Zurich in North America Promotes Cooper

Zurich in North America announced that Marcus Cooper has been named SVP for national sales and strategic relationships, effective immediately. Cooper replaces Mike Vaught, who is retiring. Cooper will continue serving as South Central regional executive until a replacement is hired.

"Marcus will be continuing Mike's leadership and will be responsible for all facets of distribution, sales and marketing with national strategic brokers," says Robert Rheel, Zurich in North America's head of distribution and regional management. "We appreciate Mike's extensive contributions to the company and wish him the best in his retirement."

Rheel said Cooper will oversee three primary functions:

•    He will manage the national strategic broker strategy for Zurich in North America, while also aligning strategies with Mike Golden, head of Zurich Global Corporate Distribution Management and the global strategic brokers
•    He will collaborate, partner and coach a cross-functional field group for establishing a common organizational sales culture
•    He will be responsible for managing the alignment of Zurich in North America's sales and distribution practices with the business units

Before joining Zurich in 2007, Cooper was assistant VP and branch manager with Crum & Forster. Prior to that, he held key management roles with American International Group Inc.