Risilience Taps Angela Brown for CEO, Eyes AI-Driven Climate Finance

CAMBRIDGE, England – May 06, 2026 – Climate and nature analytics firm Risilience has named fintech veteran Angela Brown as its new Chief Executive Officer, a strategic move designed to accelerate the company’s push into AI-driven risk management. The appointment signals a new phase of growth, blending product innovation with the deep scientific expertise that has defined the Cambridge spin-out since its inception.

Brown, who steps into the role after a successful 18-month tenure as Chief Product Officer, succeeds founder Dr. Andrew Coburn. Dr. Coburn will transition to the position of Chairman, where he will continue to guide the company's scientific foundations and long-term strategic direction. The leadership evolution comes as corporations and financial institutions grapple with mounting pressure to translate complex environmental risks into tangible financial metrics.

A Product-Led Future

Angela Brown's appointment is a clear bet on a product-centric strategy. With nearly two decades of experience in financial services and fintech, including senior roles at S&P Global and Moody's, she brings a deep understanding of what financial markets and large corporations need from data analytics platforms. During her time as CPO, Risilience doubled its client base and significantly enhanced its award-winning Riise platform, transforming it into a tool that provides what the company calls “decision-grade intelligence.”

Under her product leadership, the company has focused on making climate and nature-related risks financially quantifiable. This approach helps C-suite executives and investors move beyond abstract sustainability goals to concrete risk mitigation and strategic planning. As CEO, Brown plans to accelerate investment in AI-driven modeling and analytics, enabling clients to better anticipate the interconnected shocks of climate events, supply chain disruptions, and macroeconomic volatility.

"This is a defining moment for Risilience," said Angela Brown in a statement. "Organizations are no longer asking whether climate and nature risks matter, but how to act on them in a way that protects and drives business value. Our role is to make those decisions clearer. By combining advanced analytics with essential tooling, we empower clients to quantify risk, prioritize action, and unlock opportunity."

A Booming Market for Climate Intelligence

The leadership shift at Risilience is occurring within a rapidly expanding market. The global climate risk software sector, valued at over $500 million in recent years, is on a steep upward trajectory, with some analysts projecting it will surpass $1.3 billion by 2028. This growth is fueled by a confluence of factors, including stringent new disclosure regulations, intense pressure from investors demanding ESG-related transparency, and a growing recognition that climate risk is a direct financial risk.

The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector has emerged as a primary consumer of these analytics platforms, seeking to assess portfolio-level exposure and make more intelligent capital deployments. Risilience positions its analytics as the critical bridge between corporations seeking to build resilience and the financial institutions looking to fund them. The company’s focus on financially quantified metrics speaks directly to this demand, positioning it well against competitors in a crowded field.

Blending Science with Scale

While Brown drives the commercial and product strategy, the company is ensuring its scientific credibility remains paramount. The transition was described as a “deliberate pairing” of Brown’s product leadership with Dr. Coburn’s world-leading scientific expertise. Dr. Coburn is a recognized authority in business risk and catastrophe modeling and will maintain his influential role as Chief Scientific Advisor at the University of Cambridge's Centre for Risk Studies, from which Risilience originally spun out.

This structure is designed to embed academic rigor directly into the company’s commercial offerings, a key differentiator in a market where scientific integrity is crucial for credibility. It ensures that as the Riise platform scales and incorporates more advanced AI, its modeling and data outputs remain grounded in trusted, peer-reviewed science.

"I am incredibly proud of what we have built over the past five years, and this transition is about sharpening our focus and increasing our pace," stated Andrew Coburn, the newly appointed Chairman. "Angela brings a deep understanding of both our technology and our clients' needs and is uniquely positioned to lead the business forward. By combining her product leadership with our scientific foundations, we are well placed to scale our impact and deliver the next stage of growth."

From Risk Quantification to Business Strategy

Risilience has built a roster of blue-chip clients, including Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Burberry, Reckitt, and Barclays, by demonstrating its platform's practical application. A partnership with consumer goods giant Reckitt illustrates the depth of this work. Risilience developed a “digital-twin model” of Reckitt's business to help quantify climate risks across its complex value chain, where only 4% of emissions are directly controlled by the company.

The analysis helped Reckitt identify that transitional risks—such as changing regulations and consumer sentiment—posed a greater financial impact than physical risks, allowing the company to focus its mitigation efforts and inform its strategy to achieve its 2040 net-zero goal. This case highlights a shift in the market: companies are moving beyond simple carbon footprinting and demanding tools that connect environmental data to core financial and strategic decision-making.

An Award-Winning Approach to Innovation

Risilience’s innovative approach has not gone unnoticed. In 2023, the company received the prestigious King’s Award for Enterprise, often called the “knighthood of business awards” in the UK. The honor, awarded in the Innovation category, recognized the company's climate risk analytics technology and its role in enabling business transformation. This award provides significant external validation, bolstering the company's reputation for credibility and technological advancement in a field where trust is paramount.

The company's forward-looking strategy, now spearheaded by Brown, is to continue building on this foundation. With an accelerated focus on AI, a commitment to scientific rigor, and a leadership team that balances commercial acumen with academic excellence, Risilience is positioning itself not just as a provider of analytics, but as a strategic partner for global organizations navigating the era of climate disruption.