PIB Group Ltd has appointed Charles Burgess as CEO for Underwriting & Schemes. His appointment further strengthens the Group’s executive team and collective international ambitions on building a leading specialist and diversified pan-European insurance distribution business.
Ryan Brown, Deputy CEO for PIB Group, commented: “I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Charlie to PIB Group and to our Executive team. He joins us with international MGA experience across many continents, as well as significant digital and insurTech expertise. Charlie has an entrepreneurial mindset which will see him building on and broadening PIB’s MGA capability out into Europe, as well as exploring innovative opportunities within the digital space to expand our schemes proposition.”
The dual role will extend across the Underwriting division which is formed of specialist MGA’s including Q Underwriting and Acquinex, plus the Schemes & Affinities division which is home to PIB’s UK non-advised, non-standard SME and personal lines schemes including Fish Insurance, Balens, Jigsaw, Morton Michel and Thistle Insurance.
Charles Burgess
Charles is a senior executive and board member with a career of over 30 years. He has a strong track record in establishing new businesses and start-ups and in successfully growing established businesses, leading large international functions, as well as providing consultancy for blue chip customers in the insurance, reinsurance and broker markets. He is also a qualified accountant.
Charles Burgess commented: “This is an exciting time to be joining PIB Group as its international expansion continues at pace. The opportunity to draw on two distinct disciplines in both distribution and digital will be hugely satisfying. I will look to leverage these skills to develop Underwriting & Schemes whilst PIB continues to grow its brokerage both domestically and abroad. My exposure to PIB has been motivating, the management team drive, and collaborative and entrepreneurial culture is what first attracted me to PIB.”
Charles joins from Munich Re Specialty Group (MRSG) after seven years, most notably holding the position of CEO for International Distribution where he was responsible for MRSG’s wholly owned MGAs, brokers and Syndicate Service companies in UK, Europe, Asia, Middle East and North America.
After university Charlie qualified as a Chartered Certified Accountant before moving into M&A and joining Benfield Advisory for much of the 2000s. When Benfield was sold to Aon Charlie switched to Asia and launched Direct Asia, one of the first B2C only players in the region, growing it out across three countries before it was successfully sold.
Charlie then moved to Switzerland in 2014 running Distribution and Marketing for Zurich’s Direct general insurance businesses across the globe and subsequently returned to London to dive into in the nascent insurTech wave whilst also co-founding Oxbow Partners, strategic consultants to the insurance industry.
Charles commented: “I am very excited to be joining and look forward to working with my new colleagues in Underwriting & Schemes, as well as those across the wider PIB Group.”