At the age of 31, Zhou is a rising star in the industry, both in terms of his actuarial contributions, but also as a future leader.

Zhou was promoted to senior vice president at Third Point Re (USA) last May after being appointed actuarial director the previous February, and now leads the company's six actuaries in the US, two of whom are new hires he recruited from university programmes.

He has shown his capabilities from leading the actuarial team and in meaningful contributions ranging from financial planning and reporting, rating agency management, managing materials for the board of directors, as well as in recruitment and, transaction origination and structuring.

In his actuarial role, Zhou is responsible for all deal pricing, reserving, and risk reporting—no small feat considering Third Point Re's US business writes 50% of the company premium, including all of the property catastrophe business written by Third Point Re.

Zhou has also built and manages the company's financial optimisation and capital allocation model.

Further achievements at the reinsurer include leading the evaluation of all insurance technology related opportunities and being the key resource evaluating all strategic investment transactions and opportunities.

He also leads and manages Third Point Re's recruitment process, both on the actuarial and underwriting side, as well as managing the risk management process and reporting with the chief risk officer.

It is a broad and diverse array of talents that places Zhou as the Americas' young risk and actuarial professional of the year.