Speakers

Lars Ernsting
Global Leader of Life & Pensions Centre of Excellence, Capgemini

Lars has over 15 years experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining Capgemini he worked for Ernst & Young Consulting as a management consultant. Within Capgemini, Lars has held several roles including management consultant, business developer and practice manager prior to his Global Leader role. In this role his objective is to build end-to-end solutions for insurers and pension administrators that enable them to transform and perform through technologies.

Martijin Gribnau
Member of ING Insurance Leadership Team Responsible for Distribution Innovation, ING

Over the last 20 years Martijin Gribnau has worked in different senior leadership positions from banking to insurance within ING. Functions he was responsible for include US, mutual fund, and the Security Business Internet Competency Center postbank, NN. Since 2007, Gribnau has held the position of CEO of ING Insurance Hungary where he was responsible for developing and implementing a multi-channel strategy to boost growth and productivity. He also implemented a re-engineered tied agency channel. Based on this innovation, he was asked to lead a global initiative to reinvent the Tied Agency Distribution across ING. Prior to that, he served as General Manager of ING Netherlands, Intermediary Insurance Board.

Willie Holmes
recently retired General Manager, Irish Life

Willie Holmes has just retired after 37 years working for Irish Life. An actuary by profession, he has worked across a wide range of areas including investments, marketing, and administration and remains as one of the most respected people in the Irish financial services sector. For the past 20 years he has served as the General Manager for Irish Life. In this capacity, he was responsible for the brokerage business and previously he also ran the largest sales force in Ireland. He is a founding and honorary life member of the Sales Institute of Ireland. He has served in many roles for LIMRA including chairman of LIMRA Europe and a board member of LIMRA. Currently, he is also a director of the LIA, the Irish body with statutory responsibility for financial services competency. He is a former director of Irish Life Homeloans, now KBC Homeloans.

Robert A. Kerzner, CLU, ChFC
President & CEO, LIMRA, LOMA, and LL Global, Inc.

As president and CEO of LIMRA, LOMA, and their parent organization, LL Global Inc, Bob Kerzner leads the world’s largest association of life insurance and financial services companies. The combined organizations have over 1,200 members in more than 70 countries, including most of the world’s largest insurance companies. Before joining LIMRA in 2004, Kerzner was executive vice president and head of the individual life division of Hartford Life, Inc. Kerzner’s career with The Hartford spanned 30 years from 1974 to 2004. In his first 20 years, he established performance records in field sales and management, before moving to senior management.

George Kotsalos
Chairman of the Board, Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies

Currently, George Kotsalos is the chairman of the Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies and since 2004 has been the CEO of Interamerican Group. He has extensive experience in the industry, having begun his career in the insurance industry in 1976 and has held top executive positions in Generali, Phoenix, and Intertrust. Kotsalos studied at the London School of Foreign Trade and holds an Associate diploma of the Chartered Insurance Institute (A.C.I.I.). He is a member of the Boards of the Greek Federation of Industries (SEV), Ecumenica, Association of Societe Anonymes, Hellenic Dutch Association, Hellenic Institute of Insurance, and has served as a board member in Avero Belgium and Eureko Sigorta in Istanbul.

Werner Loots
Director of Strategic Intelligence, Northwestern Mutual

Before leading Strategic Intelligence — an advanced analytics group focused on strategy execution and distribution — Werner Loots was a Regional Vice President responsible for the supervision and development of one of Northwestern Mutual’s four distribution regions. Prior to joining Northwestern Mutual, Loots worked in the Johannesburg and Chicago offices of the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, and held positions in venture-funded technology companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he was the Director of Quantitative Marketing at PayPal. Loots holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, and an MBA from the Harvard.

Roger Peverelli
Partner, VODW and
Innovation & Strategy Thought Leader

Roger Peverelli is a partner at VODW — a leading strategy consultancy operating out of the Netherlands — and is an expert in strategy, innovation, and customer centricity in financial services. Throughout his career he has been involved in the creation of new products and service concepts in B2B and B2C life and general insurance, retail, private and commercial banking. Peverelli has published numerous books and articles, including Reinventing Financial Services and The Future of Finance. Currently, Peverelli is a Board member for the Netherlands Film Festival; advisor to Warchild, the Microcredits for Mothers Foundation; and the More Than Football Foundation.

Richard van Hooijdonk
New Marketing and Innovation Speaker, Professor, and Consultant, MarketingMonday

Richard van Hooijdonk is the owner of MarketingMonday, a marketing strategy and training firm that specializes in new marketing and communication. In his role, van Hooijdonk strives to educate organizations and governments about the technological developments that have changed the needs and behaviors of consumers and citizens and how to reach them with new communication approaches. By providing insight, knowledge, and skills, van Hooijdonk and MarketingMonday help people to achieve change within their organization, which leads to greater efficiency and new audiences. In addition to owning MarketingMonday, van Hooijdonk is a professor at Nyenrode University and at SRM/Erasmus University and is a well-known speaker on marketing and innovation.

Menno Wagenaar
Vice President and Director of Advertising, MTV Networks

Menno Wagenaar is currently the VP and Director of Advertising at MTV Networks in the Netherlands where he also held the positions of Commercial Director, and Head of TMF and MTV. Prior to joining MTV Networks, Wagenaar spent time as the Brand Manager for Coca-Cola and a Brand Manager at Philip Morris, Holland B.V. In his role, Wagenaar offers insight into the behavior of younger consumers and speaks to audiences about consumer behaviors of the younger generation in relation to financial services and products.

Victoria Wentworth
Retail Director CEE, AVIVA

Victoria Wentworth is currently managing the Central & Easter European Retail Networks and the Change Programme for Aviva Europe. She joined the Group, with Aviva UK in 2005 and was appointed to the Retail Programme Director role in Aviva Europe in June 2009. In this role, she was responsible for all the Retail Projects across Europe. Prior to joining the insurance industry, she spent 9 years in the British Army as an officer. She attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and joined the Royal Logistic Corps. Whilst in the Army, Wentworth served in the UK and Germany and completed operational tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq. She finished her time in the Army as a Squadron Commander, commanding 300 soldiers in peacetime Germany and then on operations in Iraq.