Brown & Brown Makes Management Changes

Florida’s Brown & Brown Inc. announced that its Board of Directors elected Jim W. Henderson as president and COO of the company. At the same time, Linda S. Downs, regional executive vice president, was tapped to assume expanded responsibilities, and Charles H. Lydecker and J. Powell Brown were named regional executive vice presidents.

Chairman and CEO J. Hyatt Brown commented that, “The Board’s actions are in line with our announced intentions of growing our company from its current size to a billion dollar revenue organization, operating in the 40 percent profit margin range. We plan to reach this goal in a safe and prudent manner, which can only be accomplished by having the best possible management structure in place. This series of evolutionary changes now gives us eight operating regions and generally divides the over-all responsibility for the operations of the company evenly between Jim and myself.”

Henderson, while taking on the duties of president and COO, will continue to have regional responsibilities for the company’s Services Division and a portion of the Brokerage Division operations, as well as operations in Connecticut, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Since joining Brown & Brown as CFO in 1985, Henderson has served in a variety of progressively senior managerial positions and is a member of the Board of Directors.

Downs will now be responsible for an expanded sphere of the company’s operations, including retail offices located in Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, as well as the National Professional Programs and National Commercial Programs divisions based in Tampa, Fla. Downs joined Brown & Brown in December 1980, when she was asked to establish and build a retail operation in Orlando, and has grown that location and others into highly efficient and profitable operations.

Lydecker has been the Profit Center manager of the Daytona Beach, Fla. retail operation, Brown & Brown’s largest profit center, and one of its most profitable. As regional executive VP, he will continue to direct the Daytona Beach retail office and will also be responsible for retail profit centers in Jacksonville and Tallahassee. Lydecker joined the company in 1990, as a producer/account executive and has held progressively more responsible positions since then, including that of Sales Manager just prior to being named the Daytona Beach Profit Center manager.

Powell Brown has been the Profit Center manager responsible for Brown & Brown’s large and highly profitable Orlando retail operation. He will now be the regional executive VP overseeing not only that operation, but also retail profit centers in Brooksville, Leesburg, Melbourne and Titusville, Fla., as well as Halcyon Underwriters Inc., a brokerage operation based in Orlando. Brown joined the company in 1995, as a producer/account executive, and later served as Marketing manager in the Daytona Beach office; since 1998 he has been the Profit Center manager for the company’s Orlando retail office.

Topics Profit Loss