COGITANDA appoints Jens Lison as Group Chief Insurance Officer
The Supervisory Board of COGITANDA Dataprotect AG has appointed Jens Lison as a member of the Executive Board and Group Chief Insurance Officer with effect from 1 September 2023. The current Executive Team from Germany's leading company in the management and insurance of cyber risks – consisting of Jörg Wälder (Chief Executive Officer, CEO), Christian Sagawe (Chief Operating Officer, COO) and Christian Rink (Chief Financial Officer, CFO) – is thereby increased to four members.
From 1 September 2023, the 58-year-old insurance manager with many years of board level experience will take over the group-wide professional management and further expansion of the insurance division of COGITANDA domestically as well as internationally. He will be based in Cologne.
Long-standing career with market-leading companies
Jens Lison has worked in the insurance industry for 40 years. He began his professional career at Allianz and has constantly expanded his expertise in key positions within the insurance industry at well-known groups, such as AXA, Zurich, Allianz and Württembergische Versicherung. For the last 15 years he has been an Executive Board member and fundamentally contributed to shaping the development of these insurance groups in Germany. In his most recent role prior to joining COGITANDA, he was a member of the Executive Board and Chief Underwriting Officer at Württembergische Versicherung AG. Here Jens Lison successfully implemented a strategy programme for the realignment of the Property & Casualty business segment. This led to the professionalisation and expansion of the corporate customer business and resulted in strong and profitable growth.
“We are very pleased about the addition of Jens Lison on-board to the COGITANDA executive board, as yet another entrepreneurial and very experienced top executive. He is deeply rooted in the insurance industry and will now bring his experience, knowledge and commitment to COGITANDA," says Albrecht Freiherr von Boeselager, Chairman of the COGITANDA Supervisory Board.
Jörg Wälder, founder and CEO of the COGITANDA Group, confirms: “With Jens Lison, another top manager is joining COGITANDA. He is an important addition for the existing Executive Board. We are measuring ourselves against the best in the insurance market: while we are further consolidating the leading position we have already achieved in the area of classic technical risks and the so-called cyber risks, we will now rapidly expand our product range, open up further customer segments and, after Germany, Austria and France, expand into other European markets.”
Jens Lison added, “The insurance industry is my professional home. In recent years I have been particularly involved in commercial and industrial corporate customer business and have successfully expanded these business areas. In this context, I have also dealt intensively with the cyber and technical insurance lines. I am fascinated by the challenge of making technical risks manageable. I have already successfully worked with Jörg Wälder for many years at Zurich – I am looking forward to continuing this at COGITANDA.”
COGITANDA on growth path
COGITANDA is a key player in the German and Austrian cyber risk business with a head office in Cologne and other locations in Munich, Hamburg, Vienna and Paris. The innovative three pillar business model is unique in Europe: In addition to insurance against cyber and other technical risks, COGITANDA also offers customers all forms of prevention services. In addition, in the event of a claim, the group takes care of the entire claims management process. All technical services in the areas of prevention and claims management can also be used by non-insurance customers. This offer accounts already for around half of the group’s total turnover.
“The combination of risk prevention, insurance protection and professional claims handling has proven itself,” explains Jörg Wälder. “We are now entering the next phase of development, which is characterized by the increasing professionalisation and internationalisation of our business model. To this end, we bring together the best experts on the market under the umbrella of COGITANDA. That’s why Jens Lison and COGITANDA perfectly match.”
Founded in early 2016, COGITANDA has been successfully active on the market for more than five years with its business model, which was launched in March 2018. At the beginning of 2023, the group of companies had more than 4,500 affiliated brokerage companies, more than 10,000 insured companies, a premium volume of EUR 30 million and more than 1,200 finally settled claims. “The national and Europe-wide expansion is progressing. With the market entry in Spain, Portugal and Italy, then the Scandinavian countries and Benelux, we will now roll out our services step by step throughout Europe,” announces Jörg Wälder.
