Hamilton appoints former AXA XL and Allied World executives to board

Hamilton Insurance Group has appointed two insurance industry veterans to its board as it prepares for an initial public offering.

Henna Karna, who most recently ran Google Cloud’s global insurance and risk management operations, and John Gauthier, who was in charge of Allied World’s investments for a decade, joined the company’s board of directors yesterday.

Hamilton filed a registration statement with the New York Stock Exchange on October 17 and plans to list its shares under the ticker symbol of HG.

The float could value the company at $2 billion. Its book value in December, 2022 was $1.7 billion.

Hamilton board chair David A. Brown said: “I am delighted that Henna and John are joining Hamilton as directors. They bring significant leadership experience and industry expertise and will be excellent additions to our board.”

“It is a privilege to welcome Henna and John to Hamilton’s board,” said Hamilton chief executive officer Pina Albo. “They bring impressive track records and salient know-how, and I look forward to their leadership and contributions.”

Karna has more than 25 years of experience leading innovation across digital/data in high-tech, consumer packaged goods, risk management, and financial services/insurance industries. She has led businesses and advised Fortune 50 companies on digital strategies and product innovation and has designed and developed patent-pending technology and applications in the fields of artificial intelligence, genetic algorithms, behavioral analytics, deep neural nets, and advanced data technologies.

Most recently, Karna served as the general manager, managing director, global insurance & risk management solutions at Google Cloud. Prior to Google, she served as global chief data officer at AXA XL. Over the course of her career, she has served as president of Verisk Digital Services and vice president of customer success at Verisk Analytics.

Prior to that, she was vice president, customer strategy. Previously, Karna served as the managing director & global actuarial CIO for AIG across Life and P&C, consumer and commercial insurance. Earlier in her career, she held positions at Affinnova, John Hancock Insurance and held cryptology related roles for the government.

Karna currently serves on the Boards of Essent Group and AtSign Company.

Gauthier served as chief investment officer of Allied World Assurance Company from 2008 to 2018. He also served as president of Allied World Financial Services Company  from 2012 until his retirement in 2018.

Before joining Allied World, Gauthier was a managing director with Goldman Sachs Asset Management.  Prior to Goldman Sachs, he was a managing director at Conning Asset Management where he led Conning’s property-casualty asset management practice. Before that, Gauthier was with General Reinsurance/New England Asset Management and The Travelers.

Gauthier currently serves on the boards of the Reinsurance Group of America where he chairs the investment committee, The Hartford Funds and Middlesex (CT) Health Systems.