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National

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited appointed Jim Rhyner head of North America financial lines, programs, and Canada. Rhyner reports to Head of North America Mike McKenna. He will work out of the company’s Short Hills, New Jersey, office. Rhyner joins AXIS from The Hartford, where he most recently served as global head of financial lines with previous leadership roles across Navigators, Chubb, Avreco and AIG.

He succeeds John Van Decker, following a planned leadership transition with Van Decker retiring from AXIS following a career that spanned more than four decades, including 15 years with AXIS.

Guy Carpenter, a business of Marsh, appointed David Duffy as global property leader and Chris Ross as global casualty leader. Both newly created roles are based in New York. Duffy and Ross will mobilize Guy Carpenter’s best practices to deliver risk transfer solutions for clients in the property and casualty (re)insurance market. Duffy and Ross each have more than 25 years of experience across a range of macroeconomic and (re)insurance market conditions and have led some of Guy Carpenter’s largest global client relationships. Duffy joined Guy Carpenter in 1992 and most recently served as co-president, global clients. Ross joined Guy Carpenter in 1999 and previously led the New York-based casualty team.

East

The MEMIC Group, headquartered in Portland, Maine, added Megan Vernon and Nikko Severson to its loss control team.

Vernon rejoins MEMIC as a loss control consultant serving Maine policyholders and brings six years of experience in workplace safety and risk management. She previously served as a health and safety content specialist at Safesite and as an operations specialist at Foresight Commercial Insurance.

Severson joins MEMIC as a loss control consultant. Based in Connecticut, he will work with policyholders across Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Prior to joining MEMIC, Severson served as an environmental health and safety specialist and project manager.

Odyssey Group Holdings Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut, made several leadership changes at its U.S. insurance subsidiary, Hudson Insurance Group, based in New York City.

After more than 20 years with the company, Chris Gallagher will retire from Hudson, effective October 1, to pursue other career opportunities. Odyssey Group’s CEO Carl Overy will assume the role of president and CEO of Hudson in addition to his current responsibilities.

Trevor Howard will be appointed chief underwriting officer, and Andre Virgilio will assume the role of chief operating officer for Hudson Crop & Livestock. Howard joined Hudson in 2018 and currently serves as the head of HudsonPro, with the additional responsibility of overseeing Hudson’s commercial auto, surety, subcontractor default insurance and ceded re departments. Virgilio joined Hudson in 2012 and is currently the head of Hudson Crop & Livestock.

Intact Insurance appointed Rory Meleniclis as chief information officer. Meleniclis joins Intact Insurance with over 20 years of experience leading large-scale technology teams within highly regulated financial institutions. Most recently, he held senior leadership roles at Royal Bank of Canada, where he led global, multi-disciplinary teams responsible for core platforms across payments, data and cybersecurity, supporting large-scale operations and transformation initiatives across North America and international markets.

Southeast

King Risk Partners, based in Gainesville, Florida, named M&A specialist Colton Houseman as executive vice president over mergers and acquisitions. Houseman has more than a decade of experience in mergers and acquisition matters for a global investment bank and private equity firms. At King, Houseman will identify and evaluate prospective agency partners, build an expansion team and execute transactions.

Tower MSA Partners, the workers’ compensation Medicare set-aside specialist firm based in Delray Beach, Florida, has joined with Claimify, a benefits validation service, to hire Louis Porrazzo as their chief legal officer. Porrazzo, a licensed attorney in Massachusetts, has more than two decades of experience in Medicare secondary-payer and disability compliance. He previously served as vice president of national accounts at ExamWorks Compliance Solutions.

South Central

The Texas Surplus Lines Association named Manpreet Sandhu as their incoming executive director. Sandhu replaces Jean Patterson, who will be retiring at the end of 2026 with more than 45 years of service to TSLA.

Manpreet brings more than 15 years of operational and executive governance expertise, backed by a strong track record of leading industry-specific associations. She most recently served as director of education and industry affairs with the National Health Industry Distributors Association.

West

The Baldwin Group appointed Phil Pierce as west regional president for its Insurance Advisory Solutions (IAS) segment.

With 20 years of industry experience, Pierce is responsible for the strategic direction, growth, and operational excellence of Baldwin’s IAS business across the West Region.

Arrowhead Programs promoted Mark Kaufman to senior vice president and chief actuary. Kaufman will oversee the actuarial, data science and catastrophe modeling teams that support Arrowhead’s program business.

Kaufman joined Arrowhead Programs in 2023 and has over 30 years of experience in specialty insurance, including leadership roles overseeing actuarial and finance functions at national carriers.

Vouch Insurance made three appointments to its leadership team. Steve Kenning joins as chief operating officer, Jim Loughlin joins as head of client management, and Tyson Stevenson has been promoted to chief revenue officer. Vouch is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Kenning has more than 15 years of experience, joining Vouch from Airbnb, where he was director of strategy and operations.

He previously spent five years at DoorDash, serving as vice president and global head of customer experience.

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara made several appointments and reappointments to the California Department of Insurance’s statewide governing boards.

Lara named newly appointed members Andrea Hecht and Jim Taylor to the California Insurance Guarantee Association (CIGA) Board of Governors and Don Hofer to the California Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau (WCIRB) Governing Committee.

The reappointed members include Nona Tirre to the California Automobile Assigned Risk Plan Advisory Committee; Thomas Connell (T.C.) Wilson and Ophir Bruck to the California Organized Investment Network Advisory Board; Janise Graham to the Curriculum Board; and Alycia Anderson, Kelly Huang, Pradip Khemani, Jose Plascencia, Vikita Poindexter, and Marquita Thomas to the Insurance Diversity Task Force.

UCA General Insurance Services Inc. promoted Laurie Eusebio to vice president of operations. Eusebio started with UCA in 2006 as a marketing assistant. Since then, she has served as inside marketing manager, licensing coordinator and HR manager. UCA is headquartered in Cypress, California.

Elsje Johnson joined Alliant Insurance Services, headquartered in Irvine, California, as vice president within its employee benefits group. The Idaho-based consultant has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry. Before joining Alliant, Johnson was a business development executive responsible for large national accounts with Blue Cross of Idaho.

Midwest

Lockton appointed Tom Knop as yacht practice leader for Lockton Private Risk Solutions. He will develop Lockton Private Risk Solutions’ specialized advisory capabilities for yacht and recreational marine clients.

Knop joins Lockton with 30 years of industry experience, most recently serving as AVP, regional agency manager for Chubb Recreational Marine.

Encova Insurance Executive Vice President and CEO, Personal Lines, Matt Wilcox, will retire at the end of 2027 after more than 42 years in the insurance industry. Dan McCabe has been hired as a special advisor to the president and CEO and will transition to the role in April 2027. Wilcox will serve in an advisory capacity until his retirement.

McCabe has more than 30 years of industry experience, most recently serving as the CEO of Concord Group Insurance Company in New Hampshire.

Encova is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio.

Cottingham & Butler, a privately held insurance broker based in Dubuque, Iowa, named Mark Roling as executive vice president, property and casualty brokerage leader.Roling oversees C&B’s full P&C business, including its transportation and risk management practices.

Taylor Orton joined Chris Vogel, senior vice president – transportation, to co-lead the firm’s transportation practice.

Ryan Butler has been named to a newly created role as head of corporate strategy, working directly with President Mike Hessling on the firm’s long-term strategic agenda. Butler previously led the firm’s risk management practice.

Matt Kleymeyer joined Shepherd Insurance as the president of employee benefits. Based out of Shepherd’s headquarters in Carmel, Indiana, Kleymeyer has nearly 20 years of employee benefits experience across both small and large group markets, including sales, client service, operations and leadership.

Frankenmuth Insurance, headquartered in Frankenmuth, Michigan, promoted Keith MacLean to vice president, head of surety. MacLean has over 20 years of industry experience and most recently served as vice president, commercial surety field operations. MacLean is responsible for setting the division’s strategic direction.

Holmes Murphy named Jay Reavis as president of Holmes Murphy and HMA Group Holdings. Reavis will continue serving as president of brokerage services, the company’s core property casualty and employee benefits lines of business. Reavis joined Innovative Captive Strategies, a Holmes Murphy subsidiary, as an intern in 2002 and advanced through a variety of leadership positions, transitioning to Holmes Murphy Brokerage Services in 2017.