Guest speakers from different professional disciplines will add their perspectives to the topics under discussion at the FERMA Seminar.

Thierry Touchais

The keynote speaker will be Thierry Touchais, executive director of the International Polar Foundation based in Brussels. This non-profit organisation was co-founded 10 years ago by Belgian explorer and civil engineer Alain Hubert with a climatologist and a glaciologist. Its aim is to increase awareness of polar and related climate issues.

Its projects are:

• Inform the wider public on the importance of polar research in understanding how the earth’s climate functions;
• Disseminate the results of research on the Polar Regions and on climate change;
• Offer new tools and resources that allow the educational community to communicate complex ideas to younger generations; and
• Demonstrate that action today can address the causes and adapt our lifestyles to current climate change.

Thierry Touchais, an engineer by background, joined the International Polar Foundation in 2005. Thierry graduated from Ecole Centrale de Lyon and the University of California, Berkeley, and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. Before joining the International Polar Foundation in 2005, he had a varied business career, primarily in the telecommunications sector.

Other guest speakers:

Lukáš Bortel

Lukáš Bortel has been a legal officer in the life and pensions unit of DG Internal Market and Services of the European Commission since in 2007. He focuses primarily on non-life insurance.

He is also a secretary to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Committee (EIOPC). A native of the Czech Republic, Lukáš holds an MSc and a PhD in economics and an MA and an LLD in law.

Carol Sirou

Carol Sirou, president credit market services France for Standard & Poor’s (S&P), joined the rating agency in 1990 as a credit analyst. In 2000, she became head of ratings for all European local and regional governments. In 2005, she was appointed manager of the sovereign and public sector ratings group for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Today, in addition to her responsibilities for France, Carol is head of S&P’s activities for the francophone European and African regions.

Thijs Smit

Thijs Smit is vice president of the management board of the European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing (ECIIA) and corporate internal auditor, SHV Holdings, Netherlands. He is a seasoned auditor with 34 years of experience in internal audit, more than 20 of them managing internal audit professionals in operational, financial, IT and special audits, including numerous fraud investigations.

Pierre-Yves Thoraval

As part of his 30-year tenure at the Bank of France, Pierre-Yves Thoraval served as deputy secretary general of the French Banking Commission with responsibility for protecting depositors, as well as acting as watchdog over the French banking and financial system. Today, he is managing director of Promontory, France, where he advises countries, institutions and clients on strategy, risk management, compliance and regulatory issues, and on matters related to operational and capital risk, including Basel III.