Clark Steps Down as President and CEO of AIR Worldwide

AIR Worldwide announced that Karen Clark, its current president and CEO, will assume the role of vice chairman of the board of AIR, effective April 15, 2007. S. Ming Lee, currently the company’s executive vice president, will succeed her as president and chief executive officer.

As the founder of AIR Worldwide, Karen Clark is an internationally recognized expert in the field of catastrophe risk modeling. In 1987, Clark pioneered the probabilistic catastrophe modeling techniques that revolutionized the way insurers, reinsurers and financial institutions manage their catastrophe risk. In addition, she has led the development of innovative technologies that enable companies to identify, quantify and plan for the financial consequences of catastrophic events. In 2000, she was selected by Business Insurance as one of the “Top 100 Women in the Insurance Industry.” In 2001, Clark was honored as Woman of the Year by the Association of Professional Insurance Women (APIW) and in 2006, she was selected by Business Insurance as a “Woman to Watch.”

“Karen’s contributions to the insurance industry are significant and widely recognized,” said Frank Coyne, chairman, president and chief executive officer of ISO, AIR’s parent company. “I cannot overstate the groundbreaking quality of Karen’s work on behalf of the property/casualty industry and many other businesses and governmental agencies that must anticipate and prepare for natural and man-made catastrophes. We at ISO are very pleased that she will continue to play an active role in AIR for the next several years as both an advisor to the organization and as a board member.”

“When I started AIR in the late 1980s, the need for objective scientific tools for catastrophe risk assessment was clear,” Clark said. “Catastrophe modeling as a recognized insurance discipline did not exist, so I took up the challenge. Now, the next frontier lies in working more closely with decision makers in the industry to foster a deeper understanding of the models and how to use them most effectively. I’ve decided the time is right for me to rebalance my activities and pursue new challenges.”

Lee joined AIR in 1996 and has managed several departments over the past decade. He currently directs the operations of AIR’s Consulting and Software Services Group, encompassing software product management and testing, technical support and catastrophe loss analysis services. Since the introduction of catastrophe bonds, he has led AIR’s modeling support for insurance-linked securities and was directly involved in many of the insurance industry’s landmark securitization transactions. Before joining AIR, Lee held senior executive positions at several leading information technology companies. A former U.S. Navy officer, Lee is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford Graduate School of Business.

“I look forward to leading AIR, and I am extremely confident that AIR’s management team will enable the company to build on our momentum,” Lee said.

Source: AIR Worldwide Corporation