Arthur J. Gallagher has appointed Gareth Birch to Managing Director of its UK Small Business & Personal Lines Division, set to succeed Martin Oliver who will leave the business at the end of October.
Birch will assume responsibility for all of Gallagher’s UK private clients, consumer, smaller commercial and high net worth clients, including independent brands such as Deacon, Intasure and George Burrows.
Michael Rea, CEO UK Retail, said; “Under Martin’s leadership, our team has built up an exceptional reputation for meeting the needs of our private clients and small commercial clients.
“We have a fantastic set of growing businesses in tune with the specific needs of these individual customer groups. Gareth shares that same ‘customer-first’ attitude and is the natural choice to take over the helm of this important, diverse and growing part of our UK retail business.”
Commenting on his new role, Birch said; “Our Small Business & Personal Lines Division looks after the private and commercial needs of more than 500,000 clients here in the UK and is something of a jewel in the crown within our UK operations.
“I am delighted to be taking on this new role and look forward to working with the leaders of each of these businesses to continue to enhance the customer experience and develop our client offering to meet the needs of a diverse portfolio of clients and industry sectors.”
Outgoing UK division manager, Oliver added; “Gallagher is a great business and I am immensely proud of what we have achieved together as a leadership team over the last three years.
“We’ve put our money where our mouth is and invested in understanding customer buying behaviours and listened to how different clients want to do business with their broker, all of which has allowed us to build a set of unique, specialist teams that are focused on delivering great customer outcomes.”
