The Latest

Jim Blachek is the CEO of Dynamic Benefit Solutions.

The bank plans to grow the wealth unit and regain investor confidence by focusing on priority markets like Hong Kong and Singapore

Tracey is the director for small commercial underwriting at Verisk. She is responsible for the strategy and execution of small commercial and casualty underwriting products, focused on powering automated underwriting and digital transformation in the industry.

Deb Smallwood, Senior Partner at Strategy Meets Action, a ReSource Pro Company, is widely recognized as an industry thought leader who is known for her “big strategic thinking with pragmatic approaches to transformation.” Deb challenges the status quo of insurance and influences the industry to reimage the business of insurance for the digital connected world.

Deb’s passion is to advise carriers and MGA’s to create transformation strategies and plans by bringing clarity to the possibilities of change and innovation. For over 30 years, Deb has helped hundreds of clients transform their businesses driving high business value and success. Deb’s deep expertise is commercial lines underwriting transformation and how best to leverage customer experience, digital enablement and transformational technologies and data.

Prior to launching Strategy Meets Action, Deb held a variety of leadership roles including VP of the insurance practice at Tower Group, Chief Transformation Officer (CIO) at Insurance Company of the West (ICW), Partner at KPMG LLP, and Head of Commercial Lines Application Development & Maintenance at Liberty Mutual.

Deb is often asked to contribute to major insurance publications and is also a frequent keynote speaker at leading industry conferences.

Edward Webb currently serves as BPM’s advisory partner, offering over 35 years of experience in consulting and financial management, including specific experience in transaction advisory services for both healthy and stressed companies. A published author and speaker, he currently leads the Corporate Finance Consulting Group at BPM and sits on the firm's Management Committee. He holds a doctorate in business administration with an emphasis in ownership transition from Temple University, as well as an MBA with a focus on finance from Indiana University. He was born and raised in suburban Philadelphia before moving his family to California. He may be reached at ewebb@bpmcpa.com.

“Inflation psychology” is back, complicating financial planners’ discussions with unnerved retirement savers.

Missouri-based UMB Financial says it would acquire 157,000 accounts across more than 3,000 employer groups from Old National Bancorp in Indiana.

John Beal is Senior Vice President, Analytics, Insurance, for LexisNexis Risk Solutions. He is responsible for leading the company’s insurance analytics and modeling products and services. With more than 20 years of experience in data and analytics across the insurance and financial services industries and market-leading innovations, Beal and his team develop incremental predictive uses of existing data and processes with a strong focus on developing personal and commercial lines credit-based loss models as well as new non-credit industry solutions. Prior to LexisNexis, Beal held key leadership roles at First Union National Bank in Charlotte, where he was Vice President, Credit and Market Analytics within the Quantitative Analysis Group, and at Citicorp Bankcard, where he served as Assistant Vice President, Credit Policy Department.

June 12-13, 2023 | Hilton Midtown New York
INVEST is returning in person in 2023. This year's event will deliver key takeaways based on detailed use-cases examining must-watch wealthtech megatrends in 2023 and beyond. With a keen focus on market drivers and economic outlook, senior leaders will examine the methodologies employed by the most successful organizations, long-term government, regulatory and investment initiatives and leadership in a post-pandemic reality.

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Paul Mang is Chief Innovation Officer at Guidewire, a provider of predictive analytics and business intelligence solutions for the P&C insurance industry. He is the former Global CEO of Analytics at Aon plc.