People – West

San Francisco, Calif.-based Woodruff-Sawyer & Co. named Ravi Krishnan as the firm’s first chief information officer.

Krishnan will be responsible for optimizing Woodruff-Sawyer’s existing technology, driving strategic initiatives and aligning priorities and resource demands. He will also be the key strategist in the firm’s new mobile platform initiative.

Krishnan has over 18 years of experience as a senior information technology strategist. Prior to Woodruff-Sawyer, he was executive director at Kaiser Permanente. His background also includes management and executive positions at Verizon, Cognizant Technology Solutions, GE Insurance and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Woodruff-Sawyer is an active partner of Assurex Global and International Benefits Network and has offices throughout California and in Portland, Ore.

Aon Risk Solutions, the global risk management business of Aon plc, made several additions to its San Francisco, Calif., office.

Aon appointed Curtis Ingram as vice president, Payal Chahal as broker, Jeffery Rogers as director, Jenny Hon as account executive and promoted Jake Douglas to project manager.

Ingram joins the political risk practice and will consult, place and service political risk insurance for North American colleagues whose clients need to protect foreign assets or contracts in emerging markets. Ingram has more than 14 years of insurance experience, most recently serving as leader of the West zone political risk practice at Marsh.

Payal is a new broker in the technology and telecommunications practice. She will be responsible for analyzing and defining risk exposures, and servicing high visibility clients in across the nation. Prior to Aon, Payal was a technology underwriter at Travelers.

Rogers will be responsible for the development of new business in the Western region for Aon global risk consulting. Most recently, he served as assistant director of workers’ compensation for Kaiser Permanente.

Hon will provide customized solutions for small-to-medium sized companies. Prior to joining Aon, Hon served as account manager at Woodruff-Sawyer & Co.

Douglas was promoted from senior broker at Aon’s New York office to project manager in the San Francisco office. He will be responsible for managing M&A projects and conducting data analysis on companies of all sizes.

Brendan Falvey was named director of the public entity product line for the Markel Corp.’s West Region.

Falvey is responsible for managing existing West Coast public entity client and broker relationships and developing new property/casualty clients with emphasis on joint powers authority and other public entity pools.

He is located in San Francisco, Calif.

Falvey has more than 30 years of property/casualty insurance and reinsurance experience, including more than 15 years of public entity underwriting experience.

Most recently he was with a global reinsurer where he handled property/casualty underwriting, client and broker relationship management and new business production for individual risk insurance and JPA/PE reinsurance for over eight years.

Markel’s public entity expertise and capabilities center around offering excess of loss and quota share reinsurance of pooling arrangements.

Jacob Brown and Jim Stabilito will join Lockton as senior executives in the insurance broker’s Phoenix, Ariz. operation.

Brown and Stabilito are veteran employee benefits advisors who work with corporate clients to build benefit programs that help attract and retain employees.

Brown will be an executive vice president at Lockton and will be responsible for advising clients on employee benefit services, including dealing with the changes under the new health reform law. He will also be responsible for new business development.

Brown has been with Willis in the insurance broker’s Phoenix operation for the past nine years, most recently as senior vice president and employee benefits practice leader. He has also worked at Unum, an insurance carrier.

Stabilito will be a senior vice president at Lockton and will provide client leadership and offer advice on employee benefit programs, dealing with health reform and new business development.

Stabilito has been with Willis in Phoenix for eight years and previously worked as an account executive with Aetn Inc. He began his employee benefits career with American Corporate Health Programs.

Kansas City, Mo.-based Lockton has operated in Phoenix for five years, building a team of more than 17 associates.

Edgewood Partners Insurance Center named Derek Thomas chief strategy officer and managing principal.

Thomas will be based in EPIC’s San Francisco office and he will report to EPIC co-founder and president, John Hahn. Thomas’ responsibilities will center on developing strategy, driving growth and operations. He will work with business units and industry teams in California, and will lead recruiting, talent development and retention initiatives.

Thomas has more than 25 years of experience and leadership within insurance companies, brokerage firms, Internet and e-commerce companies, as well as the non-profit sector.

Prior to EPIC, Thomas held a number of executive positions with the Aon Corp., the Chubb Group of Insurance Cos., GMAC Insurance and LeaseTerm Solutions. His experience includes strategy development, organizational development, general management and leading sales and marketing operations.

Prior to co-founding LeaseTerm Solutions, Thomas served as senior vice president of strategy/business development and chief sales officer for Aon Affinity Insurance Services.

EPIC operates from nine offices across California: Los Angeles, Irvine, Ontario, Fresno, Folsom, San Francisco, San Mateo, Petaluma and San Ramon.

GUARD Insurance Group named Steve Keshishian director of regional sales to address recent and planned growth in the West.

Keshishian will oversee sales operations in California and Nevada and handle agency and territory management in those states. He will operate out of GUARD’s office in Rancho Cordova, Calif..

Before GUARD, Keshishian worked for a number of national commercial insurers in a variety of roles. He most recently served as a broker for Owen Dunn Insurance in California. His background encompasses sales and underwriting as well as the retail and company side of the industry.

GUARD, a workers’ compensation specialist targeting small- to mid-sized accounts, works with independent agents, and writes business in 28 states plus D.C. In 2012 GUARD was acquired by National Indemnity Co., a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Irvine, Calif.-based Burnham Benefits Insurance Services named Richard P. Asensio vice president, director of compliance.

Asensio will work with clients to help them choose the best options while meeting HCR requirements. He will also work with Burnham’s consultants to expand their assessment and compliance tools.

He has 13 years of consulting on compliance issues, with a focus on IRS, ERISA, COBRA and HIPAA compliance, healthcare reform (PPACA) implementation, and document and operational compliance reviews of both retirement and health and welfare plans.

Burnham has three offices in California: Irvine, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, as well as offices in Oregon and the Washington, D.C. metro area.