Bestow, a Dallas, U.S. domiciled InsurTech company focused on the life insurance sector and which is backed by Munich American Reassurance Company as its reinsurer and in other capacities, has announced its executive team, to be led by co-founders Melbourne O’Banion and Jonathan Ablemann.
In May of last year, Bestow announced that it had closed $15 million in Series A funding, led by Valar Ventures, and which included participation from existing investors New Enterprise Associates, Core Innovation Capital, 8VC, and Morpheus Ventures.
Now, the Munich Re backed InsurTech has announced the formation of its executive team, which it says brings together decades of experience from across the insurance, technology, and financial services industries.
“We are thrilled to introduce a talented and dynamic group of executives who will help drive our company forward to transform life insurance. We are proud of the deep experience and passion represented on this team whose collective expertise will enable us to grow our customer base, scale further and introduce a broader set of unique and attractive products to market,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), O’Banion.
Specifically, Bestow has appointed Jackie Morales as Chief Insurance Officer, who joins the firm after serving as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of L&G America, and brings more than two decades of industry experience to the firm.
Tannen Campbell has been named Chief Marketing Officer, who prior to joining Bestow held senior brand marketing roles at Expedia and also augmented reality firm, Magic Leap.
Chris Laia is to serve as Bestow’s General Counsel. He brings more than 25 years of financial services experience to the role, and previously worked as the Deputy General Counsel and Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer for USAA.
Completing the executive team is Brian Romanko as Vice President of Engineering, who previously led engineering teams at Cisco’s Duo Security, and who previously served as Chief Technology Officer at Earnest.
Co-founder and President at Bestow, Ablemann, added: “Our diverse team has been a primary contributor toward the success and creation of Bestow’s full stack platform. The combination of functional expertise and creativity has led to a series of firsts over the last year.
“We see Bestow customers purchase policies in five minutes, mostly on smartphones, and referring friends and family. We’re enabling life insurance as a service through world-class consumer tech and financial partners. 2020 will be a very exciting year.”
