Karen Clark, AIR's president and CEO was named to Business Insurance magazine's list of "Women to Watch" in 2006. In its October 9 issue, the publication recognized Ms. Clark as a woman who is leading change in the industry.

As the visionary and architect of the first probabilistic catastrophe model and founder of AIR Worldwide, Ms. Clark has influenced the way the insurance industry manages catastrophe risk for more than 20 years. Under Ms. Clark's leadership, AIR has held a position of technological innovation and the company continues to break new ground with the introduction of scientifically advanced catastrophe models.

Recent examples include the first detailed earthquake model for China, which AIR introduced in 2005. This year, AIR introduced a U.S. Wildfire Model and the first NWP-based winter storm model for the United States. First introduced by AIR for modeling European windstorms in 2000, NWP is a significant risk modeling advancement and the most appropriate technology for modeling complex extratropical cyclones.

Thanks to Ms. Clark's contributions to the insurance industry, catastrophe risk modeling is now incorporated into the day-to-day decision-making processes of insurers, reinsurers, intermediaries, governments and major corporations worldwide. Today, catastrophe models cover all major natural hazards, as well as the threat of man-made catastrophes, and are used extensively for pricing, risk selection and underwriting, loss mitigation activities, reinsurance decision-making, and overall risk management.