Arya Yarpezeshkan

Group Chief Risk Officer

The Navigators Group, Inc.

ARYA YARPEZESHKAN is a senior strategic and risk management professional with extensive experience in enterprise risk management, strategy development, financial analysis, business process improvement and operations.

Arya serves as the Group Chief Risk Officer for The Navigators Group, Inc., an international specialty insurance holding company with insurance company operations, underwriting management companies, and operations at Lloyd’s.  Headquartered in New York, Navigators has offices in major insurance centers in the United States, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe.

Arya’s current responsibilities include assisting the Board of Directors and senior management to establish and communicate the organization’s ERM objectives and direction, developing the company’s risk appetite and allocating the organization capital accordingly.  He also leads the enterprise-wide effort to systemically and proactively address and prioritize business risk allowing the organization to take more reasoned risks leading to competitive advantage.

Prior to joining Navigators, Arya served as the Chief Risk Officer and Head of Strategy for Tokio Marine – U.S., a property and casualty insurance company.  Arya established the company’s risk appetite, internal capital model and return-on-risk capital metrics used to drive business results.  His position as Chief Risk Officer and  Head of Strategy allowed him to take an enterprise-wide view of the organization and develop impactful recommendations for growth and efficiency within Tokio Marine.

Previously, he worked as a leader in the enterprise risk management (“ERM”) at MasterCard International where he was instrumental in the development of the ERM initiative globally.  Arya was responsible for the business transformation to a risk-centric culture, with the introduction of an internal capital model, risk-adjusted return metrics and a framework for evaluating new initiatives from a risk and return perspective.

Prior to MasterCard, Arya held senior financial roles at Citigroup and Bank of New York.  In his financial management roles, he was instrumental in several cross-functional efforts to streamline operations, develop profitability forecasting models and improve business returns.  Arya has also spent time in strategic planning and operations roles within the manufacturing sector at Astec America and Maxwell Technologies.  He completed his Masters in Banking at Mercy College, his M.B.A. at San Diego State University and his Bachelor’s at Kansas State University and is certified in Six Sigma, Project Management, Business Process Management, Business Continuity and The Balanced Scorecard.