Brandon to Succeed Hicks as CEO at Alleghany at Year End

Alleghany Corp. has triggered a changing of the guard, with a new chief executive officer slated to take over at the end of 2021.

Current CEO Weston Hicks will retire as CEO and as a director of property/casualty insurance and reinsurance holding company at the end of this year. Executive Vice President Joseph Brandon will succeed him, in a two-phased process. Brandon will become CEO and be appointed to Alleghany’s board of directors at the end of 2021. Then he will succeed Hicks as president of Alleghany on April 23, after the company’s 2021 annual stockholder meeting.

Brandon, 62, has been with Alleghany since 2012, when he joined as executive vice president. Before that he was chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway’s General Re Corp. from 2001 to 2008.

Hicks said the two have worked closely together from the beginning, on corporate strategy as well as the company’s insurance/reinsurance operations.

Hicks, 64, joined Alleghany in 2002 as executive vice president-Finance, and became director, president and CEO on Dec. 31, 2004. Before Alleghany, he served a stint as chief financial officer of Chubb Corp., and previously was also a senior research analyst at J.P. Morgan Securities and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Alleghany board chairman Jefferson Kirby said Hicks has been instrumental in helping to build Alleghany into what it is today.

When Hicks joined the company in 2002, Alleghany’s stockholders’ equity was approximately $1.4 billion, comprised substantially of passive assets, Kirby said, adding Hicks “reallocated those assets into several successful acquisitions” in the property/casualty industry and built Alleghany into a holding company with seven subsidiaries.

Today, Alleghany’s stockholder’s equity is at $8.8 billion as of the end of 2020, Kirby added.

Alleghany’s CEO transition will trigger another executive change.

Kerry Jacobs, currently senior vice president and chief financial officer, will succeed Brandon as executive vice president of Alleghany, effective April 23, 2021. Jacobs will continue as CFO until a successor is identified.

Jacobs, 42, joined Alleghany in 2014 as vice president – Finance and has held roles with increasing responsibility during her seven-year tenure at Alleghany.

Alleghany’s property/casualty subsidiaries include: Transatlantic Holdings, a global reinsurer; RSUI Group, which underwrites wholesale specialty insurance; and CapSpecialty, an underwriter of commercial property, casualty and surety insurance.

Source: Alleghany Corp.