationships for the understanding, the analysis and the mitigation of risk, including geopolitics and climate. Leading large client accounts, he has worked with business executives and respective c-suites of various sectors and geographies, helping to qualify and quantify risk and to identify and manage the risk transfer solutions. This included building relations with industry groups, research organisations and international structures. A speaker at geopolitical and strategic security forums and actively engaged in thought leadership.  

This follows 32 years in the UK Armed Forces as a senior officer experienced in strategy, risk mitigation and international relations, working the full remit of threat mitigation, strategic risk and crisis response, including geopolitics and climate security. His roles included both risk owner and senior leader across international and defence tasks and in multiple geographies, NATO, the United Nations and with various levels of Industry. Bi-lateral mentor and advisor and responsibility for delivering formal training.   
Andrew has a KCL Master’s in Defence Studies, a CMI Diploma in Strategic Direction and Leadership and has completed the UK Defence Academy senior course in Strategic Leadership.  

Anthony is a well-known global leader in the fields of climate finance, law, international policy development, philanthropy and sustainability where he has worked since 1990. He speaks and writes widely on these topics. In 2014 Anthony was invited by the then UN Secretary General to address the UN Climate Summit from the UN General Assembly Hall.

In additional to his role as Deputy Chair for Howden’s Climate Risk & Resilience team he is currently the Senior Strategic Advisor at the Inevitable Policy Response (IPR), Adjunct Professor at the Singapore Institute for Technology, Chair of the Climate Action Advisory Board, Co-Chair of the Carbon Tracker Advisory Board, Member of the Climate Bonds Advisory Board and member of the Editorial Board of the journal Carbon & Climate Law Review (CCLR). He is a former Executive Fellow at the World Economic Forum's Centre for Nature and Climate, Executive Director at the Mission Possible Partnership, CEO at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, Global Head, Climate Finance and Sustainability & Partner at the Global Law Firm, Norton Rose Fulbright and General Counsel to the €1bn climate fund at Climate Change Capital.

His experience, passion, consistent delivery and profile have helped him to develop a leading reputation in these fields. He brings a long-term, strategic perspective to all his roles. Combining this with his legal expertise, proven diplomacy skills, work in the energy, banking, finance and NGO sectors, scientific training and collaborative style he is a highly effective leader who has proven his ability to identify key new areas of relevance for the corporate sector and to grow multiple organisations and new business lines in response.