We settle contracts leveraging climate data and models from dClimate, a leading decentralized climate information ecosystem.
We spun out dClimate in early 2021 as a standalone, open-source network that anyone in the world can use to get or share essential information about our planet. The dClimate ecosystem provides data, forecasts, and models on important variables like rainfall, temperature, soil moisture, carbon sequestration, and much more.
We leverage dClimate to retrieve industry-leading, institutional-grade climate data and models sourced from both public and government sources like NOAA, NASA, and the European Space Agency (ESA) as well as industry-leading commercial and private sources for underwriting our parametric coverage products. Everything we do at Arbol is data-driven, which helps us bring scale, transparency, and efficiency to the insurance process while eliminating the usual routine of dealing with mountains of claims paperwork, adjusters, and needless hassles to get paid.
Key pieces of the pricing process
We leverage Ethereum smart contracts to automate our backend contract execution. Blockchain technology is simply one of many tools Arbol uses to drive efficiency and transparency in the coverage process.
Clients never have to interact with this tech - it lives under the surface powering the platform that drives Arbol’s next-generation climate risk solutions.
Arbol is at the cutting-edge of developing fully decentralized, on-chain insurance and derivatives solutions to bring access and inclusion for underserved markets.
This allows us the agility and speed to rapidly deploy market-leading priced risk solutions for a multitude of products and customizations without having to rely on reinsurers
Arbol provides clients access to financial climate resilience regardless of their size or location. We were founded in 2018 to combine vast data networks with cutting-edge technologies and risk capital to change the way that climate risk is actively managed throughout our entire financial system. Increasingly frequent and extreme climate events such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, and heatwaves are causing hundreds of billions of dollars in losses annually for businesses and communities.
Only a fraction of these losses are covered by insurance due to antiquated and inefficient processes. As stakeholders around the world begin to think proactively about how to address climate risk across balance sheets and supply chains, our end-to-end risk management ecosystem bringing data, financial products, and risk capital provides solutions for climate challenges across the financial system.
Siddhartha Jha is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Arbol, a global climate risk solutions platform focused on data-driven parametric insurance. Sid is also a co-founder of dClimate, the first decentralized climate information ecosystem. Prior to Arbol and dClimate, he had over 13 years of experience in the financial industry covering the interest rates and commodities in both quantitative research and trading roles. He launched an agriculture futures trading portfolio, managing over $100 million at a major commodity trading firm, and was the first analyst at a startup commodity hedge fund, which grew to manage over $600 million in assets. He was previously a Vice President of Interest Rates Strategy at J.P. Morgan.
Sid authored the well-received book "Interest Rate Markets", published in both English and Mandarin. He has taught financial markets at NYU and was on the board of a non-profit working with inner city youth. Sid graduated from Harvard University with a B.A. Cum Laude in Applied Mathematics and M.A. in Statistics as part of a 4-year combined degree program.
Osho Jha is a co-founder of Arbol currently serving as its Chief Data Scientist. He is also a founding partner of dClimate, the first decentralized climate information ecosystem. As Chief Data Scientist at Arbol, he oversees the development of data-driven parametric products and climate risk solutions. Osho comes to Arbol with over a decade of experience as a product-focused data scientist. His experience ranges from cutting edge NLP research for DARPA resulting in a speech-to-speech translation system deployed by the U.S. military to using exhaust data for trading global equities.
Most recently, he oversaw the development of an Alt Data group at a large, NYC based hedge fund. Throughout his career, his focus has been on productizing large data sets into actionable insights. Outside of data science, Osho is passionate about the blockchain space and investing. His analysis of traditional markets and crypto markets has been featured in CoinDesk and other industry focused publications for institutional investors. Osho graduated early from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied mathematics.
Philippe Heilberg is a co-founder of Arbol Inc. and currently serves as its President, COO & CFO. After graduating summa cum laude from the Wharton School with a BS and MBA, he went to work at top tier financial institutions like Salomon Brothers and AIG. He has been featured in a number of publications including a published article in the quarterly, "American Affairs Journal" entitled, "Cryptocurrencies: Commodity Dynamics and Cartelization.” He also has been a speaker/panelist at various conferences including the Wharton School, NYU, and Duke University.
As a former commodity trader, he was a member of the New York Board of Trade Commodity Exchange. In his philanthropic endeavors, he has been a consultant to the board of directors of the GEMS Development Foundation, a South Sudan charity, a member of the New York Board of JNF and a President Circle member of the Asia Society. He continues to be active in his community.
Hong is Executive Vice President and Chief Insurance Officer of Arbol and leads all insurance related strategy and operations at Arbol. Hong holds CPCU and ARe designation. Hong has over 28 years of reinsurance industry experience, including the most recent 23 years of his career at Guy Carpenter & Co., one of the largest reinsurance brokers in the world, holding various senior positions including Managing Director at GC Securities. He started working on index products 15 years ago.
Shelby Smith currently serves as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Arbol. Shelby was one of Arbol’s earliest employees, formerly serving as head of the Platform and Web Applications team during a period when the platform rapidly grew 100X in its first two and a half years of live transactions. He previously contributed to or led software development projects across a range of sectors, including non-profit, real estate, high education, and e-commerce.
Charlie is the Chief Revenue Officer and Deputy CFO of Arbol. Charlie has over thirty years of corporate and investment banking and senior leadership experience across financial markets, risk management, capital markets, M&A, asset management, insurance-linked securities, risk transfer solutions and transaction banking services. Before joining Arbol, Charlie worked at Standard Chartered Bank as Global Head of Insurance Banking and Head of Financial Institutions for the Americas. He also held leadership positions at Credit Agricole, Chase Securities & Salomon Brothers. He holds an M.B.A. from the Fuqua School of Business (Duke University) and a B.S. (Summa cum laude) from Lehigh University.
Mackenzie is Chief Innovation Officer at Arbol. Mackenzie is a founding engineer, and brings experience developing the cutting-edge blockchain empowered platforms that are fueling the DeFi revolution. They believe web3 economics will shape the future of our world in a meaningful way through climate impact.
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