A busy week for senior hires across the UK insurance market has seen a digital MGA, a personal lines insurer, a specialty underwriter, a global broker and an insurtech platform all add to their leadership teams.
Ripe has appointed Jon Fell (pictured, left) as its first chief operating officer.
Fell joins from Verso Wealth Management, where he served as group chief operating officer leading the integration of acquired businesses. Before that, he spent 25 years in operational leadership at Assurant Europe, Bank of America and several private equity-backed financial services businesses, delivering large-scale digitisation programmes across each.
Fell said he was looking forward to both scaling the core business and bringing in acquisitions that shared Ripe's values and ambition. Alan Thomas, chief executive, said Fell's experience in complex integrations would strengthen the leadership team as the business continued to scale.
Tokio Marine Kiln has appointed Georgina Rennie (pictured, centre) as head of political violence and terrorism, with immediate effect. Rennie joins from Talbot AIG, where she was deputy head of terrorism and political violence, overseeing one of the largest portfolios in the market. She previously spent nearly five years at Chaucer Syndicates, where she helped build its Latin American terrorism book and develop new underwriting tools.
The hire comes at a moment of heightened demand for political violence cover globally. Rennie will lead the strategic development and underwriting performance of TMK's political violence and terrorism portfolio across London and Singapore, reporting to James Wilson, head of special risks.
Wilson said bringing in market leaders was essential as clients looked to partner with insurers with a long history of providing consistency through periods of heightened volatility.
Policy Expert has appointed Graham Wright (pictured, right) to the newly created role of chief growth officer, expanding the remit of its growth function to include trading for the first time.
Wright is a qualified actuary with more than 20 years of personal lines experience. He joins from Allianz UK, where he served as managing director of home and interim managing director of UK personal broker. He previously spent several years at Saga as chief commercial officer and 15 years at Willis Towers Watson leading on pricing, product, claims and underwriting.
Wright's appointment follows that of Richard Kirby as chief operating officer in March 2026 and comes after another year of profitable expansion. Policy Expert reported revenue of £210.3 million for the period ending December 2025, up 2.7% year on year. Its home insurance book now carries more than 1.4 million active policies and £350 million in gross written premium, with a 43% best estimate loss ratio.
Gallagher has made five appointments to its private equity and M&A practice in Europe, establishing an on-the-ground team in Italy for the first time.
Giulio Greco has been appointed chief broking officer for the EMEA-wide practice, leading broking strategy for the firm's transactional risk solutions across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Carlo Ungaro joins as director of relationship management for southern Europe, while Federica Marcabruni, a corporate M&A lawyer with more than a decade of experience, has been appointed head of transaction solutions for Italy. Alberto Corolla and Vincenzo Ferrini join as director and associate director of transaction solutions respectively, both qualified lawyers with corporate law backgrounds.
Alistair Lester, Gallagher's EMEA chief executive for private equity and M&A, said the Italian market had seen a shift from large mega-deals to mid-market transactions and domestic consolidation, making a specialist local team well-timed.
Vitesse, the financial infrastructure platform serving the global insurance ecosystem, has appointed Richard Reggel as chief commercial officer for Europe.
Reggel joins from Verisk, where he spent 12 years in the London Market and most recently served as chief commercial officer for Verisk Specialty Business Solutions, overseeing Sequel, Whitespace and Morning Data.
The hire follows a year in which Vitesse reported customer growth of 40%, with nearly 600 customers now active on the platform spanning global carriers, Lloyd's market participants, MGAs, TPAs and brokers.
In his new role, Reggel will lead commercial operations across the UK, Europe and other international markets.
Phil McGriskin, chief executive of Vitesse, said Reggel's relationships and expertise would strengthen the company's position as the industry modernised its approach to payments and treasury operations.
