Julie Wood
Interim Chief Executive Officer, North America and Group Head of Distribution
Julie Wood is the Interim Chief Executive Officer for QBE North America and Group Head of Distribution. As the Group Head of Distribution, she is accountable for leading QBE’s global distribution capabilities, improving the overall engagement and alignment across our global broker and wholesaler partnerships, while driving the comprehensive customer experience agenda.
She is a seasoned insurance executive with more than 20 years of experience. Prior to joining QBE, she served as Managing Director for Marsh, where she led the Southeast Zone. Julie supervised both a sales team and a technical service team, responsible for growth, profitability and customer service. Her leadership focused on delivering multi-year client value addressing resiliency using analytics, insurance products, loss control and claims services. Julie worked for Zurich, ending her tenure there as the Executive Vice President of Zurich’s Global Relationship Management. She managed a global team, responsible for retaining and expanding Zurich’s largest client base through coordinating multiple global business units’ product lines to provide diversified solutions.
Julie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology with a concentration in Economics from the University of Michigan. She was named to Business Insurance’s Women to Watch in 2020.
Chris Castaldo
Chief Financial Officer
With nearly 20 years of experience in the financial services and Property & Casualty insurance sector, Chris has been with QBE for eight years. He spent five in the North America division where he served as a leader in both the FP&A and corporate development functions. Prior to joining QBE, Chris spent 5 years at AIG in a series of roles including Director, Strategic Planning and Corporate Development.
In 2017, he was appointed Group Head of FP&A where he helped shape the strategy for the Group and led a number of transformation initiatives. Specifically, he led the Group's business planning process, drove performance management initiatives and supported strategic decisions focused on corporate development and capital management activities.
Michael Foley
President, Commercial Insurance
Mike Foley is the President of Commercial Insurance for QBE North America. He is responsible for planning, directing and executing the vision for Middle Market, Specialty Casualty, Workers' Compensation Programs and Commercial Property Programs. In addition, he oversees the development of the division strategy and supports building strong trading partner and customer relationships by driving excellence as their most consistent and innovative risk partner. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Underwriting Officer for the Specialty Casualty practice. As CUO, he enhanced existing underwriting practices and processes, including product development, technical leadership and established the risk appetite.
He is a seasoned insurance executive with nearly 30 years of experience. Mike joined from Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, where he most recently worked as Senior Vice President & Chief Underwriting Officer - Casualty. Prior to Berkshire Hathaway, Mike spent 17 years at AIG and Lexington Insurance, where he held several underwriting leadership positions in National Accounts, E&S Casualty, and Programs. He began his insurance career in the middle market business at The Harford.
Mike is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Dan Fortin
President, Specialty Insurance
Dan Fortin is the President of Specialty Insurance at QBE North America. He is responsible for leading the team dedicated to meeting the unique needs of customers for Accident & Health, Aviation, Financial Lines and Residential Insurance. He oversees the ongoing development and execution of the company’s strategic Specialty Insurance direction with a distinct focus on generating a high-quality book of business and enhancing the customer experience.
Dan has more than 30 years of insurance industry experience in helping customers guard against risks. He holds a bachelor's degree from Villanova University and a master's degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
Jim Korin
President, NAU Country Insurance Co.
Jim is the President of NAU Country Insurance Company and is a member of QBE's North American Executive Management Board. His background includes 22 years as a CPA/Consultant to various privately owned and regulated businesses. His involvement with crop insurance and NAU Country dates back to 1983.
A career in public accounting culminated with Jim becoming Chairman of the Board and Senior Partner with Carlson Advisors, LLC, a regional CPA Firm. Jim then joined NAU Country as an employee in 2005, assisting with the company’s transformation from $200 million to a company writing over $2 billion in premium. As President, Jim keeps a minute-by-minute pulse on the operations and financial success of NAU Country. Jim sits on the Board of Directors for National Crop Insurance Services (NCIS) and participates in the American Association of Crop Insurers (AACI), where he is a significant voice for the crop insurance industry.
Kristen Bessette
Chief Actuary, Data and Analytics Officer
Kristen Bessette is an accomplished actuarial executive and business leader, most recently serving as the Chief Actuary, Data & Analytics Officer at QBE, North America. Prior to that, Kristen held a series of progressively responsible roles at Liberty Mutual.
Over her career, Kristen has worked on growing and rehabilitating parts of businesses, using her quantitative expertise in traditional actuarial areas of evaluating risk and pricing, as well as mining a wide range of data and analytics to achieve business results. She is currently the leader of a multi-year data strategy project aimed at modernizing our technology and transforming QBENA’s ability to leverage data in our customer and partner interactions, in decision making, and to enable our digital platforms.
Kristen is currently on the Board of Directors for the Spencer Educational Foundation, the premier organization funding the education of tomorrow’s risk management and insurance leaders where she chairs the Grants Committee. Previously, she was appointed to a term as the P&C industry actuary to the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, and has served on various industry committees as well as on the Board of Directors for the Casualty Actuaries of New England.
Kristen is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Bates College.
Laura Coppola
Chief Underwriting Officer
Laura Coppola is the Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO) for QBE North America. In this role, she is responsible for sustainable underwriting, portfolio optimization and performance management across QBE North America, leading a fully integrated, efficient and world-class team dedicated to enhancing underwriting pricing and product strategies, processes and governance. Laura is based in New York, NY and serves on North America’s Executive Management Board.
She joins the company with more than 25 years of technical underwriting experience in property & casualty insurance. Before joining QBE, Laura held senior underwriting leadership roles with Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty and Arch Insurance Group.
Laura holds a bachelor’s degree in English from SUNY Stony Brook, and AFSB and RPLU designations. She serves on the board of The Bridge, a non-profit organization focused on developing and advancing women in the Financial Lines insurance and reinsurance industry.
Steve Gransbury
Head of Specialty and Residential Insurance
Steve Gransbury is the Head of Specialty and Residential Insurance for QBE North America. He is responsible for the Accident & Health, Aviation, and Residential business units. He oversees the ongoing development and execution of the go-to-market strategy, while driving underwriting excellence, strong portfolio management, selective distribution, innovation, and a differentiated and specialized customer experience.
He has over 25 years of experience in the insurance, reinsurance and captive industries, focused on managing risk, enabling teams, profitable growth, partnerships, and leadership. Prior to joining, Steve co-founded SLG Benefits & Insurance, LLC, a Managing General Underwriting and Program Management Company and the captive insurance company, Stratus Reinsurance Inc. SLG Benefits was acquired by QBE and formed the platform for QBE’s current market-leading Accident & Health business.
Adrian La Forgia
Chief Risk Officer
Adrian La Forgia is the Chief Risk Officer for QBE North America. He joined QBE in 2016 and was appointed as SVP and Head of Risk Management with responsibility for ensuring all aspects of QBE’s Enterprise Risk Management Framework are fully delivered and embedded within the organization. In addition, Adrian served as the Group Head of Risk Transformation, where he was accountable for driving QBE’s uplift in risk management capabilities, tools, and insights globally.
Prior to joining QBE, Adrian spent nearly 12 years at AIG in roles of increasing operational scope and responsibility. This included claims, marine underwriting, distribution, and almost four years as the Chief Operating Officer for AIG’s Global Commercial CUO function. He started his insurance career within AIG’s internal audit group, where he led engagements within the Property & Casualty, Life & Retirement and Asset Management segments, along with numerous IT remediation and Sarbanes Oxley testing efforts.
Adrian holds a bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Villanova University, and an MBA in Technology Management from the Stevens Institute of Technology.
David Mulligan
Chief Operating Officer
David Mulligan is COO for QBE North America. In this role, David is responsible for identifying, planning and executing large-scale change projects to improve process efficiency, reduce complexity and increase cost savings while enhancing workforce capability and the customer experience. David leads our NA business delivery teams, including business project managers and analysts, business process reengineering, automation & robotics, and the offshore transition team. He also oversees ongoing enterprise operations including underwriting support, program onboarding and services, billing, collections, accounts payable, production automations support, procurement and real estate.
David has more than 20 years of experience transforming companies, ranging from start-ups to multi-billion-dollar organizations. He joined QBE in 2013 as VP, IT Strategy and Transformation and then took on broader responsibilities as VP, Business Transformation and then SVP, Business Transformation. Prior to QBE, David held leadership and consulting roles at Anthem, Paradox Advisors, CUNA Mutual Group, Accenture, Best Buy and Deloitte Consulting.
He holds an MBA from the University of Notre Dame and an B.S. in Industry Engineering from the University of Wisconsin.
Ketan Pandit
Chief Information Officer
Ketan Pandit is the Chief Information Officer at QBE North America. He is responsible for driving the company’s brand value through an IT strategy that is guided by providing customers with an experience of excellence through innovation and simplification. Since joining, his team of highly skilled professionals have positively influenced a number of areas across the business including Business Operations, Claims IT, Business Intelligence, and Salesforce, among others.
With over 20 years’ experience in the Financial Services Industry & Consulting Services, Ketan brings deep leadership expertise in Strategy, Transformation, Operations, Digital, Data and Innovation. Prior to joining QBE in 2015, Ketan was with Farmers Insurance Group (part of Zurich Financial Services), where he led a staff of more than 800. As a Divisional CIO for Claims, he was also responsible for leading the development of a company-wide Digital Center of Excellence as well as defining the enterprise Cloud and Digital Strategy.
Ketan also worked for 11 years at Capgemini/Ernst & Young Consulting as their leader for CRM, Strategy, Architecture, Integration and Front office practice servicing Financial Services, Retail, Life Sciences customers. He also led large accounts and was instrumental in setting up the company’s offshore centers.
Mark Pasko
Chief Legal Officer
Reporting jointly to Todd Jones, QBE North America Chief Executive Officer, and Carolyn Scobie, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary, Mark leads the North America legal department in support of the company's business goals and its focus on enhanced performance. As a critical member of QBE North America's Executive Committee, he oversees corporate governance, litigation, compliance, regulatory relations, intellectual property, and labor and employment law, while anticipating and mitigating risks across the enterprise.
Mark joined QBE in 2016 and is an experienced General Counsel with more than two decades of experience counseling legal, regulatory, and compliance needs of property and casualty insurance companies.
He began his legal career at Riker, Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti, LLP as an Associate for the Insurance, Government Affairs, and Public Utility Practice Groups. In 2005, he joined American International Group, Inc. as Assistant Division Counsel, AIG Specialty Workers Compensation. For over a decade, he was consistently given increased responsibility throughout AIG, ultimately being promoted to Senior Vice President, Associate General Counsel for its Global Energy, Excess Casualty and CAT Excess Liability Groups before joining QBE.
A longtime resident of Chatham, New Jersey, Pasko holds a law degree from the University of Notre Dame Law School; a Master of Science in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science; and a Bachelor of Arts in Government and History from Georgetown University.
Rachel Pollack
Chief People Officer
Rachel Pollack is the Chief People Officer for QBE North America. In this role, she is responsible for leading the development and implementation of the North America People strategy to support and enable the enterprise strategy, as well as business-specific strategies and initiatives.
She joined QBE in 2008 and has held a variety of roles in change management, people, culture and business transformation. She most recently served as Group People Director, Global Corporate Functions. Rachel also served as VP, Head of HR Change, where she led several transformation initiatives, including organizational design, restructuring and HR systems.
Rachel holds an MBA in Organizational Change and Learning from the University of Technology Sydney and a B.S. in Commerce, Organizational Psychology and Consumer Behavior from Macquarie University.
Eric Sanders
Chief Claims and Risk Solutions Officer
Eric Sanders is responsible for Claims and Risk Solutions at QBE North America. In this role, he oversees strategy, policy, delivery standards and execution for these core capabilities.
Eric joined QBE in 2013. Prior to becoming Chief Claims & Risk Solutions Officer, he was most recently serving as SVP, Head of Property and Casualty Claims. He has nearly 30 years of experience in the claims and loss control areas with a strong track record of success. Before joining QBE, he worked at Fireman's Fund for nearly 20 years in positions of increasing responsibility in both claims and loss control. Eric started his career as a claims adjuster at Aetna Casualty & Surety.
Eric holds a BA in Quantitative Economics and Decision Sciences from the University of California, San Diego.
Daniella Stenhouse
Senior Vice President, Strategy, Marketing & Communications
Daniella Stenhouse is the SVP, Strategy, Marketing & Communications for QBE North America. In this role, she is responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of the company’s strategic initiatives, internal and external communications and marketing efforts. Daniella’s leadership ensures a strong focus on QBE’s innovation, risk expertise and ability to provide consistent and unparalleled solutions for our customers.
She heads up a wide range of critical activities including strategic planning, metrics and cross-functional projects to help build a more resilient future. As a proven leader with more than 15 years of industry expertise, Daniella has held positions of increasing responsibility in Communications, Marketing and Strategic Planning at both QBE and Suncorp Group. Her insight and deep understanding of the insurance and financial services industry is a great asset to QBE North America’s Executive Management Board.
Thaddeus Woosley
Senior Vice President, Broker Management & Sales Operations
Thaddeus Woosley is the Senior Vice President, Broker Management & Sales Operations for QBE North America. In this role, he is accountable for broker relationships across the Specialty and Commercial businesses — ensuring close connectivity for QBE’s trading partners and managing compensation and engagement strategies that deliver mutual value and growth for both partners and customers.
He is a seasoned insurance executive with over 15 years of industry experience. Before joining QBE, Thaddeus served as Vice President – Global Broking, Commercial Risk Solutions at Aon, where he worked closely with carrier partners to identify opportunities to build profitable solutions to serve clients. Prior to that, he served as Vice President and Head of Marketing for Aon Risk Solutions’ U.S. Commercial Risk business.