The BELRIM Jo Willaert Award
The Jo Willaert Award is an annual accolade that honors an individual within the risk management community who has shown exceptional dedication to the field. Whether the nominee is a risk manager, insurer, broker, academic, lawyer, or young professional, this award seeks to recognize outstanding contributions to risk management.
All risk professionals are invited to nominate someone for this Award. You can send a mail with short motivation to info@belrim.com by November 15th.
The Award Ceremony will take place during the annual cocktail of December.
Jo Willaert Award 2024
Thomas Tagnit, Vice President of Finance at Lhoist, is the recipient of the Jo Willaert Award for 2024. Thomas has been instrumental in leading the risk management aspects of the “Cap Decarbonation CalCC” project. This project represents a significant undertaking with the goal of reducing CO₂ emissions and capturing 1.5 million tons of CO₂ on an annual basis. By doing so, he has demonstrated how risk and insurance managers can make a direct and tangible contribution to important ESG projects and elevated the role of the risk manager to a strategic level within his organisation.
After more than 30 years as General Secretary of BELRIM, during which she has steered everything in the right direction, the time has come for Ann De Wilde to say goodbye to BELRIM. Ann has always been the tower of strenght for everyone involved in BELRIM from far or near. Over the years, she knew how to organise all the events perfectly (just think of the many Exchanges, the “Belgian Evenings” during the FERMA Fora and the celebrations of BELRIM’s 40th and 50th anniversary), she meticulously followed up on the various projects and she was always there for the members with advice and assistance. She has worked with as many as 7 presidents, but Ann remained the constant within BELRIM. For all these years of commitment and dedication, we are therefore delighted to present the Life Achievement Award to Ann De Wilde.
You can find the pictures of the 2024 event here.
Interview with Jo Willaert Award winner 2024 Thomas Tagnit here.
Interview with Life Achievement winner Ann De Wilde here.
Jo Willaert Award 2023
In 2023 the Jo Willaert Award was handed to Frédéric Lycops for his leading role in opening the way for young potentials to join BELRIM. It is important to bring young people into risk management and our industry, given the fact that it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract young talent.
We also had the pleasure of presenting the Life Achievement Award to Filip Larrea of Marsh for his dedication to the industry and his hard work over all those years. In his speech, he honoured the late Jo Willaert for setting him on the right track and for mentoring him during key moments in his career.
You can find the pictures of the 2023 event here.
Interview with Jo Willaert Award winner 2023 Frédéric Lycops here.
Interview with Life Achievement winner Filip Larrea here.
Jo Willaert Award 2022
The inaugural Jo Willaert Award was presented to Nadine Haagen of HUBO, in recognition of her remarkable achievements as a risk and insurance professional. Nadine’s commitment and contributions went above and beyond for risk management in 2022.
You can find the pictures of the Jo Willaert Award 2022 event here.
Supplementary information on the Jo Willaert Award
The Jo Willaert Award is an annual accolade that honors an individual within the risk management community who has shown exceptional dedication to the field. Whether the nominee is a risk manager, insurer, broker, academic, lawyer, or young professional, this award seeks to recognize outstanding contributions to risk management.
All risk professionals are invited to nominate someone for this Award. You can send a mail with short motivation to info@belrim.com by November 15th.
The Award Ceremony will take place during the annual cocktail of December.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of possible “extra miles”:
- Sharing knowledge in a practical or academic way
- Setting up a risk management programme from scratch
- Raising awareness amongst the younger generation
- Creating risk awareness throughout the company
- Installing/creating a tool for risk assessment
- Establishing a risk management course
- Organising formal or informal meetings around risk management
- Setting up new insurance solutions
- …
