AXA XL Risk Consulting adds new team members

AXA XL Risk Consulting has announced that it has expanded its team in the Americas with six new hires, to more effectively help businesses in the region manage their business risks.

Foremost among the new hires is Grace Torres-Valtierra, who will serve as AXA XL Risk Consulting’s South Central regional engineering leader in Dallas. She joins AXA XL from FM Global, where she was most recently an account engineer. Torres-Valtierra has 15 years of consulting experience, particularly when it comes to mitigating natural hazards and equipment breakdown risks for clients in the pulp & paper, molten metals, power generation, and manufacturing sectors.

Along with Torres-Valtierra, AXA XL has also welcomed the following to its Risk Consulting team as risk consultants:

• James Kor, who brings his risk consulting and field engineering experience from Aon and AIG. He also served as a lead analyst with 1898 & Co. Kor is based in Kansas City, MO.
• Brian Zyskowski has more than 20 years of fire prevention experience and joins AXA XL from TUV SUD Global Risk Consultants. He is based in Columbus, OH.
• Allen Broadus recently served as a technical consultant before joining AXA XL. He has also worked for FM Global and Hartford Steam Boiler. Broadus is a Navy veteran, and had served as a nuclear machinist mate and engineering laboratory technician.
• Peter Sam, who is based in Vancouver, BC, has more than 20 years of risk consulting experience. He joined FM Global in Hong Kong in 2003, later moving to AXA XL later that year as a field engineer. His experience covers pulp and paper, food, cement, automobile, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, high-rise buildings, ports, combustible dusts, water damage, wind, and so on. He moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong in 2022.
• Walid Mansouri joined AXA XL’s Americas team after he relocated to Montreal from Paris. He has served as a risk consultant supporting European and American clients’ risk assessment and loss prevention needs since 2018. Prior to being a risk consultant, Mansouri was a student graduate of Polytech Annecy Chambery, and had spent five years as an officer in the Gendarmerie Nationale.

"Businesses continue to see the cost of risk rise.  More severe weather systems, supply chain bottlenecks, and the risk of costly lawsuits are prompting more companies to take a look at how they can improve their risk management programs to prevent, or at least minimize, potential losses.  We're excited to welcome such experienced risk consultants to help us meet the growing demand for loss prevention expertise here in the Americas,” said AXA XL Risk Consulting Americas engineering leader Scott Ewing.

Earlier this month, AXA XL promoted Cheri Hanes as vice president, head of innovation and sustainability for its construction insurance business in North America. Hanes was tapped to succeed Rose Hall, who was promoted last October to lead the newly created Office of Innovation for the Americas.