Ambac hires GE’s Raab

Troubled US bond insurer Ambac has named Gregory Raab as chief risk officer, taking over from David Wallis, who was promoted to the role of president and chief executive in October 2008.

Raab will be responsible for managing Ambac’s $430bn of net insured par outstanding and will drive key decisions surrounding risk management and loss mitigation. Ambac’s credit, surveillance and capital planning and risk analysis divisions will report to Raab. He will be a member of Ambac’s executive management team.

David Wallis said: “Greg's strategic, analytical and business experience will enhance our management team and overall organisational perspective. De-risking our portfolio is one of our key strategic initiatives. Greg’s leadership will support our aggressive remediation and commutation agenda while building a risk centric-culture that will harness the lessons learned from the current environment to rebuild and reinvent our business around our core strengths. I have every confidence that his guidance and oversight will contribute significantly to our future success.”

Raab comes to Ambac from GE where he established a centre of excellence to source, analyse and acquire discounted ABS securities. Before joining GE, he was CEO and CRO of Axon Financial Services where he launched and managed a structured investment vehicle with $14bn of assets. Prior to Axon, he served in a number of roles at Financial Guaranty Insurance Company in the structured finance, public finance and capital markets areas. Raab also served as CRO for GE's Structured Finance, Public Finance and Capital Markets Group. Earlier in his career, he worked at Fitch Ratings and was responsible for Taxable Fixed-Income and Asset and Mortgage-Backed securities.