Arbol provides clients access to financial climate resilience regardless of their size or location by combining vast data networks with cutting-edge technologies and risk capital.
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.
We embrace collaboration across our various departments so that people don’t live on islands. To that end, we run on a fairly flat organizational structure that encourages input from everyone, from administrative support to C-Suite.
We know that we might have to build something a few times to get it right, and that’s OK; we’re not afraid to iterate repeatedly. This frees us to pursue our creative impulses full tilt and to be more painstaking in our evaluative process.
We value transparency, encourage disclosing bad news, and welcome disagreement. Working in such a competitive field as climate tech, we understand that reputation is everything and it’s better to be forthright than cagey.
You have the ability to make a consequential difference. If you spot something exciting happening in another team, join in, absorb the knowledge, and when you’re prepared, contribute your insights where you see fit.
Arbol has built a state-of-the-art tech stack driven by a proprietary artificial-intelligence underwriter to deliver superior speed, transparency, and cost efficiency to our clients.
Out of new contexts, new thoughts and practices emerge. That’s why we welcome the opportunity to meet our clients wherever they are on their journey to climate resilience so that we can collectively leverage our strengths and reap the benefit of new synergies.
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.
Scott Klemm is the Chief Revenue Officer at Arbol, where he leads the coordination of revenue opportunities across insurance and derivatives. With expertise in weather risk management, commodities trading, and derivatives, Scott has been pivotal in managing Arbol’s global derivative desk, focusing on agriculture, energy, and renewable weather risks.
He has been instrumental in structuring and transacting bespoke weather risk products that cater to the needs of global commodity markets.Prior to his current role, Scott held various senior positions in the trading industry, focusing on physical, financial, and OTC commodities in the energy and agriculture markets.
Scott holds a Master of Science in Geophysical Science from the University of Chicago.
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.
