Paula is an Executive Director at Howden Group’s Climate Risk and Resilience practice, where she leads efforts to integrate climate strategies into insurance and risk transfer solutions. Paula leads the Americas team and co-leads the Agriculture and Nature Practice, working with private and public sector clients and partners in developing solutions to de-risk investment and insurance capital to help accelerate the societal climate transition. Paula served as Advisor to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator through her appointment at the National Advisory Council until December 2024. Until August 2023, Paula served as Director of the Global Board of ARISE, United Nation’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR). Before joining Howden, Paula led the WTW’s Climate and Resilience Hub Americas Practice, working towards societal climate resilience by creating solutions to large scale and multi-faceted challenges with corporate and public sector stakeholders across physical, transition and climate liability risks via strategic advisory and innovative risk finance and risk transfer mechanisms. Prior to WTW, Paula served as Sr. Microinsurance Specialist at Swiss Re, where she worked on the creation and operationalization of the Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organization (MiCRO) and led multiple implementations of innovative insurance solutions in public-partnership settings. Paula is a global expert on climate and natural disaster risk management solutions for the private, sovereigns, sub-sovereigns, and the international development sectors. She has a proven record spearheading global financial inclusion and humanitarian initiatives and conceiving of and executing strategic international business. She is a multi-cultural professional and has worked in projects across the Americas, in Africa and in Asia. Paula holds a postgraduate Degree in Finance and a Graduate Degree of Economics.