Florence Bindelle
This will be a year of change for FERMA. You may be aware that during the last board meeting in December, we elected a new Secretary General Edwin V. Meyer, General Manager Risk and Insurance for Arcelormittal based in Luxembourg, and a new Treasurer, Anders Esbjörnsson who is Group Risk Manager NCC in Sweden.
Both Edwin and Anders are key opinion leaders of the risk management community, and already very familiar with FERMA’s organisation. I look forward to their innovative input and insight into our future developments. Their predecessors Pierre Sonigo and Fernand De Winter gave us immense support, and we are currently in a period of transition.
Most important, the board approved the strategic plan for 2015. It identifies 14 major initiatives that will be developed during 2015, which are linked to our strategic objectives. A number of working groups have been established to move these projects forward. We also aim at developing synergies on common fields with our members. One of those projects is Certification, and two major gatherings took place to advance the CPD framework and the general process maps for Certification.
This project demonstrates that the future of the profession is in our hands, and the teams of volunteers among our members that are involved are just fantastic. They dedicate time and we are thankful for their commitment.
On the communication side, we organised our first communication day meeting discussing and coordinating actions at European scale. We welcomed two German representatives, Miriam Metzmacher and Stephanie Speyrer, and Simona Miele from Italy, who shared and helped shape the marketing plan and ideas. This meeting is the outcome of regular conference calls with the communication officers of the risk management associations. Together, we create the risk management online community.
The Forum in Venice is on track. Most of our trusted partners have already confirmed their presence, and the programme committee has launched the call for speakers. The deadline for applications is coming soon; don’t miss the opportunity to share your views. The committee will soon review the proposals to set up and produce high quality sessions.
To give the latest European news in a nutshell, we have responded to the EIOPA consultation about the equivalence assessment of the Bermudian supervisory system in relation to the Solvency II Directive. Following consultation with our members, we have supported the Zurich Insurance initiative on the insurance of international programmes and will have to bring it to the level of the International Risk and Insurance Management Association (IFRIMA), where FERMA has three representatives.
We are also in the membership renewal period. We welcome applications from individuals or companies with an interest in European risk management if they are established in a country without a FERMA member association, whether they are inside or outside Europe.