Munich Re's 1st Annual Parametric Agro Conference

Bertrand is a French National, born in the French agricultural heartland of Alsace-Lorraine. Bertrand holds a Master in International Trade from the University of Metz. Bertrand started his career in the City of London in 1999, moving to Grains & Oilseeds in 2006, 20 years ago. Bertrand focuses on Grains & Oilseeds with an emphasis on European Clients, using his privileged visibility at StoneX to provide Clients with regular market notes, while offering Clearing and Execution services on both listed and OTC markets. Bertrand is featured regularly on StoneX’s Market Intelligence updates available on social platforms like YouTube, X, LinkedIn, and the StoneX website.

Horatiu is an insurance and risk management professional with over 19 years of experience within Marsh and involved in designing and implementing risk transfer solutions for businesses across various industries with a major focus in agriculture in the last 10 years. 

Through the career he has been actively involved in projects related to agricultural risk management with national/international impact. All projects were related to parametric, indemnity or hybrid solutions for farmers, insurers, seed producers, and other agribusiness companies. He is also author or co-author of several scientific publications in international journals focusing on climate-related risks, agriculture resilience and the role of insurance in supporting sustainable agriculture development.

James is a senior agricultural and financial risk management executive with extensive global experience spanning commodity trading, risk management, agricultural infrastructure, data analytics, and investment management. He currently serves as Global Head of Financial Risk Management at Louis Dreyfus Company, based in Wilton, Connecticut, where he oversees the firm's global financial risk framework.

Over the course of his career, James has held numerous leadership positions across the agriculture and commodities sectors. Prior to his current role, he served on the Board of Greenfield Holdings, an integrated agricultural infrastructure company owned and managed by investment firm Engine No. 1. He was also Advisor and Senior Vice President at Gro Intelligence, a climate and agricultural data analytics company, and Managing Director of the Agricultural Division at Freepoint Commodities. Earlier, he served as Global Business Manager for Agriculture at BTG Pactual, Brazil's largest investment bank. James previously spent fifteen years with LDC in a series of senior leadership roles, including Head of Over-the-Counter Trading and Risk Management, Executive Vice President and Head of LDC's Futures Clearing Division, and Senior Trader in the companies Grains and Oilseeds divisions. During this period, he worked extensively in international markets, including assignments in the United States, Singapore, and China.

In addition to corporate leadership experience, James is the Owner and Managing Partner of a New York-based farmland business, reflecting his longstanding commitment to agriculture and land stewardship. He is an active member of the New York Farm Bureau and serves on the Board of Trustees of the Connecticut-Rhode Island Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

James holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Trinity College and an MBA from Columbia University. His unique blend of expertise in agricultural markets, financial risk management, investment strategy, and agricultural operations has made him a respected leader across the global agribusiness sector.

John is an expert in the parametric industry with nearly 15 years of experience who joined Munich Re in 2023 and oversees North American and APAC for AgRisk Partners. John’s mission is to help agricultural companies overcome the financial challenges posed by climate, weather, natural catastrophes, crop-yield volatility, and price fluctuations using parametric products. John’s career includes successful transactions for heat wave, drought, crop-yield, crop-production, excess rain, and frost, encompassing a range of buyers from small farmers to large agribusinesses. John earned the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation in 2015 and is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society of Houston. John spends his free time exercising, hiking, and cheering on his hometown’s St. Louis Blues hockey team.

José is a technology and product leader with more than 15 years of experience converting complex technical developments into operational products. In 2011 he co-founded Smartway, a Uruguayan technology company that develops integrated hardware and software solutions combining artificial intelligence, IoT, telemetry, and satellite observation. His work focuses on helping insurers and reinsurers apply these technologies to agricultural risk: Smartway's systems support underwriting, portfolio monitoring, parametric and yield-based insurance solutions, and the large-scale automation of claims assessment. José leads the design, training, validation, and fine-tuning of the company's deep-learning models for crop identification, continuous crop monitoring, and soybean yield forecasting, trained on calibrated combine-harvester yield data, satellite-derived vegetation indicators, and soil and weather variables across agricultural regions of Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay. He earned a degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad ORT Uruguay and completed postgraduate studies in Artificial Intelligence. His research on soybean yield prediction in the eastern Pampas of South America using neural models and open-source variables was presented at the XXI Brazilian Symposium on Remote Sensing (2025).

Michael is an agricultural risk management expert with more than 20 years of experience in the agricultural insurance and reinsurance industry. His work focuses on helping companies across the agricultural value chain manage crop-yield volatility arising from weather and climate variability. He specializes in developing data-driven hedging solutions that enable clients to manage crop yield risk as effectively as they manage commodity price risk. Prior to joining Munich Re, he held senior management, underwriting, and business development roles at Swiss Re and other reinsurance as well as technology companies. Michael earned a degree in Agricultural Economics from the Technical University of Munich and completed part of his studies at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He also holds an Executive MBA from IMD Switzerland and obtained futures trading licenses from Eurex and the National Futures Association.

Nicolás is an electronic engineer, entrepreneur, and business leader with more than 15 years of experience applying technology to operational and risk-management challenges. In 2011, he co-founded Smartway, a Uruguayan technology company that develops integrated solutions combining artificial intelligence, IoT, telemetry, and satellite observation. As CEO, he leads the company’s strategy, commercial development, and international expansion, working closely with insurers, reinsurers,  agricultural producers, and transport companies across Latin America. His work focuses on turning complex technological capabilities into practical, scalable products for agricultural insurance, including underwriting support, portfolio monitoring, yield estimation, parametric solutions, and digital claims assessment. Nicolás earned a degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad ORT Uruguay, where he also teaches electronics, instrumentation, and embedded systems. He is currently pursuing an MBA and is particularly interested in how technology, data, and new business models can make agricultural risk more measurable, transparent, and manageable.

Oleksandr is a senior agribusiness expert with experience in (re)insurance, soft commodities, marketing and finance. Based in Zurich, Oleksandr is structuring innovative risk transfer solutions at the global Weather & Agro team of Munich Re. Before joining Munich Re, Oleksandr was heading Food & Agriculture Origination EMEA at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions and managing the agriculture development work of U.S. Agency for International Development in Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus. Previously, he was leading grain, oilseed, sugar and biotech market research for Ukraine and Moldova in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. His previous experience includes management roles in agriculture-related business associations, as well as equity research work for an investment bank.

Rainer is Head of AgRisk Partners at Munich Re, leading a team of experts focused on enhancing the resilience and sustainability of global food supply chains through innovative risk transfer solutions. With more than a decade of experience in Munich Re’s Agricultural & Weather Risk community, he is responsible for structuring and executing data-driven hedging solutions that help clients address the increasing challenges arising from extreme weather events, crop yield volatility, and commodity price fluctuations across the agricultural value chain. A recognized thought leader in agricultural risk transfer, he is committed to developing innovative approaches that enable clients to manage weather-related risks more effectively and strengthen their long-term resilience. Prior to joining Munich Re’s Agricultural & Weather Risk community, Rainer held several senior positions in Credit Portfolio Management across the banking and insurance industries. He holds a Master’s degree in Statistics from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Remo is a weather risk specialist with expertise spanning atmospheric science, energy markets, and weather derivatives. He earned a PhD in Atmospheric Dynamics from ETH Zurich, focusing on the predictability of weather events that impact the energy sector. From 2017 to 2023, he worked as a Meteorologist for Energy Trading at Axpo, Switzerland’s largest utility, supporting trading and risk management decisions. Today, as Senior Structurer and Meteorologist at NewRe, a Munich Re subsidiary, he develops innovative weather derivative solutions that help businesses manage weather-related financial risks.

Stefan is a Member of the Board of Management of Munich Re, responsible for Global Clients, North America, Capital Partners, Global Real Estate & Services, and Human Resources. Having joined Munich Re in 2001, he brings over two decades of international leadership experience in reinsurance, underwriting, and client management.

Steven is a Senior Director and Business Line Manager at CME Group, where he manages the exchange’s global agricultural options portfolio. With over two decades of leadership in financial derivatives, options trading, and exchange infrastructure, Steven has spearheaded major product launches, developed liquidity programs, led technology enhancements, and driven market structure initiatives in close collaboration with international trading firms and key agricultural associations. Prior to his exchange business management roles, Steven was an independent options trader focusing on agricultural and interest rate derivatives. Steven holds a B.S. in Finance from the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University and has completed executive education programs at Harvard Business School, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago.

Vitaliy is an Executive Investment Director at Agroprosperis LLC is based in Kyiv and joined NCH in 2011. He is responsible for new projects, mergers and acquisitions activities across all asset classes in Ukraine, with a primary responsibility on agribusiness. Combining deep financial expertise with extensive experience in the agricultural sector through Agroprosperis, Vitaliy provides valuable insights into investment, business development and corporate finance in agriculture. Prior to NCH he worked in DCH Invest Management where he was responsible for M&A and corporate finance transactions and also served on the boards of several industrial companies, in particular Cherkasy Azot and Kharkiv Tractor Plant. Vitaliy received an MBA and MA from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and a BA in Economics from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.