andy-gibbs
Andy Gibbs
11 October 2019Operations

PartnerRe hires two in Bermuda as CFO retires

Mario Bonaccorso, executive vice president and chief financial officer at PartnerRe, will retire on March 31, 2020, to pursue a new entrepreneurial venture.

Nicolas Burnet has been named as his successor as executive vice president and chief financial officer. He is due to join PartnerRe on February 3, 2020, subject to customary regulatory and immigration approvals. He will also take his place on the executive leadership team.

Burnet joins from the Zurich Insurance Group, where he has held a number of leadership positions over a period of 15 years, most recently as group head of planning and performance management. Over his time at Zurich he has served as chief risk officer and chief financial officer of global life, and chief financial officer of general insurance. Prior to joining Zurich he was at Neuberger Berman.

Meanwhile, Andrew Gibbs joins as executive vice president and chief operations officer, effective October 14, 2019. In this newly created position, Gibbs is responsible for PartnerRe’s end-to-end underwriting processes, including underwriting support, reinsurance accounting, claims, payments and collections. He also oversees legal, compliance and internal audit services.

Both Burnet and Gibbs will be based in Bermuda.

Gibbs brings more than 30 years’ experience in re/insurance, regulatory compliance and financial services. He joins from Maiden Reinsurance where he was executive chairman, and has also served at the Bermuda Monetary Authority, Validus Holdings, ACE Group of Companies (now Chubb Group of Companies) and Ernst & Young.

Emmanuel Clarke, president and CEO at PartnerRe, said Gibbs “brings deep experience in risk, capital, and finance functions in both the life and non-life businesses that will benefit us as we continue to grow as a composite reinsurance company.”

Outgoing CFO Bonaccorso led a number of strategic initiatives for the reinsurer, including its efficiency efforts that reduced its expense ratio, the optimisation of its capital structure and the reduction in its financing costs. He also helped improve its financial strength ratings and was instrumental in building up its third-party capital platform.

He will be invited to join the PartnerRe board of directors as a non-voting observer, given he is ineligible to serve as an independent director under NYSE listing rules.