Jensten Group has appointed Clive Buesnel as group chief executive, completing a rebuild of its leadership since Bain Capital took control of the broker at the end of 2025.
Buesnel will start on 2 November, subject to regulatory approval. He succeeds Rob Organ, who joined Jensten's board in 2021 when it acquired Tasker Insurance Group and became group chief executive in November 2024 after Alistair Hardie stepped down.
Buesnel joins from Insurance Advisory Partners, a mergers and acquisitions and capital-raising adviser to the insurance sector, where he is managing partner, international, a role he took up in 2023. Before that he was group chief executive of Lloyd's broker Tysers from 2020 and left in 2023 after the first phase of AUB Group's ownership, which followed the Australian group's £500m acquisition of the business. Jensten said that at Tysers he integrated three major businesses and modernised its technology and operations.
His earlier roles include co-founding Xchanging's insurance division, running Lloyd's managing agency Jubilee, and serving as UK insurance leader and a vice chairman at Deloitte.
“Jensten is a great business that has built national scale without taking trading decisions away from the people who know the client best,” Buesnel said.
Bain Capital agreed to buy Jensten from Livingbridge in September 2025 through its dedicated insurance investing platform. At the time Jensten had completed 37 acquisitions, controlled around £600m of gross written premium (GWP) and employed more than 1,000 people across 50 locations. Bain said it would invest in sales and distribution, technology and operations and continue the group's acquisition strategy.
David McMillan, who previously led esure, became chair on 1 January. Jensten then split into broking and product and distribution divisions in April, with former Gallagher UK retail executive Gareth Birch leading broking from May. Former Geo Underwriting chief executive Jaime Swindle formally joined on 2 October to run product and distribution, which carries a target to triple the premium managed through its underwriting arm within four years.
Jensten credited Organ with growing the business to more than 1,000 colleagues, tripling the GWP within its control, refinancing it at the end of 2025 and completing the move to a divisional structure. McMillan said Organ felt that, with that structure in place, it was the right moment to hand over.
Jensten has continued to acquire while much of the UK market has slowed. It has struck at least five deals this year, most recently a September agreement to buy specialist technology broker Venture Risks Group.
Advisory firm MarshBerry counted 99 UK insurance distribution deals in 2025, down from 152 in 2024 and the first year below 100 deals since 2017. The first half of 2026 brought 41 announced deals, the slowest first half for sector deal volumes since 2017, and MarshBerry has said many of the historically most acquisitive buyers have slowed or paused their UK activity this year.
The appointment puts a chief executive with integration and deal advisory experience at the head of a consolidator that has continued to buy in a year when many of its rivals have pulled back.
