John Duda to leave Markel for Miller

Miller has hired John Duda from Markel, where he led the retrocessional portfolio management team. Duda will join the independent broker’s Bermuda office, launched last year, as head of ILS development and capital management products.

Duda was among several key figures in Markel’s launch of Lodgepine Capital Management, its retrocessional ILS fund in 2019. In November 2021, Markel announced it would close the fund as a result of “headwinds in the retrocessional ILS market, including a challenging fundraising environment”.

Duda has been with Markel for almost eight years, joining as assistant vice president and reinsurance underwriter for Markel Re in 2014. Before that, he served as a portfolio manager for Logic Reinsurance in Toronto. Previously he had roles at Benfield (then Aon Benfield) and Guy Carpenter, as well as at Zurich Financial Services in London.