Philipp Bäcker is the Head of Sustainability at R+V Versicherung AG, the German cooperative insurer, since 2021. He joined R+V Versicherung AG in 2018 as Chief of Staff to the CEO in the Corporate Development department. Prior to this, Philipp Bäcker spent more than 6 years at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) leading large-scale transformation initiatives across the financial services industry. He started his career in the Integrated Risk Management department at Munich Re. Philipp Bäcker studied Business Administration at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (Germany), NEOMA Business School in Reims (France) and UCD Michael Smurfit Business School in Dublin (Ireland), where he graduated in 2011 with a Master’s Degree

Grzegorz Buczkowski is CEO of Saltus TUW and Saltus Życie SA, the insurance companies of the Polish credit union system.  He has 30 years of experience in the Polish financial markets and credit unions, 25 of which in insurance.  Prior to joining Saltus, he has served as consultant to EU PHARE and UNDP programmes, World Bank’s CGAP programme and United Nations’ International Labour Organization and worked for institutions of the Polish credit union system. He has served on a number of boards, including companies listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange.

He has published on insurance and mutuality topics for the International Labour Organization, Bloomberg European Law Journal, Revue d’Economie Financiere and Polish Cooperative Research Institute.

He is a member of the Supervisory Committee of the Polish Chamber of Insurance and chair of its Mutuals’ Commission.He has been a member of the Board of Directors of AMICE since its formation in 2008, and its President since 2016.

Mr. Buczkowski holds an MA in English Literature from Gdansk University and an MBA in finance from Gdansk University and Strathclyde University, Glasgow.

Chair of Business Studies at Trinity College Dublin and Academic Director of Executive Education in Trinity Business School. Served two terms as Dean from 2015-2023 with a focus on strategic and transformational leadership. During this time Trinity Business School created leadership principles (the TBS DNA: Transforming Business for Good) which enabled a collaborative leading-leaders culture. This propelled extensive innovation and threefold scaling of the School to become triple accredited (AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS) placing the School in the top 1% of business schools in the world and self-financing a new eco-friendly School building. Over the same period, the School entered and moved into the top tier of the Financial Times rankings and was rated as the 4th best business school in the world by the Economist for gender diversity. 

Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and has served on the Board of the University and Audit Committee. Served on the Governing Body of University College Dublin. Previously the Bettany Chair and the Founding Director of the Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship at Cranfield School of Management and prior to that, Deputy Director of the Centre for SMEs at Warwick University.

Chair of the 2023 European Academy of Management (EURAM) Conference and Co-Chair of EURAM's first ever online conference hosted during the Covid pandemic in 2020. Received a Failte Ireland Conference Ambassador Award in 2025. In 2026 received an award for academic contribution to finance at Irish Central's Financial Awards hosted at the Irish American Historical Society in New York. An executive coach with a Certificate in Executive Coaching from UC, Berkeley.

Widely published in top ranked international journals including the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Journal of Management Studies, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, International Journal of Industrial Organization, Small Business Economics and the Journal of Business Venturing with work presented at the EU Commission, World Trade Organization, HM's Treasury, UK Houses of Commons and Lords as well as through media such as Forbes Magazine, the Financial Times, RTE and the BBC.

Karen Coleman is an award-winning senior broadcast journalist from Ireland who is the editor of EU News Radio (Ireland) which reports on EU stories from the European Commission, European Council and other EU Institutions for Irish radio stations. A former BBC Foreign Correspondent, for many years Karen presented Ireland’s leading international affairs radio show, The Wide Angle on Newstalk radio.

Karen is also an international conference moderator and MC and she regularly moderates high-level national, international and EU conferences. As a Moderator/MC, Karen has covered a wide range of topics from Tech and Industry to Marine, Environmental, GeoPolitical, Security and other issues.

With almost 20 years of expertise in financial market analysis, regulation, and market surveillance, Luca serves as the Head of Regulatory Affairs at Unipol Gruppo S.p.A., one of the leading insurance groups in Italy and Europe. In this role, he oversees a division responsible for economic analysis and policy advocacy on legislative and regulatory initiatives that impact
the sectors in which Unipol operates.

Luca actively leads working groups focused on understanding the business impact of regulatory developments, providing impact analyses related to legislative and regulatory initiatives in insurance, financial, and banking regulations.

Before joining Unipol, Luca spent several years as a senior economist for the Italian financial market authority (Consob) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). He began his career as an officer for the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance (Treasury Department).

Luca holds a PhD in Economics and an MSc in Finance. He has several publications in international journals on banking and finance.

Sarah Goddard is Secretary General of AMICE, and has over 25 years' global re/insurance industry experience.

Before joining AMICE, she was CEO of the Dublin International Insurance & Management Association (DIMA) which represented companies writing non-Irish insurance, and life and non-life reinsurance business, including captive management.

Previously, Sarah worked as Editor for Global Reinsurance magazine and as International Bureau Chief for the Business Insurance magazine. She started her career at Lloyd's of London and graduated from the University of Manchester, UK.

Tom Keane is Head of Stakeholder Engagement & Corporate Social Engagement (CSE) at IPB Insurance, where he is responsible for the strategic management of IPB’s relationships with key external stakeholders and strategic delivery of its Corporate Social Engagement programme.

Tom’s role focuses on the active management of political and reputational risk through effective engagement with Member-related representative bodies, Government, regulators, industry associations, strategic partners, community organisations and the public. He advises IPB’s Board and Leadership Team on stakeholder-related risks and opportunities, leads the development and implementation of IPB’s Reputational Risk Management Framework, and supports informed decision-making through stakeholder impact analysis and reporting.

Tom is also responsible for the strategic direction of IPB’s Corporate Social Engagement Programme, ensuring that it delivers meaningful, measurable impact for Members and communities across the country and aligns with IPB’s mutual ethos, values and long-term strategy.

Tom holds a BSc in Management (Trinity College Dublin) and an Advanced Diploma in Marketing, and is a member of the Insurance Institute of Ireland, the Marketing Institute of Ireland and the Public Relations Institute of Ireland.

A native of Dublin, John has held senior leadership positions in insurance companies in Ireland and in the USA. He is a fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Dublin City University, where he completed his MBA.

John began his career in the insurance industry in 1976 at Sun Alliance before his appointment in 1996 to the position of Chief Executive Officer at St. Paul Ireland (Now Travelers). In 2000, John moved to the United States to take up the position of President of Financial and Professional Services at St. Paul Travelers at their global head office in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Following a successful tenure with St. Paul Travellers, John was appointed Executive Vice President at ERIE Insurance Group, joining the company in 2007. In 2018 John joined Berkley Mid-Atlantic Group as its President and most recently as Chairman before he stepped down from his role to take up his new position.

David is a qualified chartered accountant who trained with PwC. He is now CEO of the Irish League of Credit Unions (“ILCU”), the largest representative body for credit unions on the island of Ireland. The ILCU supports the advocacy and regulatory engagement, provides a suite of services to credit unions including legal, HR, training, insurance and compliance. In addition, the ILCU oversees the award winning “For You” TV, Radio and social media campaign. David is also the national spokesperson for credit unions with regular press and radio engagement on RTE, Newstalk, Irish Times and the Independent.

Andrea Manning is Group Chief Information Security Officer at Acorn Life DAC, an independent Irish-owned life assurance company headquartered in Galway. She is responsible for information security, cyber risk, operational resilience, business continuity and third-party oversight across the organisation

Andrea has led Acorn Life's end-to-end implementation of the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and has built a unified resilience framework that brings together DORA, operational resilience, BCP and third-party risk into a single, coherent structure — an approach shaped by the practical realities of delivering enterprise-grade resilience in a smaller organisation.

Andrea is Chair of the itag Cyber Forum and leads Cyber Ireland's West Chapter. She is an active member of Cyber Ireland, lectures in cybersecurity, and actively mentors those entering the profession.

Andrea is passionate about making regulatory compliance operationally meaningful and believes that strong digital governance is the foundation of policyholder trust.

David McWilliams, economist, author, podcaster, his latest book, Money: A Story of Humanity has been made the Financial Times and The Economist’s book of the year for 2024/25. It focuses on the crucial relationship between money and humanity from the Stone Age right up to Bitcoin. David aims to make economics uncomplicated and accessible and his podcast The David McWilliams Podcast, has over 35 million downloads establishing itself as one of the most successful economics podcasts globally. He is also the founder of the world's only economics and stand-up comedy festival, "Kilkenomics" - described by the Financial Times as "simply, the best economics conference in the world."

The David McWilliams Podcast has achieved over 35 million downloads, establishing itself as one of the most successful economics podcasts globally.

David’s 2023 TED Talk, The Power of Unconventional Thinking, has over 1.2 million views worldwide. As one of the few economists ever on the official TED stage, this talk underscores his ability to captivate and inspire a global audience through innovative ideas and fresh perspectives.

David is the author of several bestsellers, his books are celebrated for their insightful analysis and have been translated into multiple languages, reaching readers worldwide.

McWilliams is an adjunct professor of global economics at Trinity College Dublin and the sixth most influential economist in the world, according to Richtopia.

He cofounded the Dalkey Book Festival, Ireland's largest literary and ideas festival. McWilliams has written five bestsellers, including The Pope's Children: Ireland's New Elite, The Good Room, Follow the Money, The Generation Game, Renaissance Nation: How the Pope's Children Rewrote the Rules for Ireland and Money: A Story of Humanity. He also writes a weekly column for The Irish Times.

Photograph: Conor Healy

Professor Martin Mullins is Co-Leader of the Emerging Risk Group, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick, a Professor in Risk and Insurance, a Funded Investigator for Lero and has been a member of the Expert Group on Digital Ethics in Insurance for EIOPA. More recently, he worked with the Central Bank of Ireland as a data ethicist. Professor Mullins teaches financial regulation at Masters level and lectures on the philosophy of science to University doctoral students. He has worked on a number of risk governance related research projects, including five EU Commission funded projects in the area of emerging technologies and risk transfer. Two of these focus on risk metrics, privacy and insurance in the area of assisted driving systems, namely VIDAS and Cloud-LSVA - funded under the MG3.6 and ICT 16 calls respectively. He is currently working on a set of recommendations for the European policy makers on the use of AI driven tools by law enforcement agencies.

Peter Oakes formally founded Fintech Ireland in September 2013 to give a unique identity to the promotion and facilitation of the fintech scene in Ireland and promotes the Irish fintech scene globally.

He is recognised by Chambers & Partners as a leading consultant in its Fintech 2020 international rankings.  

Peter is a non-executive director of regulated financial services companies and regtech and fintech companies (Ireland, UK & Denmark).  He also sits on the advisory committee of a number of fintech/regtech entities. He is a Member of the Panel of the Fintech20 Ireland.  Peter consults on fintech/regtech, financial services regulation, enforcement and business strategy. He has been working on fintech initiatives since 2009, including while Director at the Central Bank of Ireland (2010-2013) where he was a proponent of new technology to provide less friction, more efficiency and greater innovation in Irish financial services. In 2009 Peter was the lead consultant to one Ireland's great fintech success stories as it pursued a license from the Irish regulator. Peter is regarded internationally as a fintech, regtech, central banking and financial regulation expert.

Peter's cumulative background as a lawyer (Ireland, UK and Australia), non-executive director, Board Director and Chief Risk Officer at Bank of America Merchant Services Europe and Director of the Central Bank of Ireland gives him unique and uncompromising experience to help lead Ireland's fintech offering.  

Giovanni Rago is a seasoned insurance expert with almost 25 years of experience in insurance supervision and policy. He currently heads the Supervisory Convergence Unit at EIOPA, where he leads initiatives aimed at harmonising supervisory practices across the EU, including peer review, supervisory handbook, Opinion/Supervisory statement to address emerging risks. Before joining EIOPA, he held senior roles at the Italian supervisory authority, IVASS. He holds a PhD in Financial System, Risk Management and Regulation and a degree in Economics.

Mary Robinson is a co-founder of Project Dandelion, which is a women-led global campaign for climate justice, Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice at Trinity College Dublin, and a member of The Elders. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016, Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change leading up to the Paris Agreement and in 2016 as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010, came to a planned end in April 2019.

A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019. 
 
Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. Recently she became joint Honorary President of the Africa Europe Foundation. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018. She is also co-host of a podcast on the climate crisis, called ‘Mothers of Invention’.

Paul Scherer holds Master’s degrees in Economics and Finance from Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, and in Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris. He currently works as a Policy officer in the Insurance and Pensions Unit at the Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union (DG FISMA), a position he has held since October 2024. Before joining the European Commission as a Seconded National Expert, he worked at the French Prudential and Resolution Authority (Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution – ACPR) from 2019, first as an On-site insurance supervisor and later as a Policy Expert in the International Affairs Directorate.

Experienced Chief Economist with a demonstrated history of working in various areas such as the public-,  lobbying-, construction - and financial sector. Skilled in Business Planning, Analysis, Strategy, Economic Forecasting, Macroeconomics, and International Relations. Stands out with strong communicative - and presentational skills. MSc Economics from Stockholm University.

Belma Yasharova is the Head of Policy at AMICE, the Association of Mutual Insurers and Insurance Cooperatives in Europe. She has extensive experience in EU policymaking and regulatory affairs, leading AMICE’s advocacy across key areas including consumer protection, sustainable finance, pensions, and digitalisation.

She contributes to AMICE’s strategic engagement with European institutions and stakeholders, coordinating member positions and representing the association in dialogue with policymakers to ensure that the mutual and cooperative insurance model is effectively represented at EU level.

Before joining AMICE, she held positions within the European Commission and in diplomatic and advisory roles in Brussels, working on EU policy and legislative matters.

She studied at the Faculty of Law of the University of Jean Moulin Lyon III, and holds Master’s degrees in European and international law from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.