Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Bret Shroyer, FCAS, runs Valen’s professional services division. Bret applies his 20 years of experience as a property and casualty (P&C) actuary and insurance professional to identify practical solutions for client success, bringing tangible benefits to insurers.Prior to joining Valen, Bret was SVP of Reinsurance for Willis Re, where he focused on quantitative analysis and actuarial modeling to support property reinsurance placements. Bret joined Willis in 2009, bringing a wide range of professional experience in actuarial analysis and financial modeling. From 2006 to 2008, Bret served as CFO of an environmental consulting and construction firm. Immediately prior to this, Bret held numerous positions including Senior Actuary, Underwriting Director, and Predictive Modeling Manager during his ten-year tenure at Travelers. Prior to Travelers, Bret practiced three years as an Actuarial Consultant with Deloitte.Bret earned a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society.

Steve Werner received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from Louisiana State University.� He is a certified public accountant and certified internal auditor.� After passing the CPA exam in 1991, Steve began his career with Deloitte.� After four years there he took a position as Assistant Corporate Controller at United Companies Financial Corporation, a lending company based in Baton Rouge.� Before joining LUBA, Steve served as Internal Reporting Director for Lamar Advertising Co., one of the largest outdoor advertising companies in North America.� In 2011, Steve was named Chief Financial Officer of LUBA Workers’ Comp and is responsible for accounting and financial reporting and oversees the information technology, loss control and premium audit and billing operations.Steve is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Society of Louisiana Certified Public Accountants. Werner is a graduate of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber’s prestigious leadership program.� He serves as chairman of the board of directors for the A.C. Lewis YMCA and treasurer of HOPE Ministries. Steve is also a member of the Baton Rouge Rotary Club.

Barry Powers leads IBM Software Group’s Cognitive Insurance Industry Solutions team for North America. His team of industry consultants are responsible for working with senior, line of business executives in all major insurance companies.� The team’s focus is in understanding customers strategic initiatives and applying IBM’s software and services capabilities. The Solutions team was responsible for IBM’ Cognitive vertical industry strategy in Insurance and drove both organic and inorganic growth in IBM’s evolution from technology to vertical development and acquisition. He and his team led the development of the IBM Blueprints for vertical solutions development across all brands.� Barry Powers has 29 years of experience in Financial Services and Insurance.� Prior to joining IBM, Barry Powers worked with leading insurance software and services companies including CSC and CGI� In addition to managing sales executives and complex sales processes for these companies, Barry Powers helped develop new solution offerings including the Insurance industry’s first widely used product configuration tool, rating engine, electronic commerce application.

Sophia Yen is a Senior Principal at EY and the Strategy & Innovation Leader in the Insurance Consulting practice, focused on working with clients to drive profitable growth through strategic ventures, market trends & insights, innovation, and digitization and emerging technologies. She also serves on the EY Americas Insurance Leadership team.

Sophia has over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry with deep experience in reinsurance, insurance, banking, disruptive technologies and digital transformation. She has led global initiatives focusing on growth, M&A integrations and separations, integrated business and financial strategy planning, and streamlining target operating models.

Sophia has a unique combination of industry and consulting experiences as she started in consulting and then spent half of her career in the insurance and banking industry before returning to consulting. Some of her notable accomplishments included driving the transformation at UBS Investment Bank where she achieved more than 30 million in cost savings. Prior to UBS, she was at Swiss Re and held several senior leadership roles, including running their Americas Client Solutions team, SVP of Financial Services Origination, Chief of Staff to the CEO and COO and Head of Operations and Reporting, where she was responsible for the strategic financial planning, reporting, and operations of a $2.5+ billion portfolio and was a member of the Americas Executive Committee.

She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a Bachelor of Science (dual major: Finance & Computer Science) from Boston College and graduated both with high honors. She is a sought-after speaker at industry conferences throughout the Americas, EMEIA, and Asia on such topics as strategic transformation, digital transformation, enabling innovation, culture change, and diversity & inclusion. Sophia lives in Chappaqua, NY with her husband and daughter.

Roger Hartmuller is VP of the information services group for Allstate Insurance, where he is responsible for driving Allstate�s information strategy, which provides significant competitive advantage for the company.

Jean-Stephane Faubert is a senior solutions architect at InEdge. He has more than 20 years of experience designing and implementing information technology solutions. For more than half of his career, his focus has been in the design and implementation of Analytics solutions. Faubert has designed analytics solutions for clients in the insurance, banking, brokerage, health and other industries.

Martina Conlon is a principal at Novarica, a research and advisory firm focused on insurance technology strategy for insurers.

Jim Weiss is manager and assistant actuary in the Personal Automobile Actuarial Division at Insurance Services Office (ISO), a Verisk Analytics Company. His primary responsibilities include product development and filing strategy for personal auto predictive modeling initiatives, with a focus on vehicle rating and usage-based insurance (UBI). Weiss was lead actuary on the multi-state filing of both of ISO's telematics-based rating plans, and is a frequent presenter on UBI and personal lines analytical topics. He is co-author of "Beginner's Roadmap to Working with Driving Behavior Data," which was awarded the 2012 Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) Management Data and Information Prize, and author of "Five Simple Rules to Leverage Four Generations of Talent," which placed first in the 2013 Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) Society Diversity Essay Contest. Weiss is a Fellow of the CAS, a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, and a CPCU.