Alessandro Torre

Passionate about Risk, Insurance and Technology

Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

About

I am a senior insurance professional combining business knowledge with stakeholder and project management skills, and STEM skills. My experience lies at the intersection of Insurance and Technology. Track record of end-2-end software product development, from strategic planning to delivery in Agile & DevOps setups. I thrive on novel challenges that require creativity and I find fulfilment in streamlining processes to increase efficiency. My approach to addressing business needs is pragmatic and focused on delivering value. I embrace the “80% results with 20% effort” principle and strive to deliver high-quality work with limited resources. I am a certified SAV actuary, passionate about Data Science and Software Development. I code mainly in Python and Java, including machine learning frameworks (scikit-learn, Tensorflow, PyTorch), and PySpark for big data pipelines (on Azure Databricks and Palantir Foundry). In my free time, I try to keep up with the latest advancement in machine learning and the most interesting applications, from Natural Language Processing, to Generative models, to Reinforcement Learning.

Experience

  • Swiss Re (On-site)
    • Portfolio Management for L&H Transactions
      May 2024 - Present · 2 yrs 2 mos

      • Head of Global VA/GMxB and Index-Linked Portfolio Management • Building up the infrastructure to manage the in-force and the portfolio management capabilities • Structured Reinsurance, meeting clients demand for bespoke capital optimisation strategies and protection from remote risks • Protection from Financial Market risks embedded in Variable Annuities portfolios with GMDB, GMWB, GMAB, GMIB, GMxB riders • Relief from Regulatory Capital requirements • Monetisation of the in-force with Cash Financing solutions • Protection from Interest Rate risks with Asset Liability Matching • Protection from remote Mass Lapse events

    • Capital & Liquidity Management, Group Treasury
      Jan 2020 - Apr 2024 · 4 yrs 4 mos

      • Senior role at the intersection of Corporate Finance and Technology. • Leading the development of Swiss Re platform for Liquidity Modelling & Reporting (in Java and PySpark) • Responsible for the annual goal setting and for managing the development team. • Subject-matter expert for the impact assessment of large transactions on stress liquidity, contributing to several projects for the efficient use of Group Capital and Liquidity. Including international Fronting business. • Management and ownership of stress liquidity monitoring process for the CFOs/CROs of major Swiss Re legal entities, and support to steer capital and liquidity. • Leading the development of end-2-end data pipelines in Python & PySpark (on Palantir Foundry) processing billions of records to automate business processes. Leading a remote team of developers. • Leading initiatives to upskill the team in data and software engineering: Data models design, Python, PySpark, Java, Palantir Foundry, PowerQuery.

    • Senior Data Scientist
      Jan 2021 - Jun 2021 · 6 mos

      • Temporary role (on rotation) to lead the development of data-driven portfolio segmentation for Swiss Re new stochastic reserving platform (SPIRE) • Team lead & PO responsibilities. • Achievement: novel end2end tool to automate the complex, manual and time-consuming task of identifying optimal sub-portfolios for reserving. Focus on scalability and performance. • Back-end in the Azure cloud with PySpark on Databricks. Front-end in Java. • Embedded in an Agile team (Azure DevOps for planning).

  • Member of the Actuarial Data Science working group at Actuarial Data Science in the Swiss Association of Actuaries
    May 2019 - Present · 7 yrs 2 mos

    • Personal achievement: Highly popular "Data Science Après-Midi" events offered to Swiss actuaries as a new professional education opportunity, attended by ~130 participants on average.

  • Actuarial and Technology Consultant at Deloitte
    Jan 2015 - Jul 2017 · 2 yrs 7 mos

    • Focus on actuarial, technology and data science for financial institutions. • Top performance and income generation, promoted twice within 2 years (from Business Analyst, to Consultant, to Senior Consultant). • Own client relationship management already in the 2nd year. • Development of the pricing process and pricing tool (in C#) for a Swiss Health insurance client. • Automation and implementation (in R) of the SST calculation for a Swiss Life insurance client. • Development (in R) of a Credit Risk simulation tool for a Tier 1 Bank. • Robotic process automation (Automation Anywhere) for a Tier 1 Bank. • Strategic ALM tool (in Matlab) designed for a leading European insurance company. • Internal Model Review for a leading reinsurance group, with focus on risk factors dependencies.

  • PhD/Postdoc and Teaching Assistant, High Energy Physics at University of Zurich
    Sep 2011 - Dec 2014 · 3 yrs 4 mos

    • Software development for numerical simulations (in Fortran)

  • Microbiology Laboratory Technician at Hilliers of Plymouth
    Jun 2005 - Jul 2005 · 2 mos

    Microbiological analysis of food products