Update from Donna Childs, IWEC past awardee, who has founded her second venture Prisere LLC. She is working on a climate risk/disaster risk financing project across Asia, starting with Sri Lanka and Pakistan and invites you to check out the photos of work in those two countries at www.facebook.com/prisere
Photo: Donna Childs, CEO Prisere
About Donna Childs: “I am a change maker because I have founded an organization dedicated to expanding access to insurance for underserved populations. I feel a strong connection to Guinea, a French-speaking country in Sub-Saharan Africa, where I have fond memories. I want to see a basic measure of social insurance, a safety net, for the most vulnerable people in the world to cushion them from the losses of external shocks. I began my career as a research associate at the Harvard Business School where I was responsible for writing case studies on the insurance industry for use in teaching MBA students. Then I relocated to New York where I worked as an investment banker on corporate finance transactions for insurance industry clients. One of my clients recruited me and I moved to Zurich, Switzerland where I served as a senior executive of the Swiss Reinsurance Company, the world’s leading reinsurer of property-casualty and life-health risks. I returned to the U.S. to start my own venture to expand access to insurance for under-served populations. In connection with that venture, I served as the senior policy advisor to the UN Advisors Group on Inclusive Financial Sectors, a follow-on initiative to the United Nations’ International Year of Microcredit. For my business, I worked on projects in Africa, China, Russia, India and the U.S. I am the author of a book that deals with small business insurance issues. My work has been featured in major news media, from the New York Times to CNBC and internationally in news media from China to Egypt. In 2007, the National Association of Women Business Owners named me its “Woman Business Owner of the Year”. In addition to running my venture, I write a column for a major newswire.”
About Prisere LLC: “Donna Childs worked in an area that was declared a federal disaster, one of the worst disasters in history. Thanks to our unusual professional backgrounds (in reinsurance and information technology), we were exceptionally well prepared. Our business (which was then Childs Capital LLC and worked in the area of microfinance) was featured in the “Ready for Business” campaign of the Department of Homeland Security as an example of exceptional effort to build business resilience. To share our experience with other small businesses, we wrote a book that was published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Prepare for the Worst, Plan for the Best: Disaster Preparedness and Recovery for Small Businesses was newly updated with 40 per cent fresh content for the second edition and is now available in paperback. The book has received favorable coverage from major news media. For more information about the book, please click here.
For ten years after our experience of living and working in a federal disaster area, our team volunteered to help other small businesses impacted by disasters. The Hurricane Recovery Director of the American Red Cross honored our work for small businesses in the Gulf Coast states to assist in their recovery from Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike. Demand for our experience was such that we established our new company, Prisere LLC, to work full-time on risk resilience for smaller enterprises.”