People & Places
Alera Group President Jim Blue will become the firm’s chief executive officer, effective Jan. 1, 2025.
Blue will succeed Alan Levitz, who will become Alera Group’s executive chairman.
Alera said Blue’s extensive experience in the insurance, benefits and financial services sectors, including his previous role as CEO of Marsh & McLennan Agency New England, positions him as an ideal leader for Alera Group’s next phase of growth.
Alera Group is based in Deerfield, Illinois.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based insurance technology provider Zywave named Martin Simoncic chief executive officer and added Christian G. Kasper as chief financial officer.
Simoncic most recently served as president of PROS Holdings, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions company using artificial intelligence.
Kasper has been CFO for six companies, including three cloud-based software companies. He was most recently CFO of EnterpriseDB Corporation, a software platform for managing database analytical and AI workloads.
Zywave is owned by private equity firms Clearlake Capital Group and Aurora Capital Partners.
The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) named Michael Skiados as CEO.
Skiados has more than 20 years of experience running membership, education, marketing and operations for large associations. He most recently served as managing director of membership strategy and engagement with The American Institute of Architects.
PIA, in partnership with its nationwide network of affiliates, provides services, education, advocacy and support for independent insurance agents.
American International Group Inc. (AIG), headquartered in New York City, named Keith Walsh as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Walsh, based in New York, will lead AIG’s global finance organization.
Walsh has over 25 years of finance leadership experience, joining AIG from Marsh McLennan, where he served as chief financial officer of Marsh. He previously served as vice president and head of investor relations for Marsh McLennan Companies.
The MEMIC Group, based in Portland, Maine, hired Scott Davis as a senior production underwriter overseeing the Virginia and District of Columbia territory.
Davis, based in Virginia, joins MEMIC with over two decades of experience in multiline insurance and underwriting. His past roles include account executive officer at Travelers Insurance, senior commercial lines underwriter at FCCI Insurance and executive commercial lines underwriter at Utica National Insurance.
Alliant Insurance Services hired Gregg Monte as executive vice president within its mergers and acquisitions vertical.
Monte, who is based in New York City, has two decades of industry experience. Before joining Alliant, he served as an executive vice president at WTW.
JM Wilson, headquartered in Portage, Michigan, promoted several team members in its home office.
Kristin Bolhuis was promoted to property/casualty manager. She works with carrier underwriters and independent insurance agents in Michigan and Texas. She began her career at JM Wilson in 1990 as an assistant life and health underwriter. She left to spend time on the agency side of the industry until 2015, when she returned as a property/casualty underwriter. Most recently, she was in the role of assistant property/casualty manager.
Arianna Rozanski was promoted to assistant property/casualty underwriter. She joined JM Wilson in 2023 as a property/casualty technician. Rozanski supports underwriters with new and renewal property/casualty risks, working with independent insurance agents and company underwriters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia and the eastern U.S.
Brendan Hagan was promoted to fleet transportation underwriter. He is responsible for underwriting new and renewal fleet transportation risks, working with carrier underwriters and independent insurance agents in all states that JM Wilson writes. Hagan joined JM Wilson in August 2023 as an assistant fleet transportation underwriter.
Alyssa Walsh was promoted to senior property/casualty underwriter. She underwrites new and renewal commercial risks, working with carrier underwriters and independent insurance agents in Michigan and Texas.
Grange Insurance Company named Cheryl McRae Lebens chief financial officer, effective Jan. 1, 2025, following Terri Brown’s planned retirement at the end of the year.
Brown’s career in the property/casualty insurance industry spans 35 years with eight of them at Grange Insurance.
Lebens has been with Grange for 12 years and has served in several leadership roles within the organization, including president of personal lines for the past three years.
With nearly 30 years of experience in the insurance industry, Lebens has also previously held various finance leadership positions at Nationwide Insurance and Safeco Insurance.
Grange is based in Columbus, Ohio.
Rokstone, the international specialty (re)insurance MGA and part of the Aventum Group headquartered in Austin, Texas, appointed Ben Baker deputy head of U.S. casualty and Alex Fitzpatrick senior underwriter.
Baker joins from Convex, where he has spent four years as a class underwriter, U.S. casualty. He previously served as an underwriter at Liberty Specialty markets and Novae, following a year’s broking experience with Marsh.
Fitzpatrick has over 10 years of experience in U.S. casualty, joining Rokstone from Apollo. Before that, he served as an underwriter at Novae and Starr.
IMA Financial Group, headquartered in Denver, named Teniqua Davenport as Texas market leader, employee benefits, on its Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston leadership team.
With more than 15 years of leadership experience in benefits administration, financial services and risk management, Davenport manages P&L and owns vendor/partner relationships throughout Texas.
She most recently served as director, employee health benefits and client services with Marsh McLennan, where she got her start as an account executive in 2012.
Marsh McLennan Agency named Matt Stadler, president and CEO of Marsh McLennan Agency’s Southwest region, as president of the firm effective Jan. 1, 2025.
Stadler will be based in Dallas and has 20 years of employee benefit and property/casualty insurance. He joined MMA in 2015 as executive vice president upon the acquisition of MHBT Inc., and was named president of MMA Texas in 2019 and CEO of the Southwest region in 2023.
Stadler succeeds Bill Jeatran, who will become vice chairman of Marsh McLennan Agency on Jan. 1.
Jeatran joined Marsh McLennan Agency in 2011 upon the acquisition of RJF Agencies Inc., a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based agency he led for 25 years. He was named president of Marsh McLennan Agency in 2017.
Also on Jan. 1, Rob Bridges, president of Marsh McLennan Agency’s Southwest region, will become CEO of the Southwest region, succeeding Stadler. He brings more than 25 years of insurance experience to the role having started his career as a technology underwriter at Chubb Insurance before moving to Wortham Insurance.
Bridges is based in Austin.
Sertis, headquartered in Reno, Nevada, appointed Kurt Meister as senior vice president, distribution partnerships.
Meister has more than 36 years of experience in the insurance industry, including underwriting leadership, program management and broker relations. Previous roles include chief sales officer at Distinguished Programs; senior vice president, specialty division business development and marketing director at Distinguished Specialty; vice president, hospitality division P&L leader at National Specialty Underwriters; and senior vice president at Aon.
spire General Insurance hired Sam Rea as chief technology officer.
Rea has more than 20 years of experience leading IT organizations in the insurance industry.
Before joining Aspire, Rea was CTO for the Peak6 InsurTech portfolio of companies, which included an agency franchise business, an MGA, a BPO business for insurance carriers, an SaaS product policy administration platform and a national flood insurance processor.
Aspire is based in Rancho Cucamonga, California.
Venbrook Group LLC, headquartered in Woodland Hills, California, named Christina Oakes executive vice president of the company’s private risk practice division with the opening of a new West Coast office.
Oakes has more than 12 years of insurance industry experience. Most recently, Oakes was a personal risk specialist at USI.
In her new role, she will be building out the practice and crafting risk management solutions for the company’s private risk client group of high and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Oakes is based in Los Angeles.
The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California (WCIRB) has promoted Tony Milano to executive vice president and chief actuary.
Milano began his career with the WCIRB in 2005 as an actuarial researcher and was promoted to vice president of actuarial services in 2012.