Going Places

Employee of the week

David Learner joins Alliance

Ex Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy star David Learner has joined Alliance, a business insurance and risk-management company based in Bury St Edmunds, as marketing executive.

Learner trained as an actor at Rada, where his classmates included Alan Rickman and Trevor Eve. He went on to perform for 22 years in numerous roles on stage, screen and radio, including the role of Marvin the Paranoid Android in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

He left acting in 1999 to pursue a career in sales and marketing. Since then, Learner has worked in various marketing roles before joining Alliance this month.

Learner said of his appointment: "Many people think the subject of business risk management is dull - it's part of my job to disprove that myth and educate the market about risk management - a 'hitch hiker's guide to risk' if you like."

BrokerS

Riverbourne Group

Riverbourne Group, a corporate insurance broker, has appointed Andy Williams as account executive at the company's Surrey office.

Williams will be responsible for target marketing of business derived from the South. He has eight years' experience within the industry, gained from a provincial broking background.

Interglobal

Stephen Hartigan has joined Interglobal as chief executive.
Hartigan has more than 30 years' experience in the insurance industry. He began his career in 1971 as an assistant underwriter at Mercantile and General Reinsurance Company. He then went on to become director of JD Rowland Insurance Brokers, managing director of Trinity Insurance Company, and managing director of Groupama.

He was most recently a director of a consultancy specialising in dispute resolution. Hartigan will be based at Interglobal's UK headquarters in Farnham, Surrey.

Regency Warranties

Regency Warranties, part of The Regency Group based in Weston-super-Mare, has appointed Ian Lloyd to its board as director of operations.

Lloyd will be responsible for implementing any new schemes and developing management information for the warranty scheme provider. He has been working for The Regency Group for five years, previously as an operations manager.

Throughout his career, Lloyd has held various senior roles, including working as an area sales manager for Swinton. Before moving to Regency he ran a call centre for HSBC.

Sutcliffe Solloway & Co

Grimsby-based broker Sutcliffe Solloway & Co has appointed David Quantrill as managing director.

Quantrill has more than 40 years' experience in the insurance industry, 26 of which he has spent at Sutcliffe Solloway.
Mike Kirman joins the Sutcliffe Solloway board with responsibility for development of the general insurance division. Prior to joining the company, Kirman ran his own broking business for 25 years.

Terry Blake joins the board with responsibility for the financial services division. Blake has 16 years' experience in the financial services sector.

Marsh

Marsh has appointed Terry Simister to its regional risk consulting team as business risk consultant.

Based in the company's Witham office, Simister will focus on developing Marsh's business in the area and providing risk
consulting services to the company's existing client base.

He joins Marsh from Heath Lambert, where he was a director of risk management for 14 years and led a 30-strong team.

Insurers

Markel International

Markel International has promoted Penny Whitwell to head of legal.

Whitwell has 19 years' industry experience. She has worked with various Lloyd's managing agents, joining Markel Syndicate 702 as claims manager in 1990, progressing to general counsel in the professional liability division in 2001.

Whitwell will take up the position with immediate effect.

AXA UK

AXA UK has appointed Ian Richardson to its board as group business risk director.
In this newly-created role, Richardson and his team will be responsible for operational risk, compliance, internal audit, legal and company secretarial matters.
Richardson has been group company secretary of AXA UK since 1995.

GE Financial Insurance

GE Financial Insurance has made several appointments to its management team.

Mike Wilkinson has been appointed chief actuary and will lead the company's actuarial capability to support the business across its European markets. Prior to taking up the role, Wilkinson was a senior consultant in the London insurance practice of Millman, a global firm of independent actuarial consultants. He has more than 25 years' experience of the insurance market.

Shannon Luitjens has been appointed European financial controller. Luitjens was previously a director of the Global Capital Markets Group of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Sonia Styles has joined as capital management manager. Prior to joining GE Financial Insurance, Styles was capital forecasting manager at Royal & SunAlliance. She has 11 years' industry experience.

premium finance

Aascent

Aascent has promoted Ed Ferrell, one of the company's founding partners, to the newly-created role of director of sales and operations.

Ferrell was previously Aascent's operations director. He has more than 20 years' experience of the insurance and financial services industries in both the UK and US.

Prior to launching Aascent in 2002, he was operations director for Tifco (UK) and, before moving to the UK, was vice president for sales and marketing for Tifco North America.

Technology

Wildnet

Simon Barker has been appointed as UK sales director at Wildnet, a provider of business process solutions to the insurance and reinsurance industry.

Barker will be responsible for the sales of software and services in the UK insurance market. He will also be responsible for developing Wildnet's consultancy business.

He has sold and delivered solutions to the insurance industry for 14 years. He founded Oxygen Solutions, an early author of customer relationship management software, in 1990. He joins Wildnet following a year working for life and pension solutions provider, Marlborough Stirling.

Intech Solutions

Intech Solutions, a supplier of software solutions to the insurance industry, has appointed a team to support its Open Xposure product, reporting to team director Nero Jani.

Dawn Hammond joins the team, responsible for design, development and implementation of Open Xposure.

Viv Saunders is responsible for client support, project management and training.

Rakesh Amin is responsible for database programming, construction and maintenance.

Open Xposure has been specifically developed for onshore/offshore aggregations.