Root, Guardian, Amerilife: Insurtech people moves UPDATED

June 7, 2021 7:35 AM

Fish eye view of commercial buildings in the central business district of Tokyo, Japan — EDITORS NOTE: IMAGE WAS CREATED USING A FISH-EYE LENS. Commercial buildings stand in the central business district of Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, June 25, 2018. The Bank of Japan's (BOJ) Tankan quarterly business survey for June, scheduled to be released on July 2, is likely to show concerns about U.S. tariffs putting a dent in business sentiment. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

Usage-based insurtech Root has hired Anirban Kundu as CTO. Kundu last was SVP of engineering at Postmates, and has also worked at EVernote, GoDaddy, Yahoo and IBM.
Root’s current CTO, Dan Manges, will remain a co-founder and transition to an advisory role. Root also hired Michele Streitmatter as Chief People and Organizational Effectiveness Officer and promoted Matt Bonakdarpour to Chief Data Science and Analytics Officer, and Frank Palmer to Chief Insurance Officer.

Guardian Life has hired Wendy Wahl as CMO. She last worked at CVS Health as VP of Commercial Marketing. Before that she was head of enterprise marketing for Aetna. "Guardian has made great strides in its transformation and this is an opportune time to join such a storied company," said Wahl. "Putting the consumer first will be top of mind as we build capabilities to better seek and serve consumers in a modern marketing environment."

AmeriLife has added Rhonda Fenner as SVP, Operations Transformation. She last was SVP, Financial Operations and Human Resources at CURevl, a credit union service organization, and has also worked at Thrivent Financial and TIAA. "Rhonda is a highly capable and qualified leader who understands the importance of delivering operational excellence to support our network," said Tim Calvert, chief operating officer at AmeriLife. "I'm eager for Rhonda's expertise as we work to transform our processes and supporting technology in order to increase the ease of doing business with AmeriLife."

Neeren Chauhan has been named Head of Strategy, Innovation & Business Development for Zurich North America. He last was VP of distribution transformation for Allstate and has also worked at KPMG and McKinsey. "We'll work together to identify and bring to life forward-thinking innovations that will help our customers and interesting opportunities to further develop the business," says Zurich NA CEO Kristof Terryn, to whom Chauhan will report. He is based in Schaumberg, Ill.

Hippo has hired Tim Bienek as chief insurance strategy officer, leading the development and execution of growth initiatives. He last was CEO of Tower Hill Insurance Group. Hippo also added Rich Primerano, last of Weston Insurance as chief risk officer; Mike Stienstra, formerly of Chubb, as chief actuary; and Chris Donahue, previously at AIG, as cheif underwriting officer. "We are pleased to welcome each of these incredible leaders in their own right, whose individual insights and experience will help Hippo focus on accelerating our growth and maximizing our long-term value," says Rick McCathron, president of Hippo.

AXIS Insurance has named Keith Trivitt head of commercial and strategic partnerships. He last was head of the company's marketing and communications division. Before coming to AXIS in 2016, Trivitt worked at the digital publishing platform Playbuzz. "He will play a key role in helping us expand the strategic growth pipeline for our International Insurance business, while building closer and deeper relationships with key customers across multiples lines of business," says Edward Ashby, global head of distribution for AXIS.

Majesco has hired Ravi Krishnan as CTO, with responsibility to oversee the architectural and technical direction for the company's insurance software. He last was principal solutions leader for worldwide healthcare and insurance at Amazon Web Services. “Ravi’s breadth and depth of technical experience leading cloud and digital platforms made him a clear standout for us,” said Manish Shah, President and Chief Product Officer of Majesco. “As an early leader in cloud platform solutions for the L&A and Group and P&C industries, Ravi’s experience with AWS will provide new levels of insight to propel us to the next chapter of our product and cloud story."