Chief risk officer of the year Joachim Oechslin

One of the most influential figures in European life insurance, Joachim Oechslin of Munich Re has brought risk management to the heart of business decision making

In 2003, Jan Wicke, then the newly appointed chief investment officer of Germany's DBV, was concerned about the concentration of callable bonds in his life portfolio. He began a dialogue with Joachim Oechslin, who had recently become chief risk officer (CRO) of DBV's parent company Winterthur. They became alarmed about the exposure to negative convexity, or rising duration in the event of falling interest rates. The two men decided not only to sell off the callable bonds immediately, but also to