Dr. Colin Young

Dr. Colin A. Young, a Belizean national, is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center (CCCCC) headquartered in Belize SINCE January 2020. Pr ior to hi s appointment at the CCCCC, Dr. Young served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Social Security Board, a parastatal entity that administers Belize’s Social Security Fund from 2017 to 2019 were he championed contribution reform, technology transformation and numerous legislative changes. Dr. Young also served as the CEO in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, the Environment, Sustainable Development where he had overall responsibilities for all of the portfolios, including climate change, other than agriculture as well as the CEO in the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology and Public Utilities from 2012-2015. Dr. Young has served on numerous boards including the Green Climate Fund, a financial mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He holds both a Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Connecticut in the United States.

Leza Wells

Leza Wells is a Senior Manager at Gen Re, providing senior strategic, business development and pricing support to Gen Re’s reinsurance offices in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and Canada, as well as leading Gen Re’s business development efforts in the Caribbean.   She has over 24 years of experience in both the South African and international life insurance industries, holding a number of executive positions in life insurance and reinsurance companies where her focus was predominately on product development, pricing and distribution of retail and group life insurance products.

Before joining Gen Re, Leza was the Chief Commercial Officer at the South African Insure-tech company, Simply, and prior to that she was the Chief Product Actuary at South African life insurer, Bidvest Life. She also spent 11 years as Chief Pricing Actuary for RGA South Africa, has worked for Hannover Life Re as Actuarial Pricing Manager, and has consulting experience in advisory firm EY in London. Leza is currently the vice-chair of the International Actuarial Association (IAA) Mortality Forum and chaired the South African local continual statistical investigations committee for many years. She is also a member of the IAA Pandemics Task Force, currently focused on the sharing learnings from the pandemic.

Peter Lozier, Argus Americas (Bermuda and Canada)

Peter has over 25 years of experience in senior and executive leadership roles in the healthcare and TPA industry. As Chief Executive for Argus Americas - Peter is responsible for all Argus companies within Bermuda and Canada including all Insurance entities, financial services companies, medical practices, and care management companies.  Peter has worked in the Caribbean region for over 30 years, helping communities get the healthcare they need and deserve. He has collaborated with several Caribbean health insurance companies, including Sagicor, Bahama Health, CINICO, ICBL, Generali and ENNIA.   More recently Peter has been focusing efforts on the creation of the Better Health Partnership in Bermuda and across the Caribbean.

Mark Rueegg

Mark held various positions with UBS in the areas of FX, rates, and trading platforms before founding CelsiusPro in 2008. He sees climate change as a mega trend affecting the bottom line of companies and therefore the need for climate risk transfer products is pivotal. Mark founded NatCatPro, an MGA focusing on parametric NatCat risks in 2021. He was on the BoD of the Weather Risk Management Association (WRMA) from 2012-2016 and has been elected to the BoD again in 2022. Mark is a CFA Charter holder, has an MBA in Economics from the University of Rochester/Bern, and is currently enrolled in the CPCU program.