Howden continued the rollout of its U.S. retail operations this week, with Mike Parrish officially joining as CEO of the division, in addition to more than a dozen senior leaders who joined in the past month.
The London-based brokerage has hired over 250 staff in the United States, according to an internal company memo. U.S. leadership is mainly former Marsh executives but also senior staff from other rivals.
Mr. Parrish joined Howden on Monday, along with other former Marsh Florida executives Giselle Lugones, who joined as vice chairman, executive managing director, healthcare and education, and Robert Lynn, executive managing director. Julie Layton, another former Marsh Florida executive, joined Howden last month. Marsh sued the former executives in July.
Several other former Marsh staff have joined Howden as managing directors, according to their LinkedIn profiles. They include Michael Brodie, David Hau, Jason Landa, Adam Lickstein, Andrea Praegar, John Umbach and Khori Witter.
Tom Ricketts, a former Aon executive, and Daniel Davoli, who was with Aon unit NFP, also joined as managing directors.
In addition, Richard Blades, former chairman of energy at Marsh Specialty, joined as vice chairman and head of Howden’s Houston office, and Dave Glasser, a former partner at The Baldwin Group, has joined as executive vice president and chief operating officer of US construction.
Howden is the world’s 10th largest brokerage, with an estimated $3.77 billion in 2024 brokerage revenue, according to Business Insurance’s most recent ranking. Founded in 1994, most of the company’s growth has been in the United Kingdom and Continental Europe, though it bought U.S. reinsurance brokerage TigerRisk Partners in 2022 and earlier this month announced its first U.S. retail acquisition, Los Angeles-based Gravitas Insurance Agency.
