Profiles for
UNISDR Private Sector Alliance for Risk Sensitive Investment
Interim Board
As of August 2015
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Philippe Derieux
Deputy CEO
AXA Global P&C
is the Deputy CEO of AXA Global P&C. He has held several positions in the financial sector before joining AXA in
1997 as Shareholder Representative for Reinsurance and Large Risks subsidiaries. In 1999, he became
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AXA Cessions (reinsurance captive tool for the Group) and Head of
Group Property & Casualty Technical Department. In 2007 he moved to Switzerland as a Member of AXA
Winterthur’s Management Board in Switzerland and assumed the position of Head of Property & Casualty. He
was appointed Deputy CEO of AXA Global P&C, Group Reinsurance Officer and Member of the Group P&C
Board in 2011. Since 2008, he is also Vice Chairman of the General Insurance Committee at Insurance Europe.
Philippe is a graduate from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and has a PhD in Law. His mother tongue is
French. He is fluent in English and German.
Rowan Douglas
CEO Global Analytics/Chairman
Willis Group
Rowan Douglas is CEO Capital, Science & Policy Practice at Willis Group. Willis is a global risk advisor, insurance
and reinsurance broker with approximately 18,000 employees operating in more than 130 countries.
Previously, Rowan served on the board of Willis Re as CEO, Global Analytics. He also sits on the Executive
Committee of the International Insurance Society, New York.
Following appointments to a range of UN and World Bank related processes on resilience and insurance he was
elected as founding co-chair of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF) in April 2015. The IDF brings together
national and regional Governments, the global re/insurance sector, UN Agencies and other international
institutions to enable the development of insurance related capabilities and capacity to support disaster
resilience and the wider objectives of the Post-2015 Agenda.
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Rowan serves on the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science & Technology, the Natural Environment Research
Council and of the Royal Society's Working Group on Resilience to Extreme Weather.
In 2006 he founded and Chairs the Willis Research Network which brings together around fifty universities and
science institutions across the world to confront challenges of resilience, finance and sustainable growth
Following degrees in Geography at Durham (BA Hons) and Bristol (M.Phil) Universities, Rowan began his career
underwriting reinsurance at Lloyd’s Syndicate 1095 before founding the international risk information company
WIRE Limited in 1994 which was purchased by Willis in 2000.
In 2014, he received the Kenneth R Black Distinguished Service Award from the International Insurance Society.
Peter Höppe
Head Geo Risks Research
Munich Re
Prof. Dr. Dr. Peter Höppe Head Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Centre, Munich Re Prof. Höppe joined
Munich Re in 2004. Currently he is heading the Munich Re division “Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate
Centre”. Before joining Munich Re Prof. Höppe has worked in different institutes at the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity in Munich and as a post doc at Yale University (USA). Most time of his university career Prof. Höppe
spent at the Insitute of Bioclimatology and Applied Meteorology and the Institute of Occupational and
Environmental Medicine.
His academic education is in meteorology (Masters and PhD) and human biology (PhD). His main areas of
research have been effects of atmospheric processes (heat/cold, UV radiation, air pressure fluctuations) and air
pollutants (ozone, particles) on humans and the general assessment of environmental risks. Currently his
research focus is on trends of natural catastrophes and their drivers as well as on climate change effects on
insurance industry in general. Prof. Höppe is member of many scientific societies and advisory boards, from
1999 to 2002 he has been the President of the International Society of Biometeorology.
He has held expert functions in different UN-Organisations. He is the Chairman of the Munich Climate
Insurance Initiative, which he has founded in 2005. In 2007 Prof. Höppe has been appointed as Climate Change
Advisor of the Bavarian State Government and Chair of the “Finance-Forum: Climate Change” of the high-tech
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Strategy of the German Federal Government. In 2009 he has been one of the initiators of the Desertec
Industrial Initiative. In 2014 he became Chairman of the “Münchener Universitätsgesellschaft”.
Aris Papadopoulos
Chairman
STET; Founder, Resilience Action Fund
Aris Papadopoulos is the retired CEO of Titan America and is presently Board Chairman of ST Equipment &
Technology and an advisor to Titan Group. He has over 35 years of industrial experience, twenty of which he
served as Chief Executive. He founded the non-profit Resilience Action Fund, aiming to advance transparency,
awareness and education for greater disaster resilience in the built environment. He authored of the recent
eBook: ‘Resilience – The Ultimate Sustainability: Lessons from Failing to Develop a Stronger and Safer Built
Environment’. He was the first chair (2011-2013) of the UN International Strategy on Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) Private Sector Advisory Group. He was founding chair of the Concrete Joint Sustainability Initiative and
chaired the Portland Cement Association. In 2013 he received the American Concrete Institute’s Sustainability
Award.
He earned Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard
University. In 2015 he was appointed Distinguished Expert in Resilience at Florida International University’s
(FIU) Extreme Events Institute, where he advises on urban resilience research and educational programs.
Oz Ozturk
Partner
PwC
Oz is an Advisory Partner in PwC UK firm. Oz holds a Master’s degree from Stanford’s Graduate
School of Business and is a chartered accountant. He has over 20 years’ experience in Management
Consulting having worked for Coopers, PwC, and IBM managing Supply Chain & Technology practices
within each organization, supporting clients across diverse geographies and industries.
He has also held leadership positions within industry as CEO for a supply chain outsourcing
organization, CIO for a logistics organization and as VP of Solutions for an international Supply Chain
software vendor.
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Dale Sands (Vice-Chair AR!SE)
Senior Vice President & Technology & Practice Director, Environment
AECOM
Mr. Dale Sands is Senior Vice President with AECOM Technology and Global Practices Director for the
Environment business line. Mr. Sands has led cross business unit working groups that have client facing
implications in serving both public and private organizations. Mr. Sands has worked for AECOM, and
predecessor companies for 14 years, and has both lived and worked internationally with experience in more
than 40 countries. Mr. Sands is leading the Global Practices for Environment which includes Air Quality,
Environmental Health and Safety, Impact Assessment & Permitting, Remediation Engineering and Construction,
Specialty & Emerging Technologies, Water & Natural Resources and Waste Services.
Mr. Sands is an invited speaker to many national environmental conferences and has over 35 years of
consulting experience in environmental matters, with more than 35 publications or presentations. Mr. Sands
resides in Chicago. Mr. Sands earned a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Central Michigan University (Mt.
Pleasant, Michigan), a M.S. in Environmental Health Sciences from The University of Michigan (Ann Arbor,
Michigan) and a Masters in Business Administration from California State University (Hayward, California). Prior
to joining AECOM Mr. Sands has held senior leadership positions with global organizations such as ABB Ltd
(Zurich, Switzerland), CH2M Hill (Denver, Colorado), Environmental Resources Management (London, England)
and McKesson Corporation (San Francisco, California).
Margareta Wahlström (Co-Chair AR!SE)
Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Disaster
Risk Reduction.
UNISDR
In November 2008, the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the appointment of
Margareta Wahlström as his first Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction.
Ms Wahlström has extensive experience in both disaster relief operations and disaster risk management, with
the United Nations system and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
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Her broad experience spans conflict and non-conflict emergencies, and addressing long-term issues of
sustainable development.
Ms Wahlström is also the head of UNISDR, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, that is the
focal point in the United Nations system for the coordination of disaster reduction and to ensure synergies
among the disaster reduction activities of the United Nations system and regional organizations and activities
in socio‐economic and humanitarian fields. Under the SRSG’s leadership, UNISDR supports the implementation
of the "Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to
Disasters" and now the "Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030" throughout the world.
Margareta Wahlström's previous appointments include:

Coordinator of the Independent Panel on Safety and Security of UN Personnel and Premises, chaired
by Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, 2008

Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and Assistant-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 2004-2008, and United Nations Special Coordinator for
Humanitarian Assistance to the Tsunami-Affected Communities, 2004-2005

Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Relief, Recovery and Rehabilitation, United
Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan , 2002-2004

Under-Secretary-General for Disaster Response and Operations and Deputy Director Operations,
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 1995-2000
Sandra Wu, Wen-Hsiu (Co-Chair AR!SE)
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer
Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Since June 2009, Wu has served as President of Kokusai Kogyo Holdings Co., Ltd., the holding company of Japan
Asia Group, an entity consisting of 54 consolidated group companies with clients in 30 countries and 380 local
governments. The core of the group is Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd., a spatial information consulting firm. As of May
2013, Wu has become the Chairperson and CEO of Kokusai Kogyo Co., Ltd. She is also the President of Japan
Asia Holdings Limited.
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Wu worked at a trading company in Taiwan before joining Nomura Securities Hong Kong in 1993. After
realizing several key mergers and acquisitions as project manager in an investment company in Hong Kong, she
co-founded and became Vice President of Japan Asia Holdings Limited in 1999. In 2001, she established Japan
Asia Holdings (Japan) Limited and became its Representative Director. Japan Asia Holdings (Japan) Limited
evolved into Japan Asia Securities Co., Ltd. where Wu served as President from 1999 – becoming the first
woman to head a Tokyo Stock Exchange member firm – and into Japan Asia Holdings Limited. She has been
serving as a member of the board of directors of the Nippon Keidanren since 2009.
Wu has a BA from Department of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan University, diplomas in Accounting for
Managers by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Personnel Management by the Hong Kong Management
Association, and has completed the Advance Management Program at the
Harvard Business School.
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