2023 Women to Watch Awards Americas EMEA
Catherine Tillyard Partner-treaty reinsurance
McGill & Partners
London
A student who loved geography and developed a passion for volcanoes, Catherine Tillyard found the insurance industry to be a surprisingly good fit for her interest in natural hazards.
“I never thought about a career,” said Ms. Tillyard, who earned a master’s degree in geographic information science and a doctorate in volcanology. “I knew that I loved studying and I had a real passion for volcanoes in particular; they evoke that kind of emotion in a lot of people because they are quite spectacular, and, from a science point of view, hugely interesting.”
While teaching master’s and undergraduate courses, Ms. Tillyard took advice from some of her students who worked in commercial insurance. They said the field “might be a really good fit because it’s all about assessing risk, and I had been doing that for my Ph.D.,” she said.
Ms. Tillyard decided in 2010, as she was finishing her Ph.D., to join Aon in London as a catastrophe risk analyst. “I never looked back,” she said.
“I was completely green, knew very little about the insurance industry or catastrophe modeling,” Ms. Tillyard said. “But you learn pretty quickly.”
After 11 years with Aon, she joined McGill & Partners in her current role in 2021.
While discussing a renewal with the McGill energy team, Ms. Tillyard learned about coverage difficulties a wind farm in Taiwan was experiencing. There was no “robust way of assessing the risk,” she said, and that led her to manage a project that created a commercial catastrophe model for offshore wind farms.
“Catherine has really embraced the opportunity,” said Simon Coles, who worked with her at Aon and is now a partner-treaty reinsurance at McGill.
“When she was made head of catastrophe modeling, it was a natural choice” because of her experience, he said, adding, “and everyone trusted she was the right person for the job.”
Ms. Tillyard is involved with The Change Foundation, a charity that uses sports programs to support marginalized young people. “They do some amazing work,” she said.
Michael Bradford
