The Berne Union has re-elected Angus Armour as its president and has selected a number of new members to fill other senior roles.

The international association for the export credit and investment insurance industry selected the Australian ECA’s chief executive officer Armour for his second term as president.

Daniel Riordan, president of specialty products at Zurich, was elected as vice-president to replace Atradius’ Johan Schrijver who held the post in 2009 to 2010 term.

Other notable changes include Beatriz Reguaro of Spain’s Cesce who has been voted to the chair of the short term (ST) committee and PJ Kim of Korea’s Ksure who is the new vice-chair.

They take over from FCIA’s Lindley Franklin and GIEK’s Edvard Stand.

The medium and long-term (MLT) committee of the Berne Union retained Finnvera’s Topi Vesteri and Emile Matthee of South Africa’s ECIC, who are chair and vice-chair, respectively.

Finally, Export Development Canada’s Joanne Palmer has moved from vice-chair to become the new chair of the investment insurance (INV) committee, taking over from Rainer Wietstock of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Vice-chairing Palmer’s committee is new recruit Ferdinand Schipfer of Austria’s OeKB.

“Angus’s re-election shows a lot of confidence in his leadership as Berne Union members look forward to the new initiatives that he has planned for the coming year,” Kimberly Wiehl, secretary general of the Berne Union, tells GTR.

“He continues his position with a new vice-president and new leaders for the ST and INV committees along with the current MLT chair and vice-chair. What we are really excited about is working on new activities in 2011, as we see strong demand for risk mitigation provided by our members,” Wiehl continues.

The new appointments come as Berne Union members announce that they expect business levels to return in 2010 to where they were before the crisis.

“The immediate crisis has passed, members are anticipating their support for global trade and investment to reach pre-crisis levels of beyond this year,” Wiehl notes.