Capsicum Re Names New Chairman as Chilton Takes on New Role Within Gallagher

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Capsicum Re, the specialist reinsurance broker, has announced the appointment of Raja Balasuriya as its chairman.

He succeeds fellow Capsicum Re founder Grahame Chilton in the role, who it was announced would re-join the wider Gallagher business – working alongside Tom Gallagher, CEO of Gallagher’s global property & casualty broking business, as chairman. Capsicum Re became the wholly owned specialist reinsurance arm of Gallagher in January 2020.

As a co-founder of Capsicum Re – and its first-ever managing partner from 2014 – Balasuriya has led and, together with his partners, grown its UK Motor & Liability division since the beginning. (Capsicum Re was launched in 2013).

A Lloyd’s broker since the early 1980s, well-known market figure and leading producer in the UK motor treaty space, Balasuriya joined Chilton and Capsicum Re CEO Rupert Swallow to establish and head Capsicum Re’s very first specialist “cell” under the original start-up structure.

In addition Capsicum Re has named other key members of its new executive committee team who will lead the business through its next phase of growth.

Capsicum Re’s new ExCo is made up of the following members:

Rupert Swallow (CEO); Raja Balasuriya (chairman); Matt FitzGerald (managing partner, Property & Specialty); Alistair Lockhart-Smith (managing partner, Marine & Energy); Abbhi Bala, (finance director); and Simon Behagg (chief operating officer).

“By anyone’s estimation, Raja is one of the top reinsurance market producers. Together with his team and clients, he represents a significant share of the total book of motor reinsurance purchased here in the UK,” said CEO Swallow.

“More than that, Raja has always shared our vision and belief in being able to build – from the ground up – a fresh, new, entrepreneurial reinsurance broker with transactional expertise, innovation and client advocacy at its core,” he added.

Of the wider composition of the new ExCo, Swallow added: “Alistair and Matt have, along with Raja, developed portfolios of substance in an incredibly short period of time. The challenge of succeeding in this way can be understood only by those who have put themselves to the ultimate test of production – creating a start-up and building from the ground up. Along with all the other Managing Partners of Capsicum Re, Alistair and Matt have excelled in meeting this challenge.”