People Moves: Crawford Names Bart CEO, Int’l Operations; Marsh Appoints Delchar as Head of Placement, UK & Ireland; Pütz to Become Echo Re’s CEO as Meyer Retires

This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Crawford & Co., Marsh and Echo Re.

A summary of these new hires follows here.

Crawford & Co. Names Bart CEO, Int’l Operations

Crawford & Co., the provider of claims management and outsourcing solutions to carriers, brokers and corporations, announced the promotion of Andrew Bart to CEO, International Operations.

This announcement comes on the heels of an organizational restructure within Crawford, which is focused on accelerating its growth strategy and cascading empowerment within its culture. As a result, Crawford will be moving away from the global service line-based primary structure in its international markets to a geography-based primary structure.

In this role, Bart will focus on enabling growth and the sharing of capabilities and expertise across geographies. The geography presidents, including Lisa Bartlett (UK and Ireland), Veronica Grigg (Asia), Tim Jarman (Australia), Roberto McQuattie (Latin America) and Charlotte Von Krogh (Europe), will now report directly to Bart.

With over 30 years of claims and loss adjusting experience, Bart has spent the last 18 years with Crawford & Co. He previously served as president and chief executive officer of Crawford Australia and as president of Crawford Asia Pacific, where he led the business through a sustained period of growth. In 2019, he relocated to London as president of Crawford Global Technical Services, serving the large and complex claims market.

Prior to moving into management, Bart worked for a number of years as an adjuster handling large and complex claims across property, mining, business interruption, product liability and product tamper.

Based in Atlanta, Crawford & Co. is the world’s largest publicly listed independent provider of claims management and outsourcing solutions to carriers, brokers and corporations with an expansive global network serving clients in more than 70 countries.

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Marsh Appoints Delchar as Head of Placement, UK & Ireland

Insurance broker Marsh announced the appointment of Simon Delchar as head of Placement, UK & Ireland. Delchar will relocate from Singapore to London, effective July 1, and report to Lucy Clarke, president, Marsh Specialty and Global Placement, and Chris Lay, CEO, UK & Ireland, Marsh. Delchar will also join Marsh’s UK & Ireland executive team.

With more than 35 years’ industry experience, primarily in international broking roles, Delchar is currently head of Marsh Specialty in Asia, a position he has held since 2019. He has also worked in senior broking roles at Lloyd & Partners and JLT Group. As head of Placement, UK & Ireland, Delchar will oversee the development of placement solutions that support Marsh’s clients in managing the broad-ranging risks they now face.

Marsh also announced the appointment of Clarissa Franks as placement leader, UK & Ireland, for the Risk Management, Corporate, and Commercial businesses. Franks will oversee Marsh’s UK & Ireland retail placement strategy and the development of client solutions across a wide range of industries and product lines.

Franks has worked with Marsh for 13 years in a variety of senior management roles and is currently UK Placement Leader, Risk Management.

Winsee Cheung will continue her role as placement leader, UK & Ireland, Marsh Specialty. Both Franks and Cheung will continue to be based in London. Franks will report to Delchar and Cheung will report to Delchar and Dominic Samengo-Turner, CEO, UK and Ireland, Marsh Specialty.

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Pütz to Become Echo Re’s CEO as Meyer Retires

The Swiss-based reinsurer Echo Re announced Fabian Pütz as its future chief executive officer. In this role, he will succeed Gilles Meyer who has been with Echo Re for five years and will be reaching retirement age in May this year.

Pütz joined Echo Re in August 2018 as the head of Echo Re’s Controlling, Technical Accounting & Claims and BI/Reporting activities. Before joining Echo Re, Pütz has been working for its parent group DEVK since 2011. In his last role at group level, he served as executive assistant to Bernd Zens (group chief financial officer and chairman of Echo Re). In this capacity, he was mainly involved in the group-wide reinsurance and asset management activities with focus on alternative investment strategies. Fabian holds a doctorate degree in business from Kemmy Business School (University of Limerick, Ireland) and a Master of Science in Insurance Management (University of Applied Science, Cologne).

“We cannot thank Gilles enough for his very valuable contribution in raising Echo Re’s underwriting profile through strategic initiatives allowing the company to thrive in the future. We wish him all the best for his well-deserved retirement after a remarkable career in the reinsurance industry,” said Zens, chairman of Echo Re.

“At the same time, we are very pleased to announce that Fabian Pütz will succeed in the role as chief executive officer with effect from May 2022 as part of a long-term internal succession plan,” Zens added.

“With his significant impetus during the last three years with Echo Re he has proven his ability and dedication to develop Echo Re from both a strategic and operational perspective. The experience he gained from different positions within the DEVK group makes him the ideal candidate to further build on the very strong basis set by Echo Re’s Management together with the whole team. We wish Fabian all the best in this pivotal role in our company.”

Founded in 2008, Echo Re is a wholly owned subsidiary of the German DEVK Group. Echo Re serves clients in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean with dedicated and extensive reinsurance know how in P&C as well as specialty lines of business such as agriculture, marine/energy, engineering, extended warranty, credit/bond and cyber.