Wholesale and speciality broker Ed has expanded its professional and executive risks offering with a quintet of new appointments.
Paul Richards, who joins from Willis Towers Watson, will lead the professional and executive risks team as managing director.
Richards was most recently led sales development as an executive director of Willis' financial lines division and has also led the financial institutions team at the broker’s FINEX unit.
He will be joined by three others from Willis Towers Watson.
James Baird joins as a director, having served as executive director of Willis Towers Watson’s FINEX division. He was most recently responsible for leading the broker's specialist wealth and asset manager and offshore financial services team within the FINEX division.
He is accompanied by Willis FINEX divisional directors Neal Hughes and James Faith, who have been appointed as divisional director and producer/broker respectively.
The new hires are rounded out by former BMS director professional and financial services director Rupert Alabaster, who joins as divisional director. In his previous role at BMS, Alabaster led a team focusing on delegated authority business for specialty lines and will focus on growing market share in this sector within his new position at Ed.
The team will work alongside Ed's existing professional risk offering, which is led by director Mark Lowndes who has been with the company since 2004.
Richards said that the team will grow its cyber capabilities as well as develop its partnerships with other independent retail brokers and Brokerslink members to create opportunities and solutions for their clients.
“These appointments exemplify the scale of our ambitions at Ed. In every line of business we want to bring together the market’s leading talent to complement our existing expertise,” remarked Ed Speciality CEO Chris Bonard.
