Mr Wainwright has close to 25 years’ experience in financial services and joins from Zurich in the United Kingdom (UK) where he is currently Chief Risk Officer for its Life business.

Prior to this, he has held various risk management and leadership roles at Zurich UK, Nomura Securities, Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) and Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) Global Banking and Markets.

Justin Delaney, Chief Executive Officer at Zurich said: “Mr Wainwright brings a strong breadth of global experience to this role, paired with an impressive technical and leadership capability.” 

“He will play a key role in driving Zurich’s local risk strategy against a backdrop of an increasingly complex environment. We look forward to welcoming him to Zurich’s local leadership team in the new year,” Mr Delaney said.

Mr Wainwright said: “I am delighted and honoured to be joining the Zurich team in Australia and look forward to further evolving the team’s strong risk management capability.” 

Commencing 6 January 2025, Mr Wainwright will relocate from the UK to Sydney and report into Sid Medappa, Zurich’s Regional Head of Risk for Asia Pacific (APAC).

Mr Wainwright will succeed Jaimie Sach, who announced his retirement after holding the Chief Risk Officer role at Zurich since 2019 and an extensive career in the wealth industry spanning more than 30 years.

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Jaimie Sach

Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich) has revealed that the ‘cost of living crisis’ is the top perceived risk to Australia and New Zealand businesses, following a survey of more than 12,000 executives by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in collaboration with Zurich and Marsh McLennan.

The annual ‘Executive Opinion Survey’ asked leaders from over 122 countries to identify five key risks they believe pose a threat to their nation in the next two years. The results come ahead of COP27 in Egypt and the G20 summit in Indonesia later this month.

Australian executives identified the ‘cost of living crisis’ as the top perceived threat to their businesses. This was followed by ‘rapid and/or sustained inflation’, ‘debt crises’, ‘geo-economic confrontation’ and lastly, ‘failure of climate-change adaptation’. Risks relating to extreme weather and infectious disease were this year missing from the top five.

Conducted between April and August 2022, this year’s survey results differed significantly from 20211, which saw ‘failure of cybersecurity measures’ identified as the top perceived risk, followed by ‘extreme weather events’, ‘climate action failure’, ‘infectious diseases’ and ‘debt crises in large economies’.

Jaimie Sach, Chief Risk Officer, Zurich Australia & New Zealand said: “Our role as an insurer is to protect people and businesses from risk and increase their resilience. This data provides an important insight into the risks keeping Australian corporate leaders awake at night.”

“Many Australians are currently experiencing the risks predicted in the 2021 survey, such as cybersecurity threats and extreme weather. When we consider the top ranked risks in the 2022 survey, it is also unsurprising that cost of living and the impacts of inflation are causing concern. The effects of these issues are certainly being felt not just in Australia, but across the globe.”

New Zealand also saw the ‘cost of living crisis’ as the number one risk to business, followed by ‘rapid and/or sustained inflation’, ‘natural disasters and extreme weather events’, ‘asset bubble burst’ and ‘debt crises’.

East Asia and the Pacific

Across East Asia and the Pacific, risks aligned closely with those identified in Australia and New Zealand. The top perceived risk was ‘rapid and/or sustained inflation’, followed by ‘geo-economic confrontation’, ‘cost of living crisis’, ‘debt crises’ and ‘geo-political contestation of strategic resources’.

A number of risks were higher in East Asia and the Pacific than in global rankings. This included ‘infectious diseases’, ‘asset bubble burst’ and ‘misinformation’.

Conversely, risks such as ‘state collapse’, ‘employment and livelihood crises’ and ‘severe commodity supply’ were all lower perceived risks compared with global rankings.

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