AXIS Capital Holdings appointed Mark Gregory as head of Global Markets and Michael J. McKenna as Head of North America. The newly created leadership positions will report directly to Vince Tizzio, president and CEO of AXIS.
In his new role, Gregory will oversee underwriting and business growth strategies for the company’s International Retail business lines (EMEA/APAC/LatAm), as well as its Global Practices including Cyber and A&H insurance. He previously served as CEO, International Division.
McKenna will have oversight of underwriting and business growth strategies for the North America Wholesale and Retail businesses. Global Distribution (Insurance) and Digital will also report to him. Prior to joining AXIS, he held CUO roles with Falvey Insurance Group, The Hartford (Global Specialty Division) and Navigators (U.S. Insurance Segment), and served as SVP of the Specialty Reinsurance Division at Aon Benfield.
“Mark and Mike are exceptional leaders who embody our focus on underwriting and operational excellence. Their leadership will be essential as we help AXIS realize its full potential as a specialty underwriter that consistently delivers profitable results to our shareholders and value to our customers. To achieve this, we’re tapping into our heritage as a high performing underwriting company known for the knowledge and subject-matter expertise of our people, as well as the high level of service that we provide to our customers,” said Tizzio.
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Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance (BHSI) recently announced two leadership promotions: Hilary Browne has been promoted to the role of deputy global chief underwriting officer, and Cameron Holmes is now global underwriting officer, Property for Energy and Construction.
Browne, who has nearly 25 years of global insurance industry experience, joined BHSI in 2019 as country manager, Ireland, and head of Casualty for Europe, and most recently served as global CUO, Casualty and Healthcare, and deputy head of Europe. As she assumes her new role, her Europe region responsibilities will transition to Alessandro Cerase, newly named head of BHSI Europe Region, while she retains responsibility for global casualty and healthcare underwriting. Browne will also provide executive oversight for BHSI’s global A&H underwriting, multinational underwriting and support, and underwriting affairs. She will continue to be based in Dublin and will report to David Fields, global CUO, BHSI.
Holmes has been head of Property Technical Lines at BHSI in Australia since 2018. He joined BHSI in 2015 as Property Energy and Construction manager and has more than 20 years of experience in engineering and technical lines property insurance. As he assumes his new role, he will continue to be based in Sydney and will report to Dean LaPierre, BHSI’s global CUO, Property and Marine.
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Coalition has hired John Coletti as it head of cyber underwriting.
At Swiss Re, Coletti was previously the head of global cyber at Swiss Re, responsible for the global reinsurance cyber business, including portfolio ownership, global underwriting activities and cyber product development. Before Swiss Re, he was chief underwriting officer at AXA XL.
Coletti will focus on delivering best-in-class cyber underwriting across Coalition, including guidelines, coverage enhancement and management, pricing models, risk aggregation models, and predictive analytics to support submission triage and scalable underwriting. He will also work with the risk management team to set the global underwriting and pricing standards for the group. The North America risk engineering team and the cyber product will report to Coletti.