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Florida insurance broker Kuykendall Gardner has tapped Nicholas Carbone to serve as a vice president of transactional risk. In this role, he will assess, mitigate and transfer risk through insurance and other business strategies.

Prior to joining the Winter Park-based Kuykendall Gardner, Carbone worked as a principal at PCE Investment Bankers and as a senior manager for KPMG.

Breckenridge Insurance Group realigned its property/casualty insurance operations naming William A. Hildebrand as president and CEO of Breckenridge Insurance Services, its brokerage division.

Michael J. Eichhorn was also named executive vice president and chief operating officer of Breckenridge Insurance Services.

Hildebrand will identify and direct strategic initiatives and Eichhorn will manage operations.

Before joining Breckenridge, Hildebrand spent three years at wholesale broker Chartwell as executive vice president after a 20-year career at Aon Specialty Group where he was senior vice president.

Eichhorn managed International Placement Services, the St. Louis wholesale property casualty insurance brokerage which was acquired by Breckenridge Insurance Group in 2010.

Hildebrand will be based in Irvine, Calif. and Eichhorn will be based in St. Louis. New York-based Arsenal Capital Partners is the primary investor in Breckenridge IS, Inc.

R-T Specialty, the wholesale brokerage unit of Ryan Specialty Group, appointed industry veteran Mark Smith as president and managing director for the firm’s New York operation. Smith is a well-known industry executive in the wholesale segment. He brings to R-T Specialty more than three decades’ experience in the wholesale/specialty marketplace, with expertise in building and managing local, regional and national wholesale offices and operations.

He started his wholesale career in New York City with Trans World Excess, and spent six years with Horan Goldman, managing their New York office. In 1990 he sold his New York wholesale firm to Willis and joined Stewart Smith East as president and CEO. He spent 15 years with Stewart Smith and was named group president and CEO in 1999.

Headquartered in Chicago, R-T Specialty specializes in wholesale brokerage, MGA/MGU underwriting facilities and other related services to agents, brokers and carriers.

Ryan Hobbs has joined the executive team at insurance software company Applied Systems in University Park, Illinois, as senior vice president of corporate development. Hobbs will be responsible for business strategy and merger and acquisition initiatives at Applied Systems, a major provider of insurance agency and broker management software in the U.S. and Canada.

Since 2004, Hobbs had been vice president of corporate development at Intergraph Corp., a company that develops engineering and geospatial software.

Willis Group Holdings plc in London has named Tim Wright as chief executive officer of Willis International, the company’s business unit serving all of Willis’ retail clients around the globe outside North America, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The company said David Margrett, currently CEO of Willis International, is leaving the firm to pursue other interests. Margrett was just named CEO of Willis International in April. He had been with Willis since 2004 in other positions.

Sarah Turvill, currently chairman of Willis International, has led the business unit over the past 10 years and will remain in that post, working with Wright in his new role.

Willis International comprises 5,000 associates in more than 100 offices in over 40 countries in Europe, Middle East, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Africa.

Topics New York Agencies Excess Surplus Human Resources