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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.

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.

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.

Betsey L. Brewer, CPCU is a Partner and Senior Vice President of The Rule Company, a regional broker in Pasadena, CA. She received her CPCU designation in 1981 and has served the Los Angeles Chapter as President. She served as a CPCU Society Governor and as the national President of the CPCU Society in 2007.

Betsey’s insurance career started in 1973. She joined a small local agency in 1976 that 25 years later had transformed into Aon. A survivor and beneficiary of 7 mergers and acquisitions along the way she is uniquely able to help you understand the tools you need to survive in today’s marketplace and why the CPCU Designation and volunteering in CPCU turned into a huge growth opportunity for her.

Betsey is a Secretary and Trustee of the CPCU-Loman Education Foundation and a past Trustee of the American Institute for CPCU/Insurance Institute of America. Betsey is past president of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers Association of Los Angeles and has served on the Insurance Skills Center Board of Directors and the Board of Directors for IBA-West. Currently she serves as Strategic Planning Chair for IBA-West.

Along with her other activities, Betsey is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Girl Scout of Greater Los Angeles Council serving 41,000 girls and 22,000 volunteers. Betsey has been honored by her peers with the1998 Rie Sharp Insurance Person of the Year and with the CPCU Society Leadership Recognition Award in 1999.

Betsey and her husband Don reside in Los Angeles.

Mike Koscielny is a visionary leader with nearly 45 years of experience in building and leading effective teams in underwriting, sales, product development, and operations. With a profound passion for sharing his real-life experiences and fundamental principles for success, Mike has become a beacon of inspiration and mentorship for aspiring leaders.

As the CEO and Founder of Born2Lead, LLC, Mike's mission is to empower individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to excel in both business and life. His innate ability to teach and coach has earned him the reputation of being a "builder of people," as he openly shares his wisdom and insights with others.

Since July of 2023, Mike has served as the Director of Field Marketing for The University of Olivet, where he plays a pivotal role in connecting with emerging leaders in the insurance sector. Leveraging his extensive industry experience, he recruits top talent for the university's programs, shaping the future of the insurance industry through education and mentorship.

In addition, Mike is currently serving as the President of The Society of Insurance Trainers and Educators (SITE) since 2023. Mike plays a crucial role in providing opportunities for growth and networking to society members. The Society of Insurance Trainers and Educators is committed to enhancing the skills and knowledge of its members through various programs, networking opportunities, and services. Under Mike's leadership, SITE continues to be a valuable resource for professionals seeking to advance their careers in the insurance training and education sector.

In addition to his roles in education and leadership development, Mike is a respected instructor for both The National Alliance and The Institutes, where he imparts his expertise to aspiring professionals seeking advancement in insurance and risk management.

A prolific writer and presenter, Mike has authored numerous articles and delivered impactful presentations on topics ranging from leadership development to underwriting best practices. His acclaimed book, "Born2Lead: Lessons in Leadership," published in 2023, has reached readers across three continents, further solidifying his reputation as a thought leader in the field. Mike followed his first book with “Layoffs Suck! How to Survive a Layoff!” in 2024.

Mike's impact within the CPCU Society is legendary, characterized by his engaging presentation style and captivating storytelling. His ability to inspire meaningful connections and action stems from his unwavering commitment to lifelong learning and self-awareness.

Genuine, authentic, and influential, Mike embodies ethical behavior both professionally and personally. He resides in suburban Chicago with his wife, Deborah, and their beloved dogs, Wiley, and Teddy, finding joy in their companionship and spending quality time with family.

Outside of his professional endeavors, Mike continues to pursue his passion for writing and sharing knowledge, inspiring the next generation of leaders in the insurance industry and beyond. His ability to connect with people from all walks of life has earned him the admiration of many, as someone once said, "he does not know a stranger and he could talk the leg off a chair."

Marcel Schwantes is a speaker, leadership coach, advisor, and syndicated columnist. He founded Leadership from the Core to help leaders discover the key to what makes people fully committed to doing extraordinary work. Follow him on LinkedIn.

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.

Barry Rabkin’s forty-plus year insurance career has been driven by curiosity and passion to analyze the “why and what” about technology’s potential impact on the insurance industry. He worked for and consulted to insurers as well as having launched and led insurance industry analyst practices at IDC, The Meta Group, and, Omdia. His research encompasses customer experience, marketing and distribution, channel management, mobility, geospatial, and IoT. He has delivered scores of presentations globally to insurance and technology audiences concerning the role technology should play in the industry to get and keep customers. 

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.