Aylin Somersan Coqui wins chief risk officer of the year for being an inspirational leader, team builder and cross-functional guru at Allianz. The award also recognises her wider contribution to the insurance industry.

Somersan Coqui took the helm as Allianz's CRO in July 2020 when Covid-19 was testing the financial services and the insurance industry's solvency like no other event in recent decades.

The pandemic has changed how the German insurer manages risks and Somersan Coqui shared these insights with InsuranceERM a year into the CRO role.

Somersan Coqui ranks maintaining and steering a strong solvency position for Allianz during the Covid crisis as one of the achievements she is most proud of since becoming the insurer's CRO.

She cites the migration of the risk infrastructure used for the Solvency II capital calculation to a cloud-based solution, significantly increasing flexibility and capacity for analysis, as another achievement that brings her pride.

Speaking to InsuranceERM, she says: "The fundamental shift that I brought to this role since I took it in July 2020 was to position the risk function to be a strategic partner to the business. While the risk function is very effective in its capital management activities, I found it important to further increase focus on ex-ante/business partnering aspects."

Somersan Coqui adds: "We also focused more on bringing greater discipline to the management of cyber risks, both from an operational and from an underwriting perspective. From an operational perspective, we challenged the business to revaluate its investments and spend on cyber prevention and detection capabilities."

This culminated in the creation of an operational cyber strategy, done jointly with Allianz's information security teams, which defines tools to identify, measure, control and report cyber risk.

Cyber risk

Somersan Coqui says the dynamic nature of cyber risk makes its quantification and modelling particularly challenging. "This is what makes it a black swan. Its very unpredictability relative to its source and ultimate impact means that we must deploy preventive measures in our control strategies. From an operational perspective, a robust security governance and continuous security initiatives are paramount to manage the retained risk."

On the underwriting side, Somersan Coqui says Allianz continually works on clarifying coverage to aid better understanding for its customers. "And we need to continue to enhance the value-added services available to our policyholders to enable to them to be alert to the dynamic cyber threat landscape."

InsuranceERM's judging panel was highly impressed by the way that Somersan Coqui has been a key contributor to various strategic acquisitions and back-book transactions.

Finalising a $35bn reinsurance arrangement, announced at Allianz's capital markets day on 3 December 2021, is one such example of the collaboration by Somersan Coqui and the insurer's risk team.

The development of a holistic non-financial risk management framework is another achievement Somersan Coqui is proud of since becoming Allianz CRO.

She says: "With this framework, we can integrate our existing Allianz-internal core control assets, providing an end-to-end view, reinforcing a qualitative, forward-looking risk assessment with the use of quantitative criteria and supporting a common language for discussion with business owners.

"An innovative approach to non-financial risks will help us enforce higher risk awareness across Allianz Group and meet evolving and expanding stakeholder expectations."

As vice-chair of the CRO Forum, Coqui is also playing a major role in advancing risk management best practice for the insurance business. She has also chaired the CRO Forum's initiative regarding the evolving goals of risk management as a Solvency II key function.

Somersan Coqui is neither an actuary nor an accountant – typical routes into risk management roles. Instead, she has held leadership positions within the Allianz group since 2003, initially at Allianz Global Investors and Pimco Europe, as well as a spell as head of the CEO office.

In 2013, Somersan Coqui joined the board of Allianz Turkey, first as chief financial officer, and from 2016 to 2018 as chief executive. Latterly, she was the group's global head of human resources.

Commenting what she has learnt since taking the Allianz CRO role, she says: "Having run businesses and occupied leadership roles that drive first line of defence activities, I have come to appreciate the risk management view.

"If I have a wish, it would be that more business leaders have a chance to experience the other side of the risk/reward coin. These exchanges make risk more business-minded and business more risk-minded."

Having been appointed CRO amid the pandemic, Somersan Coqui says her regret is not having been able to work with her team beyond that of a virtual environment. "I really do miss the camaraderie, that we get from day-to-day face to face interactions, especially the ability to visit our subsidiaries around the globe."

She also stresses there is no typical day in her life as the CRO of Allianz, and this is what makes her job exciting and rewarding. If there is a typical aspect of her life, the Harvard Business School graduate says it is that she makes every attempt to ensure her priorities of family, friends and work are in balance. "What is also typical is that I can consistently count upon the guidance and support of all three."

Somersan Coqui has crafted a compelling strategic vision at Allianz and is a CRO with unbounded energy and dynamism

So, what motivated her to enter the insurance sector? Seeing that insurance has provided so many solutions that protect clients' interests, and having the ability to work "with amazingly bright and dedicated colleagues", are among her reasons.

Just as the interview is about to wrap up, the award-winning CRO once again hits the mark saying: "Whoever says insurance is boring has not been in risk management!"