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Insurance Agents & Brokers (IA&B), a Mechanicsburg, Penn.-based professional trade association, will have a new president and CEO at the helm beginning in January 2018. Deputy CEO and Counsel Jason Ernest will take the reins from Rick Russell, who will retire after nearly four decades with the organization.

Ernest will assume the president and CEO post following 12 years with IA&B, where he currently oversees the organization’s legal, government and industry affairs, as well as its marketing and communications efforts.

Russell’s retirement follows 38 years with the IA&B organization, including 26 years as president and CEO. During this time, he oversaw the mergers of independent insurance agents’ associations in Pennsylvania and Delaware.

The Independent Insurance Agent & Broker Association of New York (IIABNY) installed Richard MacDonald as chairman of the board on May 11, 2017. IIABNY exists to fulfill the educational, political and business interests of more than 1,750 independent agencies and their 13,000 plus employees.

MacDonald’s goal through his involvement with IIABNY is to promote a more positive view of insurance as a whole and help the next generation understand the value of an insurance career, he said in a statement.

MacDonald is currently vice president and director of sales at Haylor, Freyer & Coon Inc. (HF&C) and remains a part of HF&C’s sales operations during his volunteer position with the IIABNY Board.

HF&C is a full service agency providing commercial, group benefit and personal insurance products along with safety, loss prevention wellness and workers’ compensation consultation.

JLT Specialty USA, a U.S. subsidiary of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc. (JLT), has appointed Gabe Levitt as executive vice president.

Based in New York, Levitt will join JLT’s New York office and focus on servicing private equity firms, real estate owner/developers and other alternative investment groups across the U.S. His hire is a continuation of JLT’s growth strategy and expansion plans in the U.S. around key industries and product specialties.

Levitt brings to JLT more than 23 years of experience. He began his career as an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs followed by eight years as an insurance and financial services private equity investor, primarily with Securitas Capital.

Levitt has spent the past 13 years in insurance brokerage, most recently with Krauter & Company, in which he focused exclusively on sourcing and serving private equity and real estate clients as well as their respective portfolio companies and holdings.

NJM Insurance Group, a West Trenton, N.J.-based property and casualty insurer, has promoted Mitchell A. Livingston, to chief operating officer (COO), making him the first in the company’s 104-year history to hold the position.

Livingston will also assume the role of general counsel, replacing his predecessor, Robert H. Zetterstrom, who recently retired from NJM after a career that spanned more than two decades.

Livingston was promoted from executive vice president and corporate counsel. As COO, he will assume responsibility for NJM’s day-to-day operations in addition to overseeing the organization’s Law and Regulation Department. Livingston is also a member of NJM’s Executive Leadership Team and its Board of Directors, a position to which he was elected in 2013.

Livingston joined NJM in 2006 after working in both the private and public sectors, including serving as a partner in a Trenton-based law firm and as a deputy attorney general representing the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance.

At the Board level, Brian F. Neuwirth, president of Unex Manufacturing of Lakewood, N.J., was elected as chairman of NJM’s Board of Director; Edward J. Graham, the former CEO of South Jersey Industries, was elected vice chairman, while Tom Welch, former president & CEO of Grange Mutual Casualty Company of Columbus, Ohio, was elected to his first term as a director.

Topics USA New York Agencies