Stephen Velotti, Chief Executive Officer & CIO, Pillar Capital Management Limited Mr. Velotti is the Chief Executive Officer & CIO at Pillar Capital Management Limited (PCML). PCML manages the Juniperus Insurance Opportunity Fund (JIOF). JIOF is an open-ended Bermuda incorporated fund focused on investing in insurance related instruments. The strategy of the Fund is to invest in traditional (re)insurance instruments to create a portfolio with attractive risk-reward characteristics and low correlation with other asset classes. His responsibilities included the overall operations and profitability of the Fund, strategic business planning, risk evaluation, pricing, portfolio analysis and marketing. Mr. Velotti has over 30 years of insurance and reinsurance experience including various senior management positions in the reinsurance industry. Steve’s career has progressed through multiple sectors of the (re)insurance market place including life insurance, primary commercial insurance, facultative reinsurance, treaty reinsurance, catastrophe bonds and other capital market areas such as weather derivatives. He has had successful experience in building profitable (re)insurance entities. Prior to forming Pillar, he was a Senior Vice President at Ariel Reinsurance LTD from its founding in 2005 until January 2008. Prior to joining Ariel Re, he spent 7 years in the Property area at Zurich Re/Converium. Mr. Velotti has an MBA from Columbia University’s School of Business (2002) and a Bachelor’s Degree from the State University of New York at Albany (1989). 

Jillian Williams

Chief Underwriting Officer & Head of ESG (Managing Partner)

Jillian has over 23 years experience in catastrophe modelling, actuarial pricing and consulting in the insurance/reinsurance sector. Prior to joining Leadenhall Capital Partners she was Senior Vice President at Instrat, the modelling and actuarial department of Guy Carpenter, specialising in Capital Markets, Retro, Property and Marine classes. Among other things she has managed projects in ILS, Retro and overseen the analysis and development for new Property & Casualty business opportunities. Prior to Guy Carpenter, Jillian worked at Fidelity Investment as Performance Measurement Analyst.

Michael Wade has enjoyed a long career within the London Market insurance industry having founded Holman Wade Group, CLM Insurance Fund plc and Rostrum Group culminating in his appointment in 2013 as the Crown Representative for Insurance at the UK Government Cabinet Office to advise on insurance and reinsurance risks – this has included Pool Re, the formation of Flood Re and other projects. He also advised the former Chancellor of the Exchequers on the Insurance-Linked Securities markets - delivering the new UK ILS regime in 2017. Michael has served on the Council & Committee of Lloyd's. He was appointed (2016) a Senior Advisor to Swiss Re and (2017) a non-executive Director of Neon Underwriting. In September 2017 Michael was appointed Non-executive Chairman of TigerRisk Capital Markets & Advisory (UK) Ltd. and in 2020 a Consultant to Brit Insurance. He formed Holman Wade Ltd in 1980 specialising in London Market reinsurance of which he was CEO until 1993. During 1984 Holman Wade merged into H. Clarkson & Co shipbrokers and, once combined, was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1986 as Horace Clarkson plc where he also remained as a Director until 1993. Following the Lloyd’s crisis, Michael formed Corporate Lloyd’s Membership in partnership with Sedgwick Group plc. They launched CLM Insurance Fund plc which he ran until 1999 then merging with SVB at Lloyd’s ( now Novae Group plc ). In 2000 Michael formed Rostrum Group – a specialist investment manager focussed upon Lloyd’s listed vehicles on behalf of a series of major UK pension funds; from 2006 he was a partner in Optex Group to develop the Industry Loss Warranty (ILW) market and, in 2011 merged Optex into Besso Insurance Group in which he had acquired the Wells Fargo shareholding. Michael sold these interests in November 2012 and retired from executive responsibilities. Michael was elected to the Council of Lloyd’s in 1988 and served until 1992; during which time he was also a member of the key Rowland Lloyd’s Taskforce, working closely with McKinsey & Co to analyse and recommend a route forward for the troubled Lloyd’s insurance market. He founded the Lloyd’s Community Programme in 1989. He was a Member of Lloyd’s from 1980 to 2014. Michael’s interests include opera, orchestral music, architecture and politics. He supports Moorfields Eye Charity Hospital.

Philipp Kusche joined TigerRisk Partners in April 2016 as Partner and Global Head of Insurance-Linked Securities (ILS) and Capital Solutions where he built up TigerRisk Capital Markets & Advisory’s ILS platform focusing on origination, structuring, placement and trading of CAT bonds, sidecars and other ILS structures across many different areas of the insurance and reinsurance landscape, including developing relationships with institutional investors globally. This includes many innovative transactions across different line of businesses, fund raising for ILS managers and providing access points for capital markets and institutional investors looking to access insurance risk.

Philipp comes from Swiss Re Capital Markets in New York where he most recently was the Head of their ILS Structuring and Origination team covering Insurance Companies, Hedge Funds, Governmental Entities, and Corporate Clients in the U.S., Latin America, and Asia. He joined Swiss Re Capital Markets in New York in 2006 and was responsible for and instrumental in creating and executing billions of dollars worth of CAT bonds, sidecars, contingent capital structures, and other alternative capital products for clients globally, while maintaining a strong focus on product development. As part of such activities, he developed relationships with many key ILS and other institutional investors and maintained a close dialogue with other stakeholders in the ILS space. In addition to such sell-side activities, he structured, priced, and executed a large number of CAT derivatives, mainly on a parametric basis, providing protection to a variety of clients. Philipp joined Swiss Re in 2002, and was initially based at its headquarters in Zurich as a management trainee. Working mainly in the Chief Underwriting Office, he quickly advanced into the global Energy Practice as a property underwriter in London and Zurich.

Experienced strategist, business development and investment executive, holding multi-disciplinary technology in-depth understanding with proven capability to seed and drive business and multi-million USD strategic and licensing deals. Senior management member with world-wide experience in leading strategic development and managing multiple business units for Hi-Tech companies. Master’s degrees in Physics and Mathematics. Before the establishment of Vesttoo, Yaniv served as VP Business Development in a number of global companies, including Consumer Physics, Goji, CTG Holdings and Poseidon Diving Systems; In addition, while leading the corporate VC of Mekorot, Israel’s National Water Company, he personally led 16 different equity investments in various startups, including the successful exit of Bacsoft. Acquired by Sun Corporation (TYO: 6736).