Conference Chairs

Professor Johnny Li

Johnny Li is the holder of the Fairfax Chair in Risk Management and an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Actuarial Science from the University of Waterloo and is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA). He also received B.Sc. and M.Phil. degrees from the University of Hong Kong. He is an associate editor of the North American Actuarial Journal and a member of the board of directors of the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association.

Professor Li's research interests encompass the fields of stochastic mortality modeling, longevity risk securitization, reverse mortgages, and actuarial applications in law courts. He publishes frequently in journals such as the Journal of Risk and Insurance, Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, the Geneva Paper of Insurance: Issues and Practice, and the North American Actuarial Journal.

Professor Li has made significant research contribution to the area of longevity risk. Part of his paper "Developing Mortality Improvement Formulae: The Canadian Insured Lives Case Study" is used in the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) Guidance Material #210065. His research in this area has brought him several awards, including the Harold D. Skipper Best Paper Award from the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association, the Edward A. Lew Award (2nd place) from the Society of Actuaries, and a Best Paper Award from the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong.

Professor Li is also committed to teaching topics on longevity risk. He developed a new graduate course called "Managing Longevity Risk" at the University of Waterloo, and offered a short-course on longevity risk modeling for practitioners in Europe.

Professor David Blake

David Blake is Director of the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School, and the chairman of Square Mile Consultants, a training and research consultancy. He is also: co-founder of the International Longevity Risk and Capital Markets Solutions Conferences; co-inventor of the Cairns-Blake-Dowd stochastic mortality model; and co-founder with JPMorgan of the LifeMetrics Indices. In 2011, he won the Robert I. Mehr award from the American Risk and Insurance Association for his seminar paper on mortality risk transfers. The paper is credited with helping to develop a new global capital market in mortality risk transfers between pension funds, life assurers and capital market investors, leading to the world's first pension buy-out in 2006 and the world's first pension buy-in and first longevity swap in 2007.

Professor Richard MacMinn

Professor Richard D. MacMinn, BA, MA, PhD, is the first holder of the Edmondson-Miller Chair in Insurance and Financial Services at Illinois State University and was previously the first holder of the Swiss Re Chair in the Management of Risk at the University of Nottingham. He was editor of the Journal of Risk and insurance, the lead journal in the world on insurance and risk management, published by the American Risk and Insurance Association from 1998 through 2006. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Risk and Insurance, the Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, the Journal of Insurance Issues and the Quarterly Journal 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 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 has thrice won the prestigious Mehr Award in addition to a number of other awards from the American Risk and Insurance Association, Casualty Actuarial Society, and General Insurance Research Organization in the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association for his publications.