Chubb has appointed two executives to lead its global digital business following Sean Ringsted's move into the chief scientist role announced earlier this year, dividing a remit that previously sat with one leader into two distinct functions.
Johan Oosthuizen has been named global head of digital business, taking executive responsibility for the acquisition and performance of Chubb's digital partnerships and the deployment of approved products worldwide. Gabriel Lazaro has been named global head of digital growth and strategic consumer partnerships, with specific accountability for growing Chubb's relationships across digital platforms, technology companies and emerging ecosystems in both P&C and life insurance.
Both appointments are effective immediately.
Oosthuizen moves into the position from global digital chief technology officer, where he spent more than 20 years building Chubb's digital technology strategy and its embedded insurance and digital partnership capabilities. He reports to Paul McNamee, president of overseas general insurance and executive vice president of Chubb Group, and is separately accountable to Bryce Johns, president of Chubb Life, for life-related production.
Lazaro joined Chubb in 2016 as head of digital for Latin America and was promoted in 2021 to executive vice president and head of digital business for overseas general insurance. He reports to both McNamee and Oosthuizen.
McNamee said Lazaro's track record across Chubb Overseas General demonstrates a consistent ability to build lasting insurance relationships with digital partners across multiple markets. Ringsted said Oosthuizen's combination of technical expertise and commercial understanding of how partnerships create value makes him the right leader for the digital business's next phase of growth.
The decision to split Ringsted's former remit rather than appoint a single successor has practical implications for brokers and MGAs operating through Chubb's digital and embedded insurance channels. Where those partners previously dealt with a single global digital leadership function, they now face a more specialised structure: Oosthuizen's team covering product delivery and infrastructure, Lazaro's handling partnership development and growth.
That division reflects how large Chubb's embedded and digital partnership book has become. Managing existing digital infrastructure and actively growing new platform relationships are now, in Chubb's assessment, sufficiently distinct disciplines to warrant dedicated global leadership for each.
For brokers advising clients on embedded or platform-distributed insurance products, or MGAs operating under Chubb's delegated authority in digital lines, knowing which leadership track governs their specific relationship is the immediate practical takeaway from these appointments.
