Dr. Etti Baranoff is an Emeritus Distinguished Career Professor of Insurance, Risk Management, and Finance at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. In teaching and writing about enterprise risk management and leading teams in the development of risk insights into large corporations, she integrated all aspects necessary for CRO to lead any entity. She promoted the holistic risk management tools and brought this strong foundation to thousands of students who have been placed in leadership positions in financial institutions, insurance organizations, and businesses’ risk management departments. As an insurance and risk research expert she led complex projects and inspired excellence in innovation and building appropriate risk management concepts, underwriting, and models. She partnered in establishing the Risk and Consequences Expert Advisory Group. Her deep knowledge and understanding of the fields of risk and insurance and financial stability within the regulatory framework awarded her the external research director position (from 2010 to 2016) for the Insurance and Finance Program of the Geneva Association, the insurance Think Tank based in Switzerland. She accomplished great visibility and influence with her studies such as “An Analysis of the AIG Case - Understanding Systemic Risk and its Relation to Insurance” and the IF bi-annual newsletters on the topic of SIFIs (systemically Important Financial Institutions) as advised by the FSB and the global banking and insurance regulators. Besides being impactful in solvency issues, risk-based-capital, Basel III, and rate and form regulation, she is an expert in all insurance lines and operations including underwriting, sustainability, ESG measures, recent effects in health insurance, InsurTech, enterprise risk management, performance, diversification, and specializations. Her work is published in prominent journals, including The Journal of Risk and Insurance, The Journal of Banking and Finance, The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance, The Journal of Insurance Regulation, American Journal of Managed Care, among others. She also authored and co-authored textbooks in risk management and insurance.

Baranoff’s strength and unique expertise includes insurance regulation as she was a Texas insurance regulator for 12 years. Her career also includes experience with a life insurer, a Texas public risk pool, expert advice, and consulting. A multiple-time winner of the Research Paper Award from the International Insurance Society and the Thales grant (in Greece), she has co-authored more than 80 papers relating to risk management and insurance of all sectors. She is the VP of Finance—Treasurer of Congregation Agudas Achim in Austin and a Board member of NCJW of Austin. She earned a PhD in Finance with minors in Risk Management and Statistics from the University of Texas at Austin. She resides in Austin Texas and is a native of Israel.

Dr. Patrick L. Brockett holds the Gus Wortham Chair in Risk Management and Insurance in the University of Texas-Austin’s McCombs School of Business. He holds joint Professor appointments in the departments of Finance, Mathematics, and Information, Risk and Operations Management. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the American Statistical Association, the Royal Statistical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Institute for Risk Management. He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. He served as editor of The Journal of Risk and Insurance for 9 years, and has served on the Board of Directors and as President of the American Risk and Insurance Association. Currently he is Editor of the North American Actuarial Journal.

Dr. Brockett’s articles have won awards from the American Risk and Insurance Association, the American Statistical Association, the Society of Actuaries, the International Insurance Society, the Casualty Actuarial Society, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, as well as from the Faculty of Actuaries of Scotland, and Institute of Actuaries in England. His most recent research awards are the 2017 Spencer L. Kimball Prize from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, and the 2017 Best North American Actuarial Journal Article Award from the Society of Actuaries.

Dr. Brockett served on three National Academy of Sciences research committees on the National Flood Insurance Program, and served as an integral member of a University of Texas research team helping the Texas General Land Office in modeling damages from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. He continues to serve as a member of the Board of Directors of the Texas Property and Casualty Guaranty Association. Dr. Brockett has published 2 books, 5 monographs, and over 185 scholarly articles in a variety of journals across many disciplines. He has directed PhD students in Finance, Mathematics, and Risk Management and Insurance.

Prof. Yehuda Kahane is a Fellow (and trustee) of the World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS). He is the 2011 recipient of the prestigious Insurance Founders Award by the International Insurance Society, for his contribution to the theory, practice, and education in risk management and insurance. In that same year, he was also awarded for his lifetime achievements by the Israeli insurance industry. During the last 2 decades his focus was mainly on the environmental and societal risks that threaten humankind’s survival on planet Earth. He offers practical, feasible solutions to mitigate these risks, based on the retirement and insurance industry (both private plans and social security programs). Insurers hold the key to the solution, since they are the only sources of long-term capital in the world. Kahane showed how insurers can globally finance the trillions of dollars that are needed annually for reaching the world Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that all countries accepted during the Paris 2015 summit. He showed how these investments can yield the high rates of return that are needed in order to create attractive retirement plans, and at the same time to handle two other critical risks: the employment and retirement insecurity of millennials.

Kahane is a Professor (Emeritus) of the Coller School of Management and the Porter School of Environmental Studies, and headed until recently the Institute for Business and the Environment at Tel-Aviv University. He was the founding dean of the first academic school of insurance in Israel. During almost 5 decades he taught and researched in many universities around the world (including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of Florida, University of Toronto, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Texas (Austin), and others). All his degrees are from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem—BA (economics and statistics), MA (business), PhD (finance). He is a life and general insurance actuary (Fellow of the Israel Actuarial Association, The International Actuarial Association and others). He is a prolific writer, and served on the editorial board of the major journals in the area. He has a broad experience in sustainability, life insurance and retirement plans, ratemaking, datamining, social security. catastrophes, natural hazards, auto insurance, agricultural risks, portfolios, financial risks, digital currencies, technological forecasting, and long-term planning.</p

Prof. Kahane is an active academic and business entrepreneur. He has a rich consulting background, and headed important committees on insurance matters. He was a major owner of three technological incubators and initiated technological startup companies in a variety of areas. A chairperson of the YK Center for the New Economy, he is also involved in philanthropic activities.

Dr. Dalit Baranoff is a business historian specializing in the history of risk and insurance in the United States. Her dissertation, “Shaped By Risk: The American Fire Insurance Industry, 1790–1920,” was awarded the Herman E. Krooss Dissertation Prize by the Business History Conference. Since receiving her PhD from Johns Hopkins University, she has taught U.S. history, researched and written about diverse historical, business, and insurance-related topics, ranging from nineteenth century plantations to the dot.com era of the late 1990s/early 2000s. She has interviewed executives for corporate history projects and provided expert historical research in legal cases involving insurance. She also has extensive experience conducting archival research in government, corporate, and academic repositories.

Dr. Baranoff is a fellow at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. An independent scholar, researcher, writer, and editor, Dr. Baranoff’s recent academic work focuses on the U.S. health insurance industry, where she frequently collaborates with coauthor Dr. Etti Baranoff.

Dr. Dalit Baranoff writes about insurance at https://riskandconsequences.org/