Dr. Laila Neuthor, born in 1981, holds a German Diploma (i.e., MSc) in economics from the University of Munich and the Universitet i Bergen, Norway, focusing on insurance economics, game theory and econometrics. Additionally, Laila holds a Master of Business Research (MBR), and a doctoral degree in economics, both from the University of Munich. Her doctoral thesis on reinsurance intermediation and demand was supported by a grant from the German Insurance Science Society. While obtaining these degrees, Laila was a teaching and research assistant at the Institute for Insurance & Risk Management at the University of Munich, and a Visiting Scholar at the National Chang Chi University, in Taipeh, Taiwan. During her undergraduate studies, Laila worked in the (re)insurance industry, starting as an intern in ERC Frankona Re in 2002 and joining Swiss Re as a Graduate Trainee in Non-Life underwriting in 2005. In 2011 Laila joined Munich Re as an Executive Strategic Assistant to Munich Re´s Board Member for the reinsurance division of Germany, Africa, Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, with deployments to Beijing, China, and ERGO´s joint venture in Mumbai, India. From 2014 to 2018, Laila led the Munich Re´s Life and, from 2017 on, the Health Client Management Team for markets in Northern, Eastern, and Southern Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East.

Since 2006 Laila has constantly been training insurance know-how at various levels in different institutions.

In 2014, Laila undertook further education to become a trainer for team development and group dynamics, a consultant for organization development and a leadership coach. As a consequence, she is able to combine her strong content-driven expertise with skills as a change agent.

Laila is convinced that capitalizing on the combined knowledge and expertise of employees and industry experts can create sustainable change in the life insurance industry itself – it is just a question of mindset!

Dr. Karsten Filzmaier, born in 1970 in Stuttgart, Germany, studied medicine at the medical school of the Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg from 1990 to 1997. In the course of his studies, he spent two years working in hospitals in India, Israel and the United Kingdom. Between 1998 and 2005, he worked at the University Hospital of Aachen and qualified as a specialist in internal medicine, cardiology and emergency medicine. From 2007 to 2018, Karsten worked as Chief Medical Officer in the reinsurance (Munich Re) and direct insurance sector (Allianz Germany). In both companies he managed the centre of competence for insurance medicine. These departments were global contact points for all medical and scientific issues in Life (and partially Health) insurance, including medical underwriting and claims consulting for complex individual risks, the development of risk assessment guidelines and the provision of medical consultancy services for product development, risk modelling, data analytics and process automation.

Karsten strongly believes that medicine will play an important role in improving services, processes and the quality of products in the Life insurance sector in the future.

Naji Nassif, born in 1981 in Lebanon, is a true mathematician, holding a MSc in mathematics from the Faculty of Sciences at the Lebanese University. He also studied actuarial and financial sciences at Saint Joseph University, Lebanon, and obtained a double major in the actuarial field from the Faculty of Sciences, at Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and Claude Bernard University at Lyon1, ISFA, France.

Naji started in the insurance industry in January 2008 and worked as an Assistant Manager in the Life department at LIA Insurance Company, Lebanon. He managed all technical studies and reports under the life business including pricing, product development, reinsurance, reserves, and financial statements. On the process and data management side, Naji has extensive experience both in developing and implementing IT-based solutions such as multi-module ERP life systems dedicated to generating reporting figures such as KPIs business development & steering, reserve and reinsurance calculations as well as accounting figures. Further, he was responsible for the corresponding data migrations. In recent years, Naji has been focusing on improving the processes for product development and has been in charge of the integration of LIA Insurance Company into SANLAM Group.

As the LIA´s key person working with reinsurance companies such as Munich Re, Hannover Re, Gen Re, SCOR and others, Naji developed a broad understanding of risk transfer solutions and modelling.

Naji believes that an actuary today needs to be good at understanding the interdependencies between actuarial science, data management and analytics as well as underwriting and claims instead of focusing on just one aspect.

Torben Damm, born in 1997 in Mannheim, holds a bachelor in Business Administration from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich. He is currently studying a Master of Data Science at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark, specialising in Machine Learning and Data Analytics.

Torben got to know we4 Impact during an internship in August 2020. Afterwards he continued his work with we4 Impact as a Junior Associate, responsible for the we4 Impact Academy. Besides the administrative management of the we4 Impact Academy, he together with Laila and Karsten, ensures a continuous improvement in the training offered.

Torben is passionate about projects based on the analysis of data and the insights generated from it. He believes that the potential for innovation based on data analysis is high for insurance companies.

Dr. Iris Stolle, born in 1966 in Bonn, Germany, studied medicine at the Medical School of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. In the course of her studies, she spent a few months in Bern, Switzerland. During her time as a practictioner, Iris focused on rheumatology and internal medicine. Since 1993 Iris has been working in the life insurance industry as an insurance medical expert for several first und re-insurers. Iris has a profound knowledge of underwriting and claims for complex individual risks, product development, and the development of both manual and digital risk assessment guidelines.  Iris also has long standing experience in training both underwriters and claims handlers in insurance medicine.

Iris is convinced that medical expertise is key to creating both sustainable and competitive products and efficient operational processes in life insurance today and in the future.