Lockton has appointed Nicki Tatola ( pictured) as head of specialties for Canada, adding an insurance veteran with nearly 25 years of Canadian commercial insurance experience – and a former national leader on Marsh Canada's global placement team – to a leadership build-out that has now pulled senior talent from every major broking rival in the space of a few months.
Tatola will lead the development of Lockton's national specialty insurance and risk advisory capabilities in Canada, according to a company announcement. Her mandate covers building what Lockton calls the country's "specialties ecosystem," an integrated framework meant to align the firm's technical practice groups with market solutions to deliver custom capacity and policy structures for clients.
"Canadian businesses are facing increasingly complex risks that cannot always be addressed through standard commercial insurance alone, particularly as tariff uncertainty, supply chain pressures and shifting trade dynamics create added complexity for companies operating across borders," said Stéphane Lespérance, chief executive of Lockton Canada. "Nicki's appointment strengthens our ability to deliver that expertise in Canada, combining Lockton's global specialty depth with an independent, locally led model built around the needs of this market."
Tatola began her career as a personal lines claims adjuster before moving into commercial brokerage, according to the announcement, and has since held senior national and regional leadership roles directing commercial brokerage teams at major global firms.
"Lockton's independent model creates a strong foundation for building specialty capabilities around what clients need most: direct access to technical expertise, responsive market solutions and advice tailored to the complexity of their business," Tatola said.
Tatola's appointment is the fourth senior Canadian hire Lockton has announced this year, and the third to come from one of the country's other global brokers.
Lespérance himself joined Lockton in June as founding CEO of its Canadian retail business, leaving the president and CEO role at Aon Canada after 24 years with the firm. The following month, Lockton named Fiona Terry managing director of its Canadian Global Solutions team; she joined from WTW, where she had spent more than three years, after an earlier six years at Marsh Canada in multinational client roles. In August, Lockton hired Catherine Lanctôt away from Aon, where she had spent more than 15 years, most recently as national leader of the firm's Financial Services Group covering D&O, financial lines and cyber risk, to become national leader for professional and executive risk and head of insurer relations.
Each of those hires has landed at, or near, the top of a specific practice area: retail leadership with Lespérance, multinational client advisory with Terry, executive risk and carrier relations with Lanctôt, and now national specialty strategy with Tatola. Taken together, the pattern points to a brokerage building its Canadian operation from the top down, using senior, named hires from Aon, Marsh and WTW rather than organic growth or acquisition, to establish credibility in a market Lockton has framed as worth roughly CA$12.9 billion in broker and agency revenue.
Lockton has said it will continue to share details of its Canadian build-out as it expands its leadership team, local market presence and advisory capabilities. In Canada, the firm operates as Lockton Brokers, ULC.
"I am excited to join Lockton at a pivotal moment in building the firm's Canadian team," Tatola said. "I look forward to working with colleagues across Canada to build a connected specialties offering that brings those capabilities directly to clients."
