Leadership moves this week span insurtech governance, wholesale and specialty insurance, technology and trade advocacy, with new appointments at Guidewire, CRC Benefits, NAMIC, Lorikeet and AXA XL.
Guidewire has appointed Alexander Vollert (pictured, center) to its board of directors, effective August 1.
Vollert most recently served as chief executive officer of AXA Group Operations through December 2025 and as chief operating officer of AXA SA, where he sat on the group's management committee. He was previously CEO of AXA Germany from 2016 and earlier held senior roles at Allianz SE, including CEO of its German property and casualty business, along with nine years at McKinsey & Company advising financial services clients on strategy and technology. He has served as a senior advisor to AXA's Group Management Committee since 2026.
Michael Keller, chairman of Guidewire's board, said Vollert had been both an operator responsible for how a global insurer executes and a CEO accountable for its results, having driven large-scale digital transformation and established AI at scale, and said his experience would help Guidewire focus its AI development on customer outcomes as it builds AI into its platform.
CRC Benefits, a division of CRC Group, has added Alexis Krieg (pictured, left) as a benefits sales executive. Based in Columbus, Ohio, Krieg will support broker partners on ancillary benefits products including dental, vision, life, disability and worksite coverage. She brings six years of insurance industry experience, including a background in ancillary benefits sales and carrier-side relationship management, and was recognized in 2024 as one of the top sales executives in her market, qualifying for a national President's Club program.
Jamie Zelewicz, senior vice president of Growth and Strategic Partnerships at CRC Benefits, said Krieg brings valuable carrier-side experience, strong product knowledge and a clear commitment to serving broker partners, adding that her responsiveness and ability to understand each broker's needs would strengthen the team.
The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies has hired Maggie Seidel (pictured, right) as senior vice president of strategic communications, where she will oversee marketing and advocacy communications for the association and its more than 1,300 member companies.
Seidel joins from Finseca, the national group for financial security professionals, where she built the brand from its founding and rose to chief growth officer. Earlier in her career she ran a governor's office, advised members of Congress, and worked for trade groups representing large retail banks and the property/casualty insurance sector.
Seidel said she was thrilled to join NAMIC at an important time for the industry, noting that mutual insurers do quiet, steady work, standing by policyholders long before and long after trouble hits, and said she looked forward to helping more Americans understand what makes mutuality worth choosing.
Lorikeet, an AI concierge platform serving regulated industries including fintech, healthcare and insurance, has appointed Jerry Brooner as chief revenue officer. Brooner will lead the company's sales, marketing, forward-deployed engineering and partnerships teams as Lorikeet expands its footprint across those sectors.
He brings more than two decades of enterprise go-to-market experience, including previously serving as CRO of Scout RFP through its acquisition by Workday and as president of global field operations at Enable. He also spent a decade at SAP selling to large regulated enterprises.
Brooner said Lorikeet stood out because its product holds up in the hardest support environments, the regulated ones where the answer has to be right, and that his role would be to bring it to more of those teams.
AXA XL has named Bob Stanton as head of National and Complex Accounts, a role in which he will oversee excess and surplus lines growth initiatives across the insurer's national and complex account segments.
Based in Boston, Stanton has a background in underwriting large-scale accounts and developing tailored solutions for complex risks. Tim Whisler, head of Wholesale Solutions, Americas at AXA XL, said Stanton's leadership and expertise in managing complex accounts would be a significant asset as the insurer deepens its market reach, adding that continued commitment to the E&S market remained a top priority for the business.
