Fellowship Alumni

I enjoyed collaborating closely with my Cape Town counterparts as we assessed the high costs of flooding in informal settlements. It’s a complex problem with many direct and hidden impacts, but by combining our different skills sets, experiences, and perspectives we were able to take meaningful steps towards helping the most vulnerable Capetonians. It has been a rewarding and productive partnership.

It is inspiring to work with teams of people dedicated to keeping their cities safe and knowing we can help. The Lagos State Resilience Office team's enthusiasm and optimism is boundless. The city will find the best solution to the extreme water access crisis it faces. Collaboration between private and public entities is key - I am very proud of the part Howden and other private sector stakeholders are playing to help bring the players together to unlock the answers.

The Fellowship experience has been really rewarding, and working with the City of Norfolk has been fascinating. The City’s forward-thinking and innovative approach to climate resilience is impressive and has provided me with the opportunity to think big and creatively about the role of insurance in urban climate resilience. The skills and insights gained during the Fellowship will greatly enhance my work in advising project finance lenders on infrastructure projects.

Over the past few months, I’ve had an amazing experience working closelywith the talented teams at Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)and United Utilities (UU), and with the broader stakeholder groups including Electricity North West (ENW), Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), JBA, and Rebalance Earth. It has been incredibly rewarding to produce useful, concrete outputs, including providing UU with actionable insights for their adaptation and resilience-building investment strategy, as well as assisting the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government in establishing a framework for resilient investment planning at national and local levels

The Global Risk and Resilience Fellowship has been a tremendous opportunity both professionally and personally. Many communities have had to adapt to a new reality with climate related disasters, including wildfire. It is vital to address those issues and the cascade effects that follow, such as financial instability due to difficulties in accessing affordable property insurance for wildfire. The relationships that formed because of this Fellowship will continue to forge ideas, actions and adaptations to make Oakland and its counterparts in the Pacific Coast Collaborative more resilient against wildfire.

The Fellowship has been a wonderfully positive experience. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting fantastic colleagues who I likely would not have crossed paths with and collaborated with them on an interesting project. I have learned about parametric insurance on a large scale, which is something which I had not come across in my usual day to day role.

The Fellowship is an incredible opportunity to help tackle Lagos’s water resilience challenges. I have enjoyed meeting, learning from and connecting with a wide range of stakeholders in Lagos, each with a unique perspective and insight into the water risk landscape. The Fellowship has also been an opportunity to apply the skills I use every day in the insurance industry to a completely different context. I hope the city will benefit from the project outputs, as well as a continued partnership with insurance market stakeholders.

Working on the Cape Town Fellowship project has been an invaluable experience. The synergy established with the city of Cape Town allowed us to gather real, on-the-ground data from city departments, local communities, and NGOs, providing rich insights into the true cost of flooding in informal settlements. This direct access to a network of people and data has given us a much deeper, more accurate understanding of the impacts climate change has on Cape Town’s most vulnerable communities.

The Fellowship gave me valuable insight into the strength of collaboration between governments, businesses, and communities. The experience of developing a risk mitigation strategy for the city has equipped me with a toolkit of innovation and knowledge that can be shared within my home team. Being part of such a diverse and international team has enriched my understanding of how the global insurance industry can evolve to support communities in crisis. It’s been a privilege to work closely with and learn from our Howden team members worldwide.

Through the Fellowship project, I was able to use the general insurance knowledge I apply to my daily work to provide the Fellowship team with an insurance perspective when considering the impact of flood on United Utilities’ assets and Greater Manchester more broadly. I have had the opportunity to meet different people within Howden and outside the business, and I enjoyed learning about their thoughts on risk. Working with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority has been very insightful as it has given me the chance to see the work they do to help protect vulnerable communities.

There were so many positive aspects to the Fellowship, but the greatest was the opportunity to give back to Melaka by sharing knowledge, and working with others in the private sector to enable the city officials to take practical action to build Melaka’s resilience

I love Glasgow. I was born and bred here, and live here still. The Fellowship was a great opportunity to help my home city advance its resilience and net zero objectives. I am really pleased I was able to assist and work alongside an incredibly talented team in Glasgow City Council – the links we created will last long after the secondment has ended

My day job is in natural catastrophe underwriting. The Fellowship was a chance to think outside what I usually do and to meet different people with different perspectives on risk - how it is viewed, how it is measured, how people think about it - because there is a lot to learn.

The Fellowship was a chance to work with others in the insurance sector and the public officials from Greater Miami and the Beaches to develop an innovative solution to better protect the local communities that are most vulnerable to extreme weather events. It was a privilege to work together to build community resilience

Moving away from transactional broking has been on the table for me for the last 10 to 15 years, but in reality, would it really happen? This Fellowship was a great opportunity for that process to take place, and for me to be part of that change through a partnership that enables innovation and demonstrates the utility of insurance as a force for good.

Collaborating with Surat, one of India’s fastest-growing cities, during the Fellowship was a pleasure. I had the chance to learn and understand more about the diverse and interconnected risks facing the city’s waste management operations, and to inject an understanding of the future climatic exposures into the city’s plans to enhance its waste management resilience.