Marsh Inc. named Mark C. McGivney its new chief financial officer.
McGivney joins the insurance broker from the Hanover Insurance Group, where he was senior vice president of finance, corporate treasurer and CFO for the company’s property/casualty business.
“In addition to his strong financial background, Mark brings both insurance market experience and a strategic skill set that will enhance finance support for Marsh’s accelerating growth and operational transformation,” said Matthew Bartley, CFO for Marsh’s parent company, MMC, in a statement.
“He brings us a broad array of experience in all areas of finance, including treasury, mergers and acquisitions, rating agency relationships, internal audit and Sarbanes-Oxley,” said Brian Storms, chairman and chief executive officer of Marsh, in a statement.
McGivney joined The Hanover in 1997 as vice president of mergers and acquisitions. Prior to that, he worked in investment banking in the financial institutions sector at Merrill Lynch and Salomon Brothers. He was also a CPA with Price Waterhouse earlier in his career.
Back in February 2005, Marsh & McLennan Cos. agreed to pay $850 million to settle charges of fraud and anti-competitive practices at its Marsh unit stemming from an investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer into bid-rigging.
Under the agreement, the insurance broker agreed to provide restitution to its policyholders who were harmed by its actions and adopt a new business model designed to avoid conflicts of interest, according to an announcement made by Spitzer and the superintendent of the New York State Insurance Department, at the time.
In addition, the company had agreed to adopt what Spitzer’s office called “dramatic new reforms,” including a limit on insurance brokerage compensation to a single fee or commission at the time of placement, a ban on contingent commissions, and a requirement that all forms of compensation will be disclosed to and approved by Marsh’s clients.
In October 2004, Spitzer alleged that Marsh steered its clients to insurers with which it had lucrative payoff agreements, and that the firm solicited rigged bids for insurance contracts. Later that month, Jeffrey Greenberg stepped down as Marsh’s chairman and CEO.
In February 2005, former Marsh executive Kathryn Winter pleaded guilty to criminal charges in New York County Supreme Court, admitting that she took part in a scheme to defraud clients between 2001 and 2004.