AXA XL hired two new senior underwriters for its Environmental insurance team in New York. AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. appointed a former insurance commissioner to its Board of Directors. Insurance law firm Clyde & Co. appointed two independent board members, including a former CEO of Lloyd’s of London.
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AXA XL hired two new senior underwriters for its Environmental insurance team in New York. Odette Novoa and Erica Delaney will report to Hiral Shah, Head of Environmental, East Region.
Novoa joined AXA XL from Aspen as an underwriter of environmental and casualty lines in both domestic and international markets. She began her insurance career with AON as an account specialist. Delaney joins AXA XL from The Hartford where she served as a Northeast regional pollution underwriter. Her underwriting career also includes tenure with Aspen Insurance Group and Preferred Concepts.
AXA XL touts its Environmental insurance business has having helped build today’s environmental insurance market.
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AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. appointed Anne Melissa Dowling to its Board of Directors, effective January 1, 2020. She will serve as a member of the Company’s Audit, Corporate Governance and Nominating, and Finance Committees.
Dowling most recently served as Director of Insurance for the State of Illinois Department of Insurance. Prior to that, she first served as Connecticut’s Deputy Commissioner of Insurance and then as its Acting Commissioner. Previously, Dowling had an accomplished career in international insurance investment and operating organizations, which included executive roles with Massachusetts Mutual (MMG), Aetna and Travelers.
Along with Dowling’s appointment, AXIS announced that Robert Friedman and Maurice Keane will retire effective May 31, 2020. Friedman has served on the Board of Directors since the Company’s inception in November 2001, and Keane has served as a Company Director since September 2002.
Dowling’s appointment brings the size of the Company’s Board of Directors to 13 members, 11 of whom are independent directors.
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Insurance law firm Clyde & Co. appointed two independent board members, including a former CEO of Lloyd’s of London.
Clyde & Co. noted that the positions, the equivalent of non-executive directors serving on its
Management Board, are a first for the firm.
Specifically, former Lloyd’s of London CEO Dame Inga Beale and former Grant Thornton U.S. CEO Stephen Chipman join Clyde & Co’s Management Board on Jan. 1, 2020.
Beale was CEO of Lloyd’s of London between 2014 and 2018, during which she initiated a large-scale digital and cultural transformation program and led its expansion into China, Dubai and India. She has held senior leadership positions across the insurance sector globally including as Group CEO at the insurance/reinsurance groups Canopius and Converium, and has previously held management positions at Zurich Insurance and GE Insurance Solutions.
Beale is also well-known within the London and wider insurance market as a champion of diversity, having increased female participation in senior management to one-third at Lloyd’s and acting as one of the driving forces behind the Dive In Festival, a worldwide event that celebrates diversity and inclusion in the insurance sector. She will have a special focus on the firm’s diversity and inclusion on the board.
Chipman has held senior roles across Grant Thornton for the past 20 years, most notably as CEO for the firm in the U.S. and China. In 2016 he became CEO of technology-enabled business services company Radius and subsequently held the role of Group Managing Director, International Expansion Services when Radius was acquired by international expansion consultancy and services company Vistra in 2018.
Sources: AXA XL, AXIS Capital Holdings and Clyde & Co.