Blanche Neal has been appointed by Assurant Solutions as chief risk officer for Europe.

She will oversee the European risk function, advising and supporting strategies for its business units throughout Europe.

Neal will also be in charge of the development of commercially sound risk management processes and procedures, and ensuring that all areas of Assurant Solutions European organisations meet the operational, legal and regulatory requirements in their respective countries.

She joins Assurant Intermediary from AXA where she has spent the past 10 years, most recently leading the qualitative work stream on Solvency II gap analysis. Before that Neal was senior operational risk manager, responsible for the development and implementation of the operational risk framework into the AXA Finance Shared Service. She began her career at KPMG working out of London and Durban.

Ian Moffatt, president and CEO for Europe, said: “Blanche brings a breadth of experience in a wide commercial environment with a significant focus on risk management within the life