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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 Member of the Executive Council, School of Professional Lines sponsored by the Claims & Litigation Management Association and 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 40-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 is now 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 64 articles in trade journals and periodicals. He is the author of BROKER BEWARE, Selling Real Estate within the Law. 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. 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 100 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.

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.

Hayden Kopser serves as President of North Improvement, LLC, a boutique P&C brokerage catering primarily to the complex needs of HNW clientele. Hayden specializes in using his mobile app development background to help protect clients' assets and reputations from modern risks like Cyberattacks and online fraud. Prior to founding his firm, Hayden served as a Senior Underwriter at AIG Private Client Group (PCG) where he also oversaw PCG’s Cyber insurance offering. Outside of his insurance work, Hayden is a novelist, having published his debut novella 'Masha' in June of 2021.

Timothy D. Christ, MBA is the VP at Claimatic, an InsurTech company that serves several major insurers by helping them accelerate their claims process.  He published a book on insurance in 2018, Becoming a World-Class Expert: The Business of Forensic Engineering, and the 2^nd book in 2020 on business and technology that became an Amazon #1 New Release.  He was recognized as a Power 50, one of the 50 most influential insurance professionals in Latin America.  He is a frequent contributor to National Underwriter, a 5-time speaker at the Insurance Risk Management Institute’s (IRMI) Annual Energy Conference, speaker at various Risk Insurance Management Society (RIMS) events, Property Loss Research Bureau (PLRB), and others.  He has been interviewed by NBC News and has appeared on numerous insurance podcasts, including SpotOnInsurance, The Claims Podcast, and Trendbreakers.  He has personally delivered hundreds of hours of Department of Insurance (DOI) Continuing Education (CE) presentations.

Christ brings 20 years’ international experience in the insurance industry, having personally investigated hundreds of insurance claims, directly involved in many mediations and trials, and then later managing thousands of insurance claims investigations.  He built companies in Canada, Latin America, and the US, and is a frequent guest to Lloyd’s in London.  His vast experience in all P&C claims types, including homeowner all the way to managing billion-dollar losses, provides him unparalleled insight into how the claims process responds to claim events.  He worked on multiple Catastrophe events, including the Texas Mold Claims Crisis in 2001, Hurricane Wilma in Mexico in 2005, Katrina, Ike, the Chilean earthquakes in 2010, Thailand flooding in 2011, Calgary flooding in 2013, Hurricanes Sandy & Irene, and others.

Becky Lathrop, is a Certified Insurance Counselor, Certified Professional Insurance Agent, has a degree in Risk Management and Insurance from Florida State University, and has been working in the insurance industry for over 30 years.  She has a diverse background in the insurance business, and has spent the majority of her professional career in industry positions such as Business Consultant, Sales Manager, Underwriting Consultant, Financial/Market Analyst, and Portfolio Manager. 

During the last 15+ years, Becky has been helping agencies throughout the United States grow profitably by counseling them in areas such as sales/service training, workflow management, staff organization and stratification, sales/marketing business plans, client retention, strategic planning, and producer compensation.  She has also developed a “Back to Basics” Boot Camp Sales/Service Training to assist staff in cross-selling techniques and higher retention levels.  She has also developed a Marketing/Profitability workshop to help agencies manage their loss ratios and to assist them with capitalizing on agency growth and contingency bonus opportunities.  Becky has written and had published several articles on a variety of insurance topics. 

Becky is Vice President of Optimum Performance Solutions, LLC, a company that offers management consulting services on a nationwide basis to insurance agencies and carriers.  Her agency and corporate experiences provide unique perspectives when assisting her clients.  OPS is also an endorsed consulting firm for several state insurance associations.

Bill Whitley is a nationally recognized speaker, author and researcher who specializes in helping insurance professionals attract more clients, close more sales and deepen client relationships. Many of his unique sales and customer loyalty concepts are derived from Bill's personal experience as a top-echelon sales executive who achieved and maintained an 80% presentation-to-close ratio.

In 1989, Bill leveraged his dramatic sales success by forming The Whitley Group, a multi-media sales presentation design & production company whose focus was creating sales improvement programs for clients such as IBM, Apple Computer, EDS and AT&T.

Today, with Bill's reseach based approach, he reveals the sales messages the Top Producers use to: Attract more clients.... Communicate the essence of their value... and Create lifelong relationships.

In addition to his work as a sales messaging consultant and keynote speaker, Bill is the author of two books that capsulize and reinforce the unique sales training principles he presents in his seminars, workshops and webinars:

Eight Secrets of the Top-Performing Agents outlines the questions, comments examples and conversations used by top-producing insurance agents to position themselves as advisors, communicate their value more effectively and make everyday risk simple, visual and easy to understand. Uncovered by Bill at the request of several large insruance companies, these effective sales principles form the basis of Bill's popular seminar of the same name. More than 4,000 insurance agents have attended his Eight Secrets seminars and used what they learned to attract more clients, close more sales and create deeper client relationships.

Art of the Rainmaker offers insightful guidance on how to create effective client attraction stories, position yourself as a trusted advisor and much more. As detailed in this book, Bill's refreshing sales tactics show readers how to: Discover & communicate the essence of your organization's value to naturally attract more new clients... Eliminate the stress of "doing sales" the old-fashioned way... Close more sales through effective story-telling... and much more.

Bill and his wife, LeeAnne, have been married 25 years and live with their three children in Charlotte, North Carolina. Reach bill by email (bill@bwhitley.com) or phone (704-996-2800).

Joseph Junfola has spent over 40 years as an insurance claims professional. He has specialized in long-term exposure, or continuous property damage/bodily injury/toxic tort claims on a national basis for close to 30 years. He has specialized in construction defect, product liability, and design professional liability claims, including construction accident claims, particularly third-party-over actions in New York.

In his early days, he handled automobile bodily injury claims, both on a primary and umbrella basis, in the State of New Jersey. He first qualified as an expert in the evaluation of automobile bodily injury claims in Federal Court in the early 1990's.

He has since formed Junfola Claim Consulting Services to provide coverage and claim analysis, policy language review, litigation support, and more. He has also joined the Insurance Risk Management Institute as an Expert Commentator.

A staunch believer in continuous learning and improvement, Joe has earned the following professional designations: CPCU, RPLU, RPLU+, SCLA, AIC, ASLI, ARe, AU, ARM, CRIS, AIS, MLIS, AIC-M, and AIDA. His continual drive for education has seen him earn these additional certificates: Executive Certificate in Negotiations from the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, the Home Inspection Certificate through Rutgers University and the National Institute of Building Inspectors, and the Certificate in Law and Legal Process from Southern New Hampshire University.

He has published several articles and an eBook, Construction Defect Claims, A Handbook for Insurance, Risk Management, Construction, & Design Professionals.

Jim Wochele is the Unit Manger in MarshBerry’s Sales Performance Consulting division. His team partners with insurance agencies by implementing tactical strategies that will allow them to achieve organic growth through new business production.

Their focus is helping agencies build a scalable organic growth engine through organizational capabilities best practices, sales process implementation, and improving producers’ individual sales skills through consistent coaching.

Jim is mainly responsible for relationship management of the Sales Performance clients, new client acquisition and onboarding, onsite client visits, carrier-sponsored sales trainings, and agency organic growth business planning.

Jim is a keynote speaker at educational seminars, insurance carrier conferences and executive leadership forums. He also leads the Organic Growth Leadership Seminars and SalesPro Producer Training sessions hosted by MarshBerry. Jim is also a frequent contributor to MarshBerry and industry publications.

Jim joined MarshBerry in 2011 as a Sales Management Analyst, which was followed by a promotion to Consultant in 2013, Senior Consultant in 2014, and Unit Manager in 2016. Jim has over eight years of sales, sales management and project management expertise. Prior to joining MarshBerry, Jim held a dual sales manager and project manager position for a construction firm located in Cleveland, Ohio.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Science in physics with a minor in mathematics from Baldwin Wallace University, while playing football and baseball for all four years.

Joseph S. Harrington, CPCU, ARP, is an independent business researcher and writer specializing in property/casualty coverages and operations. He has published articles in numerous insurance publications and delivered numerous presentations for insurance groups.

For more than 21 years, Joe was communications director for the American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS). He has been active with The Institutes and the CPCU Society, and continues to serve on the Society's publications committee. Joe can be reached at josephsharrington@comcast.net.

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.

Heather Blevins- AKA: The Insurance Rebel

Content Programming Lead J.S. Held LLC

Heather has 20 years plus experience encompassing multiple facets of the insurance carrier operational ecosystem including claims, actuarial, organizational change and underwriting. Insurance training education and development, thought leadership publications, project management and consulting are Heather's areas of expertise. Heather has proven abilities in academia with the design and implementation of impactful risk management and insurance training and learning programs.

Heather leverages her prior experiences within the insurance industry to deliver J.S. Held initiatives committed to providing ongoing education to clients and industry professionals. Heather leads volunteer efforts with the CPCU Society and the Society of Insurance Trainers and Educators (SITE). She holds a master’s degree in Learning Design from the University of Illinois and has earned the CPCU, AIC, AIS, AINS, SCLA and ITP designations.

Ask her later why she’s a self-declared insurance rebel.