SMA Expands Insurance Practice

Analyst firm Strategy Meets Action (SMA) yesterday announced that it has expanded its insurance practice, adding subject-matter and strategy experts Mark Breading and Mary Ann Garwood. The pair comes to SMA from IBM.

"Mark and Mary Ann are both exceptional additions to SMA's insurance team with their breadth and depth of experience, as well as their strategic thinking and willingness to take a hands-on approach to industry research," said Deb Smallwood, founder of SMA. "With the world and the insurance industry changing so rapidly, it is essential that we position SMA to help the entire insurance ecosystem keep pace with these changes. This expansion extends our capacity and capability to accelerate time-sensitive research projects and extends the breadth of our advisory service offerings to both insurance company and solution provider clients."

Breading has held both technical and business roles in sales, consulting, marketing and business strategy, including roles as IBM's global insurance strategist, global insurance marketing leader and director of global executive conferences for insurance and banking. SMA believes he will help clients to grow their footprint in the insurance industry through strategy, marketing and account planning.

During Garwood's career at IBM, she created an e-commerce business and worked extensively with issues such as insurance connectivity and managed care. As an independent consultant, she worked with IT solution providers in financial services on their go-to-market strategies and branding. Because of Garwood's global insurance perspective and experience, the firm says she will help customers drive profitable growth and deliver value in new ways.

 

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