Director I, Catastrophe Modeling

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Illinois.

📋 Description

• Develop, manage, and guide a team of catastrophe modeling analysts along with technical and automation developers.

• Provide mentorship and training to portfolio modeling managers while establishing uniform technical standards.

• Define the technical roadmap and set priorities for catastrophe modeling, data engineering, and reporting tools.

• Convert model outputs into underwriting guidance and decisions regarding risk appetite.

• Represent catastrophe risk analytics in discussions with executives and during reinsurance meetings, including briefings on catastrophe event responses.

• Coordinate Analyze Re-related portfolio rollups, ensuring precise aggregation across various business segments.

• Supervise the delivery of portfolio and modeling results to external carriers and reinsurance partners.

• Align rollup structures and delivery schedules with treaty and program requirements.

• Lead research projects focused on advanced catastrophe analytics, which encompass secondary uncertainty, model blending, and climate-adjusted risk perspectives.

• Assess emerging modeling science, updates from vendors, and research from academia and industry.

• Collaborate with teams in Capital Management, Pricing, Reserving, and Data Engineering.

• Standardize transitions and data contracts between catastrophe modeling and partner teams.

• Own the strategy for RMS and AIR vendors and platforms, including licensing, upgrades, and roadmap decisions.

• Evaluate tools and vendors for various perils, models, and IT infrastructure.

• Construct business cases for new tools or vendor modifications.

• Oversee RMS and AIR catastrophe modeling across multiple lines of business.

• Direct the production of PML, AAL, exposed limits, EP curves, and tail-risk/TVaR metrics.

• Establish standards for the preparation, validation, and cleansing of exposure data.

• Lead responses to catastrophe events and produce summaries of exposures and loss estimations.

• Manage ETL and data pipelines that ingest and normalize exposure data to RMS/AIR standards.

• Oversee automated AIR/RMS workflow utilities and reusable reporting tools utilizing SQL, Python, R, and Excel/VBA.

• Advocate for Azure Databricks and cloud-based analytics using PySpark and Delta Lake.

• Ensure that data quality controls, QA dashboards, and documentation/SOPs are consistently upheld.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 8 years of progressive experience in catastrophe modeling, portfolio risk analytics, or data engineering related to cat-modeling.

• Previous experience in people leadership or as a team lead managing modeling professionals or managers.

• Extensive hands-on expertise in RMS and/or AIR Touchstone, including exposure preparation, batch processing, results extraction, and interpretation of EP curves and loss tables.

• Strong proficiency in SQL.

• Experience in directing or building automation using Python, R, VBA, and/or Alteryx.

• Proven ability to translate catastrophe model outputs into underwriting or portfolio management strategies.

• Capability to lead teams during real-time responses to catastrophe events.

• Experience in coordinating portfolio rollups and managing external deliverables to carriers or reinsurance partners.

• Experience collaborating with Capital Management, Pricing, Reserving, or Data Engineering.

• Excellent communication abilities and experience in presenting technical analyses to underwriting and executive stakeholders.

• Preference for experience with Analyze Re or similar portfolio roll-up/aggregation platforms.

• Preference for experience with Azure Databricks, PySpark, and Delta Lake/data lakehouse patterns.

• Knowledge of reinsurance structures and portfolio risk metrics, such as PML, AAL, and TVaR is preferred.

• Familiarity with handling geospatial data and mapping, including geopandas, shapefiles, and spatial joins is preferred.

• Preference for experience with Git and SDLC practices.

• Previous experience leading vendor evaluations is preferred.

• A background in or exposure to applied research within catastrophe modeling or a related quantitative field is preferred.

🏝️ Benefits

• Paid company holidays.

• Vacation days.

• Sick days.

• Personal days.

• Paid parental leave.

• Mental health services.

• Bonuses for full-time roles.

• Benefits for full-time roles.

• Reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.