AIG leadership changes; Ascot Group's head of U.S. excess casualty: Career moves

May 7, 2024 4:47 PM

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AIG leadership changes

AIG announced David McElroy's retirement. He joined the company in 2018 as president and CEO of Lexington Insurance Company and was CEO of General Insurance and most recently chairman of general insurance.

"David McElroy joined AIG at a pivotal time as we began the multi-year effort of improving our underwriting performance and refining our risk appetite," said Peter Zaffino, AIG chairman and CEO, in a statement.

AIG also announced Kelly Lafnitzegger as executive vice president and chief human resources and diversity officer.

AXA XL’s chief client and distribution officer

Matthew V. O'Malley is the new chief client and distribution officer, Americas for AXA XL. O'Malley, who was most recently the U.S. country manager for the company, will now lead teams in distribution, client engagement, broker engagement and marketing activities in the Americas.

Lucy Pilko, the region's CEO said in a statement: "Our growth plans revolve around helping our clients grow and succeed. To do so, we're structuring ourselves to take a more client-centric approach than ever before, and Matt's new role will play an integral part in this approach. With his collaborative leadership style, focus on data and analytics, and steadfast commitment to clients, Matt is well prepared for his new responsibilities including liaising with our clients to assure we're delivering the right solutions and substantially more value beyond the insurance we provide."

Ascot Group promotes Osborne to lead excess casualty business

Ascot Group has promoted Erin Osborne to head of U.S. excess casualty. Prior to joining Ascot's U.S. Excess Casualty team as vice president, Northeast, in January, Erin was managing director for excess casualty at Nationwide.

Osborne is based in New York and will continue reporting to Jeff Canfield, U.S. head of casualty. "Erin's appointment further underscores Ascot's continued commitment to – and strength in – the Excess Casualty market, a segment for which we've added five talented and experienced underwriters year-to-date," Canfield said. "Since joining Ascot, Erin has proven herself both a shrewd underwriter and a trusted leader to our underwriters stationed in key client markets across the country."

Ascot Group provides Excess Casualty coverage solutions across sectors in the U.S., the U.K. and Bermuda.

Cytora adds Platt to advisory board

Commercial insurance veteran James Platt is joining an expanding advisory board at Cytora, a commercial insurance risk platform provider. Platt's experience includes co-founding Trimstone Partners, a financial services consultancy, and roles as group COO and chief digital officer at Aon.

"I have been genuinely blown away by Cytora's capabilities and use of AI," Platt said. "I am convinced Cytora can help the insurance industry to digitize risk, accelerate competitive differentiation, reduce costs and ultimately enable a step change in client, broker and insurer experience, through better data, new insights and accelerated processing."

iPipeline hires Adam Boone as CFO

iPipeline, a life insurance and wealth management digital solutions provider, has hired Adam Boone as chief financial officer.

Previously, Boone built and scaled the global financial planning and analysis (FP&A) function for one of the largest technology investors in the world, OLX Group/Naspers Limited, as its operations expanded to over 40 countries and scaled to more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

"Adam could not be better suited to lead our financial team through this next phase of growth," said Daphne Thomas, COO at iPipeline. "He is a big picture thinker and has a keen understanding of what it takes to sustain growth at leading technology companies. He will play a crucial role in iPipeline's mission to help the life insurance and financial services industries."

Aspida hires two new executives

Life insurance and annuity solutions provider Aspida hired Jason Pedone as chief technology officer and Derek Clinton as director of digital product management.

Previously, Pedone was senior vice president and head of digital and consumer channels engineering division at Truist Financial. Clinton was head of product and innovation, venture development at Pacific Life.

"These appointments underscore our commitment to putting the right leaders in place to drive our digital transformation efforts and deliver innovative solutions to our clients," said Alex Seidita, recently named CIO at Aspida.