RIMS Awards Risk Manager of the Year Honor to Google's Loren Nickel

​Benjamin Evans, Juliana Keaton and Scot Schwarting Selected to

 

NEW YORK (March 2, 2017) — RIMS, the risk management society™, has announced Loren Nickel, Director of Business Risk and Insurance at Google, as the 2017 RIMS Risk Manager of the Year.  The award will be presented to Mr. Nickel at a ceremonial breakfast and panel discussion at RIMS 2017 Annual Conference & Exhibition on April 25th in Philadelphia.

 

Benjamin Evans, Executive Director, Office of Risk Management and Insurance at the University of Pennsylvania; Juliana J. Keaton, Director of Insurance at CSX Transportation, Inc.; and Scot Schwarting, Director of Risk Management at Whirlpool Corporation were named to the 2017 RIMS Risk Management Honor Roll.

 

Recently acquired by RIMS, The Risk Manager of the Year program aims to raise the profile of the risk management profession and the outstanding programs practitioners have implemented within their organizations. The program was initiated in 1977 and the Risk Management Honor Roll was added in 1981.

 

“Organizations have come to rely on risk professionals’ knowledge and ingenuity to navigate the rapidly evolving and increasingly more complex risk landscape,” said RIMS CEO Mary Roth. “This year’s RIMS Risk Manager of the Year and Honor Roll awardees have risen to the occasion and successfully turned uncertainty into great opportunities for their organizations. 

 

“Loren Nickel’s success at Google exemplifies the invaluable role risk professionals can play in allowing their organizations to achieve strategic objectives. It is an honor and privilege for RIMS to recognize the achievements of these outstanding professionals.”

 

Any full-time professional who administers risk management programs for a corporate, nonprofit institution or government entity is eligible for submission in the Risk Manager of the Year program. The nominations are judged by an independent panel representing prior honorees and other risk management and insurance industry leaders.

Loren Nickel joined Google in 2015 and currently serves as its Director of Business Risk and Insurance. He is responsible for business risks that impact all Alphabet Inc. (formerly known as “Google”) companies worldwide – a company that has $90 billion in annual revenue, 72,000 employees and a current market cap of $579 billion.

 

In his first year at the organization, he focused on building the foundation for future risk management efforts. Such efforts included the implementation of a Total Cost of Risk tracking system, an internal version of the Best Capital Adequacy Ratio used to rate its captive, a risk based monitoring system for emerging risks, a loss measurement system called the “actual versus expected” report, as well as creating a customized multi-line risk policy.

 

Loren co-developed (along with Ward Ching from Aon) the theory behind an important strategic risk management effort, the Efficient Frontier. Used for insurance structure decision-making, the Efficient Frontier helped the organization simplify such decisions and demonstrated the opportunity to significantly reduce risk as measured by Total Value at Risk, all without an increase in spending.

 

Because Google continues its rapid growth, insurance structures are often less applicable by the end of the contract. In the past 18-months, Loren and the risk management team have created five and ten-year risk management plans to compensate for this evolution. These plans allow them to focus on future placements during the current renewal process, ensuring that Google has better protections in place in future periods.

 

Loren brings a wealth of educational experience to the role of risk manager. He is a qualified actuary, FCAS of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a CFA Charter holder of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute. He is also a board member of the University of California Santa Barbara actuarial program and the Insurance Thought Leadership organization. He was the President of the Casualty Actuaries of the Bay Area for more than six years.

 

Ben Evans joined the University of Pennsylvania in 2008 as its Executive Director of Risk Management and Insurance. The University, which includes the University of Pennsylvania Health System, is the largest employer in Philadelphia with about 52,000 full-time equivalent employees. It has more than 24,000 students, risk and exposures in more than 80 countries, a fiscal operating budget of $7.7 billion (2016), revenue exceeding $8.5 billion, an endowment of more than $10 billion and it receives $940 million annually in sponsored research funds.

 

Ben has transformed the University of Pennsylvania’s Office of Risk Management and Insurance into a strategic, global, enterprise-wide risk management practice that has reduced losses, improved safety and lowered the total cost of risk. He manages self-insurance programs, approximately 50 traditional commercial insurance policies, a fine arts insurance and risk management program, a portfolio of over 40 surety bonds, an international safety, security, and travel assistance program, and third-party administrators. He also serves as the president of two risk retention groups, is the president of a captive and has a board position on two other captives.

 

The organization has expanded during Ben’s tenure in areas that have included the Penn Wharton China Center (Beijing) and the addition of two acute care hospitals to the UPenn Health System.  The new culture of risk management Ben has fostered has been a major contributor to understanding the risks that comes with such expansion and the treatment of the risks.

 

Ben has devoted his entire 30-year career to risk management and is a strong advocate in not only giving back to the profession but also, advancing the knowledge and impact of the risk management profession. He is an active member of RIMS and the University Risk Management and Insurance Association and holds an Associate in Risk Management designation. He serves as an active council/board member on the International SOS East Coast Client Advisory Council and the AIG Higher Education Advisory Board. 

 

As CSX’s Director of Insurance, Juliana Keaton is responsible for identifying, quantifying and determining the appropriate vehicles for mitigating current and emerging risks of this Fortune 250 transportation company, its numerous subsidiaries and affiliates.

 

In addition to overseeing a complex and constantly evolving ERM program, Juliana is responsible for ensuring appropriate terms and conditions and placement of all of the enterprise’s insurance programs, consisting of hundreds of policies with more than 20 lines of coverage.

 

Under her leadership, the three largest insurance programs – Property, Liability and D&O – achieved record premium reductions, while making enhancements to coverage to address the enterprise’s exposures. Since 2013, those three programs’ premiums have decreased 24 percent or nearly $10 million.  Additionally, she worked with her provider to create new products that specifically addressed catastrophic rail incidents that involve toxic chemicals, a Cyber Rail liability policy, as well as sabotage and terrorism coverage.

 

As the President of CSX Insurance Company, she is responsible for managing CSX’s wholly-owned captive subsidiary, which issues 14 polices and writes more than $40 million in premium annually.  Over the past three years, Juliana and her team have reduced claim count by over 30 percent, legal spend by more than 60 percent and reserves by more than 20 percent.  This has allowed the captive company to pay nearly $70 million in dividends.

 

Helping keep risk management at the forefront, she also has spoken at CSX’s Continuing Legal Education seminar, the Red Cross Summit, the South Carolina Captive Insurance Association’s annual conference and at Aon’s annual actuary conference.

 

She is a past President and current officer of the Railroad Insurance Management Association, serves on the Board of the South Carolina Captive Insurance Association and is a former director of United Insurance Company.

 

Scot Schwarting is the Director of Risk Management for Whirlpool Corporation, the world’s largest appliance company with over 70 manufacturing and technology centers and operations in 170 countries. Whirlpool has 97,000 employees in 74 countries and net sales of approximately $21 billion.

 

Scot is responsible for market, organizational and strategic risks and insurance. Additionally, he is responsible for delivering ERM around the world. This requires him to interview international leaders to assess functional risks and the reporting of overall ERM successes and opportunities to the Executive Finance Committee.

 

Since 2007, Scot and his team have successfully implemented substantial cost savings and program enhancements to Whirlpool’s risk transfer programs, as well as continually working to change the corporate culture from a reactive posture to a proactive one in dealing with risk management issues.  As a result, the organization’s Total Cost of Risk decreased from $1.87 per share in 2007 to $0.89 at the end of 2015. It was able to retain 97 percent of losses and, as a group, completed 252 projects allowing redeployment of $75 million in cash and reducing risk by $122 million. 

 

Most recently, Scot has played a key role in several of Whirlpool’s strategic initiatives that included converting a banking based financial guarantee program for tax litigation in Brazil, consolidating and restructuring Whirlpool’s European operations, spearheading a sprinkler project throughout key facilities in South America, leading a comprehensive captive expansion study, among others.

 

He is committed to developing talent inside and outside of Whirlpool’s Risk Management Department. Scot encourages and promotes opportunities to excel, challenging others to take responsibility of assigned programs and providing data and analytics guidance to help anticipate the market’s next move. He contributes to the risk management community through speaking engagements and by providing material used in RIMS textbooks and reports.