Longevity 21 Plenary Speakers

Douglas Anderson is the founder of Club Vita (www.clubvita.net) which specialises in applying modern data science techniques to innovate in longevity and mortality risk management.  Club Vita is currently embarking on an exciting new chapter, collecting longevity data in the United States, its third country.  The smarter collection and structuring of data enables more cost-effective ways both to reduce the risks of financing in later life and to help our societies face up to the challenges of ageing populations. He passionately believes that an international longevity “currency” would increase the security of pension promises.

Douglas has thirty years’ experience in practicing as a consulting actuary, across a diverse spectrum of engagements.  He is a fellow of the UK’s Institute of Actuaries, and a Chartered Enterprise Risk Actuary.  Douglas lives in Edinburgh, with his wife and two teenage children.  To stay fit, Douglas enjoys cycling and skiing, and has recently taken up running to suit his nomadic lifestyle.

Michael Anderson is a longevity and DB pensions specialist with over 18 years’ experience. He currently leads longevity research within the Enterprise Biometric Pricing and Longevity Insights team at RGA and is responsible for the review and development of assumptions and guidance used for pricing longevity worldwide. He is based in London.

He was previously Head of Longevity at Canada Life in the UK, leading a team of actuaries and actuarial students focused on developing and refining UK longevity best estimate assumptions, updating and maintaining the longevity partial internal model for Solvency II, as well as the catastrophe mortality partial internal model. Prior to this he was a consultant at Hymans Robertson, with a strong focus on pension risk transfer activity, advising on transaction structuring, carrying out market broking, and managing transaction implementations primarily of pensioner buy-ins (but also longevity swaps and buy-outs). As part of this work, he became an FCA approved person, providing regulated advice on several transactions to pension scheme trustees. He also provided a range of pensions advice to trustee and corporate clients regarding funding strategy, risk management and actuarial valuations. Earlier in his career he was an actuarial student at PwC after working in market risk at the investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort

Patrick Cheung is a Senior Vice President and Head of Longevity Product at RGA.  He is based in London.  He leads a broad range of initiatives around longevity products, risks, assumptions, data and modelling. Patrick has been with the company since 2012.   Prior to RGA, Patrick worked in the pension consultancy industry and for insurance companies in the annuity area.

Patrick holds a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Applied Finance and a MSc in Financial Engineering.  He is a Fellow of the Institute & Faculty of Actuaries.

Annamaria Colao is a full Professor of Endocrinology at the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University of Naples, and Director of the Integrated Care Department of Endocrinology, Diabetology, Andrology, and Nutrition. Vice President of the Italian National Health Council, currently in office. Coordinator of national and international research projects with scientific activity characterised by the publication of over 1000 original articles in international journals (Hirsch Index 152). She has published over one hundred treatises, manuals, book chapters and monographs. She is at the top of the list of Top Italian Scientists and is Italy's Top Woman Scientist. She is responsible for Italy in the European ENDO-ERN (European Reference Network) for the study of rare endocrine diseases in adults, coordinating the regional center at the Federico II University Hospital, where she is also responsible for the European center of excellence ENETS (for the study of neuroendocrine tumors) and the center of excellence for the diagnosis and treatment of obesity CIBO (accredited with SIO and EASO). She was president of the National Council of Scientific Research Guarantors at the Ministry of University and Research. President of the European Society of Neuroendocrinology for the two-year period 2016-2018 and President-elect of the Italian Society of Endocrinology for the two-year period 2021-2023 (the first woman in the history of the Society).
Founder of Campus Salute Onlus (www.campussalute.it), a non-profit association dedicated to health. She is the author of several books contributing to scientific and cultural dissemination.

Guy Coughlan has over three decades of experience in pensions, investments and risk management. He is currently Chief Operating Officer at Clota Varde, a corporate finance boutique focused on impact investment. He is also a member of the Advisory Board at Longitude Solutions and a non-executive director of J.P. Morgan Pension Trustees.

Guy’s career spans investment and risk advisory, pension advisory and pension management. He spent 17 years at J.P. Morgan where he was a Managing Director holding different global, US and European roles, finishing as co-head of European Pension Advisory.

Guy was then Chief Risk and Analytics Officer at Pacific Global Advisors, a US pension investment advisor and fiduciary manager.  Most recently he spent nearly eight years at the University Superannuation Scheme (USS), a UK pension plan with £90bn of assets as at 31 March 2022. At USS he held the positions of Chief Risk Officer, Valuation Programme Executive and Senior Strategic Advisor, serving on the executive committees of both USS and its investment management subsidiary.

Guy has a D.Phil (i.e., PhD) from Oxford University, an MBA from Henley Business School (UK) and a BSc (Hons) from the University of Western Australia.

Cobus Daneel is a senior actuary and longevity specialist with over 20 years’ experience. He recently joined RGA’s Enterprise Biometric Pricing team responsible for developing global demographic assumptions and associated guidance for pricing longevity and mortality business. He is a member of the International Actuarial Association’s Mortality Forum and until April 2026 was the chair of the CMI’s mortality projections committee responsible for the CMI Mortality Projections Model.

Prior to that Cobus was a pensions actuary based in WTW’s Leeds office where he led the specialist team responsible for setting longevity assumption guidance for their scheme actuaries, their postcode mortality model and centralised experience analyses.

Cara Dowell is a Data Science Actuary in RGA’s Enterprise Biometric Pricing team. Cara is responsible for building and maintaining predictive models for longevity across several RGA’s longevity markets.  Cara has previous experience at RGA reviewing client experience studies, conducting third party data research, and contributing to mortality improvement research. Prior to joining RGA in 2018, Cara had three years of actuarial experience with John Hancock. Cara is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries and received a bachelor’s degree in statistics from Harvard University.

Craig Gillespie, Head of Life & Alternative Credit Portfolio Management, Leadenhall Capital Partners LLP , brings over 17 years of investment experience in life (re)insurance markets. Craig joined Leadenhall Capital Partners in November 2015 as a Portfolio Manager within the Life Investments team, became a Partner in January 2019 and has led the Life and Alternative Credit Portfolio Management team since January 2020. Prior to joining Leadenhall, Craig spent six years at Swiss Re in London, where he held a variety of actuarial roles focused on capital solutions and longevity transactions. During his time at Swiss Re, Craig qualified as a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries in 2012, specialising in life insurance and investments. Craig holds a First Class Honours degree in Actuarial Science from Heriot-Watt University and completed a year-long exchange in Actuarial Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Sheila Harney is Head of Risk Solutions for Canada Life Reinsurance in Europe. Over the past ten years, she has led a wide variety of transactions including successfully executing a range of large longevity swaps, ongoing flow treaties and a variety of asset reinsurance solutions. Prior to this, Sheila was a Director in Pacific Life Re’s longevity pricing team and a Product and Valuation Actuary at CNP Europe Life. She started her career as a consultant with Willis Towers Watson, qualifying as an actuary in 2010.

Leonie Kinold is Head of Life & Health Retrocession at SCOR, based in Cologne. She leads the global retrocession team responsible for sourcing and managing external capacity worldwide. The team plays a dual role: supporting SCOR’s markets in expanding and enhancing reinsurance solutions for clients, while developing tailored retrocession strategies to protect SCOR’s capital against specific risks, including catastrophe and pandemic exposures.

Leonie joined SCOR in January 2011 as an actuary in the Competitive Advantage team, following the completion of her Master’s degree in Econometrics and Operations Research, with a specialization in Insurance Mathematics, from Maastricht University in 2010. She obtained her DAV actuarial qualification in 2013. Between 2014 and 2016, she served as Global Strategic Project Manager, contributing to a comprehensive strategic review across SCOR’s global markets before transitioning to the Retrocession team, where she has held her current leadership role since 2017. Outside of her professional responsibilities, Leonie is a mother of two children, born in 2018 and 2021.

Richard D MacMinn , BA, MA, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow at The University of Texas and the National Chengchi University. He held the Edmondson-Miller Chair in Insurance and Financial Services at Illinois State University from 2002 to 2015. He held the Swiss Re Chair in the Management of Risk at the University of Nottingham from 2000 to 2002. From 1998 through 2006, he was editor of the Journal of Risk and Insurance, the lead journal globally on insurance and risk management, published by the American Risk and Insurance Association. In addition, he was an associate editor for the Journal of Risk and Insurance, the Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, and the Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance. Professor MacMinn served as a board member of the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association from 2000-2003, as a board member for the American Risk and Insurance Association from 2003-2006, and is or was a member of the American Risk and Insurance Association, Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association, European Group of Risk and Insurance Economists, Southern Risk and Insurance Association, Western Risk and Insurance Association, American Economic Association and American Finance Association. He has published in journals including the Journal of Risk and Insurance, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Geneva Papers, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Journal of Finance. He won the Mehr Award several times and other awards from the American Risk and Insurance Association, Casualty Actuarial Society, General Insurance Research Organization, and the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association for his research.

Stuart McDonald is Head of Longevity and Demographic Insights and a Partner at LCP. He helps clients understand and manage the impact of mortality trends, leveraging insights from LCP’s Health Analytics practice. He advises some of the UK's largest pension schemes as well as leading insurers and reinsurers across Europe. He is Chair of the Continuous Mortality Investigation (CMI) and founded and co-Chaired the influential COVID-19 Actuaries Response Group. He was awarded an MBE for services to Public Health in the 2022 New Year Honours.

Rohit Mathur leads Prudential’s International Reinsurance business, where he is responsible for the longevity risk transfer (LRT) and funded reinsurance businesses in the UK and Europe. Prudential's reinsurance activities have led the firm to being named “Reinsurer of the Year” for four consecutive years. The team has closed over $110 billion in longevity reinsurance transactions since 2011, covering members of nearly 200 pensionRohit Mathur funds in the United Kingdom including British Airways, HSBC, Marks and Spencer, and Rolls-Royce.

Prior to this role, Rohit was head of Global Product and Market Solutions, where he was charged with assessing the corporate finance implications of pension risk management to cultivate a consistent recognition of pension de-risking solutions. Partnering with Prudential's distribution team in the service of its clients, Rohit focused on promoting an understanding of pension risk issues among credit and equity analysts, treasurers, chief financial officers and investment bankers. Rohit has been involved in structuring and executing several large and innovative transactions in the United States, including the agreements with Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Philips and J.C. Penney to transfer pension liabilities.

Before joining Prudential, Rohit was an executive director and led the Capital Structure and Strategy advisory team for UBS Investment Bank. There, he advised clients in multiple industries, focusing specifically on corporate finance, risk advisory and pension issues. Prior to that, Rohit was with Moody's Investors Service, where he published research on accounting and pension issues and worked with credit analysts to incorporate those risks more systematically into company ratings. He also co-authored Moody's methodologies on assessing risk of multi-employer pensions and other post-retirement healthcare obligations.

Prudential Financial Inc. (PFI) and its affiliated companies are not affiliated in any manner with Prudential plc (United Kingdom) or with Prudential Assurance Company, a subsidiary of M&G plc, incorporated in the United Kingdom.

Avery Michaelson is the Founder & CEO of Longitude Exchange, a digital marketplace dedicated to trading longevity risk, and Founding Partner of Longitude Solutions, a transaction-oriented consultancy with expertise in longevity risk management. He has extensive experience in the longevity risk and insurance-linked securities markets having previously held positions at Société Générale and Deutsche Bank, with posts at Coventry and Peachtree in the Life Settlement market. Beyond his work in insurance, Avery has applied his passion for market-based solutions to the world of climate change by founding the green-tech company UCapture. Mr. Michaelson graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and is a frequent speaker at financial and longevity conferences.

Roshan Tajapra is the Head of Longevity Research at SCOR. Based in London, Roshan leads the team responsible for the assumptions underlying SCOR’s global longevity products. Drawing on deep expertise in population health, mortality modelling, and long‑term trend assessment, Roshan plays a central role in shaping SCOR’s evidence‑based view of demographic risk.

Roshan is also a member of the CMI Mortality Projections Committee at the IFoA, who are responsible for producing the mortality improvements model for the UK industry. A frequent contributor to industry discussions on longevity, Roshan brings clarity to complex demographic topics and is known for translating analytical insights into practical guidance for industry stakeholders.

Roshan joined SCOR in 2018. Prior to SCOR, he held positions at Prudential, Canada Life, and Legal & General. He has a background in mathematics and theoretical physics. Outside of work, Roshan is a keen cyclist.

Luca Tres is Guy Carpenter’s Head of Strategic Risk and Capital Life Solutions - EMEA. He joined from Securis Investment Partners where, as a Partner in the London office, he led the life origination and structuring activities globally.

Before that he held various positions at Deutsche Bank London within the Global Capital Markets division, where in the latest years he was part of the European Structured Insurance and Bank Solutions team.

Across both positions, he successfully sourced and structured highly innovative solutions around capital, financing and risk management for insurance companies, reinsurers and banks globally.

Luca is also a frequent speaker at leading (re)insurance conferences as well as a contributor on the industry’s magazines across reinsurance and capital markets topics.  He holds a Master of Science in Finance and an Undergraduate degree in Financial Institutions and Markets Management, both ‘cum laude’ from Bocconi University in Milan and has studied also at Fudan University in Shanghai.

Nay Wynn is a Senior Research Actuary in SCOR’s Longevity Research team, based in London. He has nearly two decades of experience across longevity and protection, specialising in biometric assumption development, experience analysis, and methodological innovation.

Nay has a proven track record of leading multi‑country research initiatives, influencing senior stakeholders, and scaling actuarial capability across teams. He is a recognised contributor to the actuarial profession through conference presentations and industry publications.

Outside of work, Nay enjoys entertaining his children with improvised, and often ridiculous, made‑up stories.