2025 Toronto ILS Roundtable

Emily Birrell

Head of Client Relations, Integral ILS

Emily is a founding member and Head of Client Relations at Integral ILS, joining in June 2020. Previously, she worked as a consultant for the Future Fund of Australia, leading a review of the ILS program. From 2012 to 2018, Emily held various roles at Hiscox, where she was integral to launching the ILS platform and developing tailored ILS fund products.

In 2021, Emily was named Trading Risk’s ‘Young ILS Professional of the Year’ and holds a BSc Hons in Financial Mathematics from Newcastle University.

Adam Smalley

Independent Advisor, Ex-PSP Investments

Adam Smalley is a seasoned investment professional with nearly 30 years of experience in finance and asset management. Most recently, he served as Managing Director at PSP Investments, where he led high-performing teams for over eight years, specializing in private debt and other alternative asset classes.

Prior to this, Mr. Smalley accumulated 13 years of expertise in liquid credit investments, focusing on high-yield and leveraged loan asset classes. He managed hedge fund and mutual fund platforms on behalf of institutional clients, consistently driving growth and performance.

Mr. Smalley began his finance career in 1999 at Lehman Brothers in New York, as part of the global leveraged finance group, where he gained a strong foundation in financial structuring and capital markets.

Beyond his investment roles, Mr. Smalley has extensive experience serving on boards of directors, fostering strategic relationships, and managing diverse stakeholder interests.

He holds a BS in Accounting from Bucknell University and an MBA in Finance and Economics from Columbia Business School.

Lorenzo Volpi

Deputy CIO, Managing Partner , Leadenhall Capital Partners

Lorenzo joined Leadenhall in 2010. He has over 25 years of capital markets and reinsurance broking experience (both traditional and non-traditional) having worked at Leadenhall Capital Partners since 2010 and previously at Aon Benfield Securities, BPM London, and Aon Re. At Leadenhall, Lorenzo is a Member of the Management Board, in charge of Global Business Development responsible for looking at new business opportunities and fundraising across non-life insurance investments and life & alternative credit investments.

During his career, Lorenzo looked at the complete spectrum of alternative methodologies of risk transfer, risk financing, and the convergence of the reinsurance and capital markets. He led the sourcing, structuring, marketing, and distribution of various projects and transactions on the securitization of insurance assets (including the setup of a couple of insurance linked asset managers).

He holds a Master’s Degree in Finance from the University of London.

Mark Gibson

Senior Investment Director, Schroders Capital

Mark has acted in varied roles in the reinsurance and ILS markets. His early years were spent as a reinsurance broker at Guy Carpenter. After hurricane Andrew in 1992 he worked on some of the earliest ILS transactions based on the Chicago Board of Trade catastrophe indices and subsequently on catastrophe bonds. As the ILS market developed he joined BNP Paribas and was active in structuring, distributing and investing in ILS. He returned to the reinsurance market in 2012 during which time he was a protection buyer for two reinsurance companies using traditional reinsurance and ILS in the forms of bonds and sidecars. He joined Schroders Capital in 2020 and is responsible for business development and product strategy as part of the Senior Leadership Team within the ILS division.

He is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute and a Chartered Insurance Practitioner. He has a BA Honours degree from the University of Exeter.

Dominik Hagedorn

Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer, Tangency Capital

Dominik Hagedorn has over 15 years of expertise in reinsurance and investment banking. He began his career at Munich Re, where he specialized in underwriting and alternative risk transfer. During his tenure, Dominik successfully executed a series of catastrophe bond transactions, benefiting both insurance clients and Munich Re. Thereafter, he served as Director at UBS Securities LLC, overseeing a diverse range of structured reinsurance transactions, including catastrophe bonds, sidecars, hedge fund reinsurance vehicles, and similar transactions across property, casualty, and life insurance risks.

Before founding Tangency in 2017, Dominik was with Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, where he held global coverage responsibility for alternative capital of insurance and reinsurance companies. In this role, he executed catastrophe bonds, sidecars, and other structured financing transactions.

Dominik holds a Master of Sciences degree in Financial Economics from Maastricht University, with a major in finance, economics, and econometrics. He is also a published author in the Handbook of Insurance-Linked Securities, originally published in 2009 by Wiley’s.

Philippe Trahan

Managing Director, ILS, Ex-Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

Philippe Trahan is one of the longest-tenured ILS institutional investors, having developed and overseen ILS portfolio for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) between 2007 and February 2024. During that time, he built and oversaw one of the largest and most diverse ILS portfolios, with US$3.5B assets invested across Natural Catastrophe, Specialty, Runoff and Life strategies. He backed numerous innovations aimed at developing the ILS marketplace, notably being the first London Bridge investor, the first ILS investor active in cyber, casualty, runoff and nuclear risks.

Prior to OTPP, Philippe spent five years at Aon Re Canada in actuarial and broking roles. Philippe is involved in a number of cross-industry initiatives, including the Sustainable Financial Action Council, the United Nation’s Climate Insurance-Linked Resilient Infrastructure Financing and the SBAI’s ILS working group.

Philippe is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and of the Institute of Corporate Directors.

Agnes Chang

Director, Capital Markets, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

Agnes Chang is a Director managing Insurance-Linked Securities Investments in the External Managers Team, Capital Markets Group at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. Agnes has 11 years of experience investing in ILS and hedge funds.

She held two master's degrees from the University of Toronto and the University of Chicago.

Dan Conklin

Vice President, Alternative Capital Partners, Swiss Re

Dan Conklin, a member of Swiss Re's Alternative Capital Partners business that fosters partnerships with institutional investors globally seeking reinsurance exposure or insurance-linked securities, manages the business's North American investor relationships.

Dan brings experience across institutional asset management while with J.P. Morgan, insurance corporate advisory while with RBC Capital Markets, and private capital markets while with Barclays Investment Bank to investors across the sophistication spectrum seeking to partner with Swiss Re.

Dan holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BS from Tulane University. In his spare time, he enjoys skiing, golfing, collecting old maps and spending time with family and friends in the NYC area.

Pierre Gilbert

Vice President, Head of Public Markets, Bimcor

As Vice President – Head of Public Markets at Bimcor, Pierre leads the team overseeing investments across fixed income, public equities, absolute return and credit for the Bell Canada pension plans. He also supports the chief investment officer on a broad range of investment and portfolio management related issues, including liability-driven investing, asset allocation and portfolio construction.

Prior to joining Bimcor in 2005, Pierre worked at the Department of Finance Canada, most recently as senior project leader in the Financial Markets Division where he assumed responsibilities for the development of federal debt management strategy.

Pierre earned his Masters of Arts in Economics from Laval University, holds the Financial Risk Manager (FRM) designation and is a CFA charterholder.

Michael Hamer

Partner and Senior Analyst , Albourne Partners

Michael Hamer is a Partner and Senior Analyst at Albourne Partners, a leading alternatives consulting company. He has been a full-time employee since Jun 2005, initially covering esoteric strategies including insurance and more recently specializing in Insurance funds.

Prior to joining Albourne, he was with Centre Re, a finite risk reinsurer in London. Dublin and Bermuda in management, underwriting and risk management. Before joining Centre Re, Michael had spent 15 years with JP Morgan in Financial Analysis (London), Strategic Planning (NYC), Capital markets (NYC), Corporate Finance (Australia) and Mergers and Acquisition Advisory (London).

Michael has a B.Sc (Hons) from Melbourne University in Pure and Applied Mathematics and a M.Phil and a D.Phil in Mathematical Economics from Oxford University.

Philippe Trahan

Managing Director, ILS, Ex-Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan

Philippe Trahan is one of the longest-tenured ILS institutional investors, having developed and overseen ILS portfolio for Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) between 2007 and February 2024. During that time, he built and oversaw one of the largest and most diverse ILS portfolios, with US$3.5B assets invested across Natural Catastrophe, Specialty, Runoff and Life strategies. He backed numerous innovations aimed at developing the ILS marketplace, notably being the first London Bridge investor, the first ILS investor active in cyber, casualty, runoff and nuclear risks.

Prior to OTPP, Philippe spent five years at Aon Re Canada in actuarial and broking roles. Philippe is involved in a number of cross-industry initiatives, including the Sustainable Financial Action Council, the United Nation’s Climate Insurance-Linked Resilient Infrastructure Financing and the SBAI’s ILS working group.

Philippe is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society, of the Canadian Institute of Actuaries and of the Institute of Corporate Directors.