Kate Stillwell is President, Earthquake and Parametric at Neptune Flood, where she leads the company’s parametric insurance strategy with a focus on closing critical protection gaps and mobilizing private capital for rapid, post-disaster recovery. Kate joined Neptune Flood in 2021 following the acquisition of Jumpstart, the parametric insurance company she founded and continues to lead within Neptune. In her role, she advances innovative earthquake and parametric insurance solutions designed to deliver faster funding and greater financial resilience for communities exposed to natural hazards.
A licensed Structural Engineer, Kate is widely recognized as a thought leader in earthquake engineering and disaster risk finance. Her career bridges engineering, catastrophe modeling, insurance innovation, and entrepreneurship, positioning her at the forefront of parametric insurance and seismic risk solutions. Prior to Neptune and Jumpstart, Kate served as Product Manager for worldwide earthquake models at EQECAT (now CoreLogic), where she worked on global catastrophe models used across the insurance and reinsurance markets. She is also a Co-Founder of the Global Earthquake Model (GEM) Foundation, an international initiative dedicated to advancing open, science-based earthquake risk assessment.
Kate’s leadership extends across the engineering and risk communities. She is a Past President of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California and a Housner Fellow of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, honors that reflect her contributions to advancing seismic safety and resilience.
Her academic background combines technical and business excellence, with degrees from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, Stanford University School of Engineering, and the University of Minnesota. Disaster risk is not theoretical for Kate; she lives less than 200 meters from the Hayward Fault and is based out of Neptune Flood’s Oakland office, grounding her work in real-world exposure and impact.
