The executives who hired Parker left Fimat before he did, he says, and the lack of his management sponsorship made it harder to get new products approved.

Before joining Fimat, Parker had been managing director of NIF Weather Risk Management, a division of New York-based insurance holding company NIF Group, a position he took up in September 2004.

And he was previously chief executive of the Atlanta-based Weather Board of Trade, an online weather derivatives exchange that ultimately never