Carmilani takes growth & collaboration role at Fairfax, Iglesias named AWAC CEO

Scott Carmilani is moving into a newly created role at Fairfax Insurance Group to focus on growth and collaboration opportunities across insurance and reinsurance, stepping down from his previous position as CEO of Allied World.

The new role will see Carmilani working closely with Andy Barnard, President of Fairfax Insurance Group, and Paul Rivett, President of Fairfax Financial, to deliver organic growth and identify opportunities for the group to collaborate more closely in insurance and reinsurance.

These collaboration initiatives are likely tied to efficiency, as well as to developing new opportunity.

Fairfax being the owner of a wide range of re/insurance interests, including Allied World, broking group Brit Ltd., Odyssey Group, Zenith, as well as insurers and reinsurers across Asia and Europe, plus a legacy play in Riverstone, has significant opportunity to realise efficiencies across this group and develop profitable new initiatives.

Hence putting an experienced leader like Carmilani in charge of this new remit is a sign of how important Fairfax sees this work.

It will also be interesting to see if the work identifies opportunities for use of alternative capital across the group, as well as reinsurance buying synergies, two areas of distinct opportunity.

Carmilani built Allied World from its beginning as a small team in Bermuda into a successful worldwide insurance and reinsurance operation, with the firm becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fairfax in 2017.

The company said that it expects Carmilani in his new role to, “build on his network of contacts and broker and customer relationships in order to foster new growth initiatives, such as Fairfax Worldwide, and new collaboration initiatives with our insurance and reinsurance leaders around the globe.”

Given Carmilani’s change in position,  Lou Iglesias will become CEO of Allied World, reporting to Andy Barnard.

The company expects a smooth transition, as Iglesias was previously the President of Allied World, working under Carmilani for more than seven years.

Prem Watsa, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fairfax, commented on the news; “We are privileged to have an executive of Scott Carmilani’s calibre focused on building Fairfax’s global organic growth initiatives.  While always mindful of retaining our decentralized structure, we and the entire organization will benefit from Scott’s guidance, energy and collaborative spirit.  Meanwhile, at Allied World, Lou Iglesias, chosen by Scott as his successor, is a strong leader with the ability to continue to profitably grow the Allied business.”