Vice chairman
AMWINS GROUP
Until the last decade or so, nobody went to college to study insurance, says Skip Cooper, former president and current vice chairman of AmWINS Group. Most people “ended up here accidentally, [so] the industry is filled with many interesting, and generally fun, folks from different walks of life,” he says. “Meeting and working with all of these different characters has been the most rewarding part of my career.”
Cooper joined AmWINS in 2007; during his 11 years as president, he led the company through a period of immense growth, including 32 acquisitions and the addition of more than 2,000 employees. Cooper’s extensive industry knowledge and expertise in customer, client and market relationships helped AmWINS become a leading specialty brokerage and underwriting organization. “Building businesses and enterprise value in our industry has been challenging, competitive and fun,” he says.
Cooper is a dedicated mentor, most recently recruiting AmWINS’ alternative risk capital team, a group of specialists focused on exploring state-of-the-art insurance solutions in the parametric, captive and insurance-linked security space. Before joining AmWINS, he was an executive vice president at CRC Insurance Services, where he formed the property department, along with AmRisc Underwriting. Prior to CRC, Cooper worked for Southern Surplus Insurance and Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company and interned at Lloyd’s of London.
