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Kathy Ryan, SPHR, is an award-winning author and owner of Pinnacle Coaching Group, LLC.  Over the last 30 years, Kathy has influenced thousands of people in the business and non-profit sectors through her coaching, consulting, speaking and on-site training. Her expertise covers a wide range of subjects including leadership, communication, human resources management, team dynamics, and performance management.

Kathy earned her B.A. degree in psychology and history from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and has been awarded a lifetime certification as a Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) from the Society for Human Resources Management. She has experience working with diverse industries including insurance, hospitality and entertainment. She is certified in the use of the Myer-Briggs Type Assessment (MBTI), as well as a number of other assessments and tools to support development.

Kathy is author of the book, "You Have to Say the Words" An Integrity-Based Approach for Tackling Tough Conversations and Maximizing Performance, which won a Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association.  Her interactive training program based on the book has helped thousands of managers to improve their coaching skills and drive performance. Her articles on leadership and other personal development topics have been published in numerous magazines including the Insurance Journal. You can follow Kathy’s blog, Inspired Leadership, at www.CoachKathyRyan.com .

Frederick J. Fisher, J.D. is currently the President of Fisher Consulting Group, Inc. and was the Founder of E.L.M. Insurance Brokers, a Wholesale & MGA facility specializing in Professional Liability and Specialty Line risks. He is a Member of the Editorial Board for Agents of America;  a Faculty Member of the Claims College, and was an original Member of the Executive Council, School of Professional Lines sponsored by the Claims & Litigation Management Association and is an Instructor for the Academy of Insurance.

Since his career began, Mr. Fisher focused on one vision: providing financial security to the client. The result was a successful 51-year career in Specialty Lines Insurance. In 1975, Mr. Fisher began his career on the service side, as an Independent E&O claims adjuster. In 1982, he bought the Company, continued with claims, while expanding the firm’s services to include qualitative claim auditing, risk management & loss control services, and acting as a TPA. In only 4 years, the annual billings increased by 400%. His claim auditing techniques and recommendations resulted in substantial client savings (including the SCRTD now known as the Los Angles MTA). Many Insurers and self-insureds adopted not only the performance standards raised in the audits but adopted his recommended Attorney Management Guidelines as a base, which are still in use today by many major insurers. 

In 1995, he formed what was  known as ELM insurance Brokers, a firm that has acted as an MGA and Wholesale Broker of Professional Liability Insurance and Specialty Lines. From nothing, the firm grew rapidly to a $30 Million dollar facility when sold in 2008. He has lectured extensively on professional liability issues since 1978 and authored over 80 articles in trade journals and periodicals. He is the author of BROKER BEWARE, Selling Real Estate within the Law, and Claims Made Insurance: The Policy That Changed the Industry. The Insurance  Journal called it an “irreplaceable classic”.  He designed a program to conduct on-site pre-underwriting risk management assessments of a clients' professional liability exposures. In 1993, he was elected to the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) Board of Trustees. After serving in all Officer capacities, he was elected President in 1997. In 2019, PLUS bestowed him with the  Founders Award for his lasting and outstanding contributions to PLUS.  He remains a Special Materials Expert for several RPLU courses and is the Senior Technical Advisor for The Professional Liability Manual, first published by the International Risk Management Institute in 1990. He has taught over 180 CE classes and lectures. He testifies regularly as an expert witness in cases dealing with the duties and obligations of professionals as well as on coverage and claims-made issues.  Most recently, his Current company, Fisher Consulting Group, Inc. successfully applied for and received  trademark status on his well known phrase “The Gotchya’s That’ll Getchya” ®.

Nancy Germond is the Executive Director, Risk Management and Education, for the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, the “Big I.” She is located in Phoenix, Arizona. With almost four decades of risk management experience, her unique insights and abilities help businesses better understand and manage their risk. Nancy has authored scores of risk management-related articles, and white papers and has consulted and presented to public-sector and private-sector insurance organizations. She is a licensed P&C agent and adjuster.

A second-generation insurance professional, Nancy was the first risk manager of the City of Prescott, Arizona, and has worked in the private and public sectors as a claim and risk manager. Nancy holds a B.A. in Communication from Mills College and a Master’s degree in sociology from Lincoln University. She also holds the Associate in Risk Management, the Associate in Claims designation from the Insurance Institute of America, the Insurance Training Professional Designation from the Society of Insurance Trainers and is a Senior Professional in Human Resource Management.

Chris Burand is the Owner/Founder of Burand & Associates, LLC.  Chris is the only insurance agency consultant with an Institute of Business Appraiser’s Certified Business Appraiser Accreditation and one of the very few who are certified by the two largest E&O carriers to provide audits for agencies.  With more than 35 years of experience in the insurance industry, Chris is acknowledged as a leading consultant and is a nationally recognized speaker and author.  His broad experience and wealth of knowledge have enabled him to work with hundreds of agencies, taking great care to learn the client’s goals and understand their needs while developing a solution for their specific situation.

Chris combines education, experience, and knowledge from multiple perspectives at proven levels that few other consultants or educators can provide.  This enables Chris to provide holistic solutions.  Chris’s services help agencies, individuals, and carriers identify strengths and opportunities, optimize productivity and profits, implement real-world strategies, leverage resources, and develop realistic plans of action in order to maximize profitable growth.

Chris established Burand & Associates in 1992 (originally known as Growth Planning).  As a consultant, Chris has consulted with hundreds of agencies and many major insurance carriers.  He built and now facilitates two insurance agency networking associations.  He is also a featured speaker across the continent.  To date, he has presented more than 400 seminars and educational programs, and his articles have also been published more than 500 times.  He is a monthly columnist for The Insurance Journal, a past columnist for American Agent & Broker for eleven years, and his articles have appeared in Rough Notes, The National Underwriter, A.M. Best, many regional insurance publications, and many other trade publications.  He also publishes Burand’s Insurance Agency Adviser for independent insurance agents.

Areas of Expertise

Insurance Agency Appraisals:  Chris Burand’s professional services include appraisals for Acquisitions and Sales, Buy/Sell Agreements, Mergers, Dissolutions, and Perpetuation Planning.

Contingency Contract Analysis:  Contingency contracts offer opportunities to increase compensation through negotiations and strategically placing business.  Chris Burand’s Contingency Contract Analysis® service provides the information agents need to take advantage of those opportunities.

Note:  Chris Burand and Burand & Associates, LLC are advocates of agencies which constructively manage and improve their contingency contracts by learning how to negotiate and use their contingency contracts more effectively.  We maintain that agents can achieve considerably better results without ever taking actions that are detrimental or disadvantageous to the insureds.  We have never and would not ever recommend that an agent and/or agency implement a policy of, or otherwise advocate, increasing its contingency income ahead of the insureds’ interests.

PEP® (Productivity Enhancement):  Chris’s innovative statistical algorithm method for identifying procedural consistency, compliance, activity cost, and opportunity cost savings.

Carrier MD® Stability Analysis:  A unique analytical method for creating opportunities to learn negotiating points and insurance carrier stability from an agency’s perspective.

Producer Compensation Plans:  Chris Burand develops plans that increase profits and motivate producers.

Chris Christian stumbled into insurance in 1985 as a temporary employee at GAF Insurance Services, a bank-affiliated insurance agency in San Diego.  After six years with GAF, Chris moved to the carrier side, opening the San Diego branch office of RLI Corp, an underwriter of specialty lines of insurance.  The San Diego office was dedicated to Directors and Officers Liability coverage, and was the launching pad for Chris’s specialization in professional liability.

Chris left RLI in 1997 to establish her own underwriting facility at London American General Agency and branched out thereafter into professional liability broking.

Chris joined U.S. Risk in November of 2005 and six months later relocated herself, her significant other, and 26 animals to Tennessee, where she continues her pursuit of the art and science of professional liability broking, and contributes to the industry as a frequent speaker, author and association participant.

Richard is an insurance industry veteran, serving in various roles over over 30 years. He started his career as a Casualty Underwriter and has held roles including Underwriting Specialist, Senior Alternative Risk Underwriter, and AVP of Underwriting. He is currently the Co-Founder of Underwriter's Resource, LLC, where he is a CE instructor in several states west of the Mississippi.

He speaks for wholesale brokers, presents for the CPCU society, and is a guest speaker at Glendale Community College in Glendale, AZ.

Nick Kormos joined MarshBerry as a Senior Sales Management Consultant in 2013. In 2015, he was promoted to Vice President and Unit Leader of MarshBerry’s Sales Performance division, which is now the most rapidly growing division in MarshBerry Consulting Services. His team focuses on producer training/coaching and agency sales culture development through deployment of the MarshBerry Selling System that was built by the industry’s top producers.

Nick has over 14 years of sales and sales management experience, and he has completed several years of formal sales training courses. Prior to joining MarshBerry, he spent more than six years of his career in production and management roles at an independent insurance agency. He has earned his professional insurance designations of Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) and Certified Professional Insurance Agent (CPIA). Nick holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in interpersonal communication from Ohio University.

Nick’s approach with producers and agency management is focused on building a process, not just an end goal. His team manages and coaches producers with experience levels ranging from brand new to industry veterans who are trying to get over their book growth plateaus. In his time at MarshBerry, Nick has coached hundreds of producers and spent time in dozens of agency offices working closely with leadership to drive change and sustainable growth.

He has been a keynote speaker at insurance carrier conferences, agency sales summits, and insurance association events including the Worldwide Broker Network as well as state Big I meetings. He has presented on a multitude of topics surrounding agency growth, sales culture, producer sales tactics, and organizational infrastructure. He also leads and facilitates SalesPro training sessions, organic growth seminars, and CEO Peer Exchange groups hosted by MarshBerry.

Michael is an Inside Broker with CRC’s Executive Professional Practice Group, primarily responsible for placing and managing Cyber & Data Privacy Liability across many industry sectors.

Michael earned his Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo in 2019. There, he began his insurance career with Evolve MGA, a cyber-specialty market, as an associate underwriter focused on building an extensive knowledge of cyber policy wording, the cyber market, and how to properly assess a cyber-risk. Upon graduation, he joined Evolve MGA full-time as a production underwriter where he established an in-depth understanding of how to analyze a risk associated with the looming threats of cyber-attacks across all industry sectors. Among his responsibilities at Evolve MGA was the management of a Cyber and Tech E&O book of business along the West Coast.

Michael soom became a full-time Producer for Evolve and lead the West Coast Division in Los Angeles, CA. He generated an extensive client base of retail broker agencies throughout 10 states while simultaneously maintaining a comprehensive knowledge of competitive cyber markets and their fluid trends. His emphasis was on establishing himself as a direct cyber resource for retail brokers to identify key risks and facilitate the implementation of best practices to better protect their insureds against a future cyber-attack.

Michael joined the CRC Cyber Risk team in 2021 as an Inside Broker, providing the best possible outcome for CRC’s well-established retail insurance partners through innovative risk analysis, reliable service, top market access, and more.

LAURA M. GREGORY, Esq., CPCU is a partner at Sloane and Walsh LLP, Boston, MA where she represents insurers in insurance coverage and bad faith matters, before state and federal trial and appellate courts. She provides coverage analysis and advice regarding claims and policies in New England and nationally. Her practice includes both first party and third-party policy issues, bad faith matters, and legislative and regulatory issues. She has specialized in insurance coverage and bad faith matters for more than 25 years and received the CPCU designation in 1999. She is also an elected official in Andover, MA, serving as a Selectwoman from 2017 to the present and chair from 2019 to 2020.  She can be reached at LGregory@sloanewalsh.com or www.linkedin.com/in/laura-gregory. 

After receiving his college degree from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and serving eight years as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army and U.S. Coast Guard, David began his insurance career in a family-owned independent agency in Vero Beach, Florida where he was a licensed agent selling all types of insurance. 

In 1996 David accepted a training & education position with the Florida Association of Insurance Agents (FAIA) in Tallahassee, Florida where he presented continuing education seminars throughout the country on a variety of insurance subjects. After over 24 years at FAIA, David “semi-retired” in 2021 and now does independent insurance consulting for companies around the country.

In addition to being a full-time insurance nerd, David is an avid biker and smokes the best ribs, chicken, and pork in the country.  

Michael Gay is an InsuranceSpeak® translator, helping others understand insurance policy jargon and procedures and practices of the P&C insurance industry. He is an Expert Witness and Litigation Consultant in property and casualty coverages and consults on agent and broker “Best Practices”. He has more than four decades of experience in varying roles including founding several retail insurance agencies and managing general agencies; working for several well-known MGAs and insurance companies; and most recently serving as the National Insurance Sales Manager for an international truck and construction equipment manufacturer.

One of his passions is insurance education and has been teaching continuing education courses for nearly 35 years. Michael has authored nearly 100 course guides and workbooks.

He has earned the designations of AAI, AAI-M, AIS, ARM, ARM-P, CIC, CPCU, CRIS. (More information can be found at LinkedIn/in/michaelwgay.)

Celebrated keynoter, facilitator, author and ICF-certified workplace productivity and business leader coach, Marsha Egan is devoted to energizing people to make the best use of their time so that they can lead their lives and achieve great stuff.

Focused on enabling growth through people, she applies her experience and skills to helping her clients achieve their personal, professional, and organizational goals.

Marsha Egan, CPCU, CSP, PCC, is CEO of the professional coaching firm, The Egan Group, Inc, which she started. She is an ATHENA Foundation Award recipient, one of PA's 50 Best Women in Business, and past president of the CPCU Society. A 25-yr. veteran of corporate & volunteer America, Ms. Egan intuitively reinvents leadership, by igniting leaders and entrepreneurs with positive change, interpersonal impact and innovation.

Precious Norman-Walton is the President of Lovejoy Risk Management Corp, out of Dallas, TX. With over 15 years of insurance industry experience, she has served in Personal Lines Claims, Commerical Underwriting, and Agency Management.

Prior to her current role, Precious was Vice President of Account Management for Insureon, Vice President of Agency Operations of Lucky Truck, and Chief Operating Officer for Diamond National Insurance Advisors. She has also served as the President of the Dallas Chapter CPCU Society in 2020.

Precious Norman-Walton holds active licenses as a Risk Manager, Property & Casualty Agent, Life & Health Agent, and All Lines Adjuster, as we as six insurance designations and is a SHRM Certified Professional in Human Resources.

Chris Behymer received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with majors in Risk Management and Insurance and Marketing in December of 1976.

He began his insurance career with Sentry Insurance in January of 1977 in the Personal Lines Underwriting Department and moved from Stevens Point, WI to Scottsdale, AZ in the fall of 1977. He became Underwriting Manager of a Personal Lines department in April of 1980 and was promoted to Marketing Sales Specialist in May of 1981 and Sales Training Manager in March of 1985.

He joined Scottsdale Insurance Company in October of 1987 as the Manager of Education and Training and was promoted to Director of Training and Development in February of 1991. In December of 1993, he was appointed to the position of Associate Vice President of Human Resource Development and Public Relations.

In October of 1998, Chris joined the American Association of Managing General Agents (AAMGA) as the Director of Education for their University. The AAMGA University specializes in developing educational programs for the excess and surplus lines industry.

In February of 2002, Chris was selected as the Vice President of Casualty Underwriting for Markel Southwest Underwriters in Scottsdale, AZ. The company specializes in insuring hard-to-place property and casualty insurance for general agents throughout the United States. In January of 2008, Chris was appointed Director of Marketing for the West Region of Markel and in December of 2010 he assumed the position of Director of Business Development.

Chris began teaching classes for the Insurance Institute of America in September of 1980 through Rio Salado Community College. He received his Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation in 1981 and the Associate in Surplus Lines Insurance (ASLI) designation in 2001.

He served as the Director of the Education for the Central Arizona Chapter of CPCU from 1994 to 2011. He was elected Western Regional Vice President of The Society of Insurance Trainers and Educators (SITE) in June of 1992, Vice President of Annual Conference in June of 1995, and Vice President of Member Services in June of 1996. He rejoined the SITE Board from June of 2009 to June of 2011 as as Western Region Vice President. He has also served on the Curriculum Committee for the AAMGA University since 1995.