US insurance company Hadron has hired Liesel Carvajal as group general counsel, replacing Steve Stephan who is retiring.
Carvajal joins from AXA XL, where she was GC for US insurance. At Hadron she will lead the company’s legal, regulatory, compliance and corporate governance functions, supporting its international expansion, strategic transactions and carrier operations. She will sit on the executive leadership team.
Little Rock, Arkansas-based Hadron provides speciality insurance in areas such as business-owners policies, professional, general and management liability and commercial property and inland marine.
At the same time the company also hired Ed McGough as chief information officer.
Sam Reeder, CEO at Hadron, said: “The carriers that will define the next decade are the ones investing in governance and infrastructure ahead of scale, not when they have to. Liesel and Ed are exactly the kind of leaders you bring in when you’re building for the long term.”
Carvajal arrives after almost seven years at AXA’s US subsidiary, having previously spent seven years at Arch Insurance Group, two of them as deputy GC.
Earlier in her career she was an assistant division counsel at AIG and an attorney in the legal and compliance department at financial services firm The Hartford. She started her career in private practice at Wilson Elser.
She said: “The specialty insurance market is going through a period of real change, and the regulatory and governance questions that come with international expansion are increasingly central to how carriers differentiate themselves.
“Hadron’s focus on continuing to build a strong legal and compliance infrastructure while growing to scale is crucial to its success and exactly what this market needs.”
Stephan, meanwhile, exits after just over three years with the company, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Reeder added: “I also want to recognise Steve Stephan, whose foundational work on our legal and compliance infrastructure made this next chapter possible. We wish him well in his retirement.”
In other insurance-related in-house moves, in April AXA UK & Ireland hired Caroline Riddy as GC from Lloyds Banking Group, filling the seat left empty by Emily Coupland who left in December to join Intact Insurance UK.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
