Next Insurance, the digital insurtech firm backed by Munich Re, has announced the appointments of former Fitbit executive Melanie Chase as Chief Marketing Officer and former Yelp executive Effi Fuks Leichtag as Chief Product Officer.
Next Insurance provides digital small business insurance coverage across the US to over 1,000 types of business with.
Last month, Munich Re invested $250 million in the start-up as the sole investor in its series C funding round, which valued the firm at more than $1 billion.
Now, Next Insurance has onboarded Chase as its Chief Market Officer, who will oversee the company’s marketing brand, strategy, and operations.
Chase previously served as Vice President of Marketing at Fitbit, where she spent the past 6 years developing the company’s health and fitness brand.
She has many years of experience in high-growth consumer electronics and software marketing, brand building, advertising, and product strategy, and started her marketing career at Mills and Clorox.
“I’m proud to be joining a company committed to supporting America’s small business,” Chase said. “Next has already built a great service that customers love. Now it’s time to accelerate the company’s growth and make Next a household name.”
Leichtag, meanwhile, joins Next Insurance as Chief Product Officer and will be responsible for the firm’s product management and design.
He previously served as Vice President of Product Management at Yelp, where he managed the company’s overall consumers’ growth, core products, search, personalization, and other key initiatives.
Leichtag began his career in product management at Kifi (acquired by Google) before serving as Chief Operations and Product Officer at Complete Labs, Inc and founded and led the product management teams in several other start-ups such as ExPOS and Fribiz.
“Next Insurance’s innovative insurance products are changing the game for small businesses and independent traders across hundreds of classes of business,” said Leichtag. “I am honored to be given the opportunity to take Next’s product offering to the next level.”
Guy Goldstein, Co-Founder and CEO of Next Insurance, also commented on the announcement: “We’ve come a long way and we’re just getting started. We are striving for excellence here at Next Insurance and we believe a large part of that is bringing onboard new executive talent with proven success to help take our growth to the next level.
“We are extremely excited to be welcoming Melanie and Effi to the team, both of whom bring with them a vast amount of experience and knowledge, and I look forward to working closely with them both.”
