Insurance Ireland – Grant Thornton Webinar H1 2023

Date: Wednesday, 21st June, 2023

Time: 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM

Place: Online

Overview

Insurance Ireland, alongside our partner Grant Thornton is hosting a webinar on the 21st of June from 10:30 am to 11:30 am.

There has been an increased focus on digital ways of working – this has especially accelerated since the COVID 19 pandemic. As a result, many insurance and financial organizations are facing an array of emerging risks as they have become to rely on remote working and other technology solutions to keep business running and in order to create efficiencies.

The Central Bank of Ireland and the European Commission have established guidelines and regulation to help supervisors to be able to expand their focus from ensuring firms remain financially resilient to also making sure they’re able to maintain resilient operations through a severe operational disruption. Although there are similarities to the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), there are also a number of differences between both. In summary, CBI takes a more holistic approach to managing Operational Resilience while DORA delves into specific Information Communication Technology (ICT) requirements going a step further with third parties, testing, incident management and reporting and more.

Operational resilience is essential to ensure that the assurance sector can continue to provide their services even in the face of adverse events. This webinar aims to be interactive with polling questions throughout so you can share your challenges and thoughts. It will aim to provide what value Operational Resilience can bring to your organization. It will also outline the key steps involved to achieving compliance. 

Hear from Grant Thornton experts in technology on what this means for insurers as well as what lies ahead in the regulatory landscape.

Agenda

Welcome address: Michael Curtin, Manager of Regulation & Policy Development, Insurance Ireland

Presentation by Grant Thornton: Operational Resilience 101 – A Guide to Success: Mary Loughney, Director, Grant Thornton Ireland and Shane O’Neill, Partner, Head of Technical Change, Grant Thornton Ireland

Topics:

·       What is Operational Resilience (Ops Res)?

·       What is the value to your organization?

·       A look at the Industry Guidance and Ops Res Framework

·       Assessing an organizations maturity

·       What lies ahead… DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act)

Speakers  

Michael Curtin, Manager of Regulation & Policy Development, Insurance Ireland

Mary Loughney, Director, Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton

Mary has 12 years of experience across business and IT risk, including 7 years in NYC working with fortune 100 companies. Mary joined Grant Thornton from Google where she worked in Engineering Compliance. She was responsible for overseeing Google’s Corporate IT risk processes and ensuring compliance requirements were met including obligations relating to systems and business resilience. Prior to this, Mary spent 9 years working in Risk Consulting and Advisory for Deloitte and KPMG most of which was spent in New York. Mary also developed a publication on the subject of ‘IT Risk Management’ and ‘Using Analytics and Visualization to support the Risk Management function’.

At Google, Mary collaborated and led teams cross functionally with Technical Program Leaders and Infrastructure Leaders in managing risks in relation to business resilience with a focus on Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) readiness and IT processes under various regulatory and contractual obligations. This included designing extensive risk assessment initiatives to proactively ensure that good hygiene is incorporated to handle the ever growing compliance needs.

Shane O’Neill, Partner, Head of Technical Change, Grant Thornton

Shane joined Grant Thornton Ireland in 2021 as Head of Technical Change within the Financial Services consulting practice. He has more than 19 years relevant experience.

Shane worked as a technology consultant, solution architect and program manager with a Global Consulting firm, before joining the Fairfax Financial Holdings Group as the Chief Information Officer for their Irish Operations, as well as providing CIO oversight and fulfilling CIO duties for Insurance companies across the Fairfax Group.

Most recently, before joining Grant Thornton Shane helped launch a RegTech start up; where Shane was the co-creator of an award winning Digital SaaS Customer Onboarding platform called valid8Me.

Nuala Crimmins, Partner, Head of Insurance, Grant Thornton 

Nuala joined the firm as a Partner in 2021 and is Head of Insurance for Grant Thornton Ireland. Nuala is a former regulator, qualified actuary, internal auditor and project manager, with extensive experience across the Insurance industry in areas such as regulation, audit, risk & governance, pricing and product development.

Nuala has a deep understanding of governance and regulation, from her time as Head of  Insurance Supervision within the Irish regulator (Central Bank of Ireland). In this role, Nuala led teams with responsibility for the prudential supervision of all insurance entities regulated out of Ireland, spanning domestic, cross-border, life, non-life and reinsurance business lines.

She has operated as Chief Internal Auditor for a range of insurance companies, across a number of countries, and has engaged effectively with Audit Committees, Risk Committees, Boards and Regulators.

Victoria Armitage, Director, Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton

Victoria leads the IT Risk Assurance and Advisory team as well as the Attestation Service offering within the Financial Services Advisory Business Risk Services team. She has over ten years’ experience in areas including IT Risk and Controls, Business Resilience, DORA Regulation, Sarbanes Oxley IT Controls testing, System Organisation Controls Reporting (SOC) and IT Risk Advisory/Consulting services, having previously worked in a Big 4 firm. 

Her experience spans across the financial services industry having supported national and international organisations within the Banking, Insurance, Asset Management, Payments and Aviation sectors.

Marie Anderson, Director, Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton

Marie is a Director in the Financial Services Advisory unit. Prior to joining GT Marie spent 6 years with The Central Bank of Ireland in the Insurance Directorate specialising in Regulatory Risk, Enterprise Risk Management, Compliance, Governance and Solvency II.

Marie is a Chartered Accountant with industry and has experience in a range of roles with in-depth knowledge of insurance regulations, including extensive experience of Solvency II.

If you are a member of Insurance Ireland and interested in attending please contact events@insuranceireland.eu.