GRP poaches Towergate Retail CEO as new COO

Global Risk Partners (GRP) has hired Steve Anson from Ardonagh as chief operating officer (COO). Anson started his new role on April 6 and will sit on the executive committee. He will report to Mike Bruce, group CEO.

Mike Bruce said Anson will oversee business transformation, including the integration of the group businesses and delivering a consistent, digital and data-enabled target operating model, both of which he said were critical to achieving the group’s ambitious growth strategy.

“Steve is a marquee signing for GRP and underlines the critical importance we attach to successfully delivering our transformation programme,” said Bruce. “The pandemic has greatly accelerated the pace of change in broking; what may have taken years to achieve, such as digital adoption, virtuality and remote working, has happened in a matter of months.

“There is a clear opportunity for GRP to be one of the winners in this emerging market, but we need to accelerate our transformation into a fully integrated digitally savvy, data-led business that has the ambition and capability to lead the UK broking sector during this decade.”

Anson was previously CEO Towergate Retail at Ardonagh, where he was responsible for a number of SME, non-standard home and retail specialty businesses. He oversaw the transformation of those businesses through a process of entity consolidation, re-platforming and proposition rebuilds.

He said: “Mike painted a compelling picture of the opportunity at GRP, and it was an easy decision to make; I am looking forward be joining a small, agile team, that is set for an exciting growth journey over the next few years.

“GRP is a fast growth business which makes the headlines for acquisitions, but Mike and the team are equally committed to aligning GRP’s constituent parts around a digital technology platform that will make it one of the UK’s stand out broking players in this decade.

“Opportunities of this breadth and scale very rarely come along in our sector, and I am hugely excited by the challenge.”

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