Brown says new management team will rejuvenate Towergate

Under its new management team, Towergate will ”become a place where brokers feel they can’t afford not to do business” with it, according to incoming underwriting boss Adrian Brown.

Speaking to Insurance Times following the announcement that he will replacing underwriting chief executive Clive Nathan at the end of October, Brown said the new executive team at Towergate had a big opportunity to put their stamp on the business and develop it further.

Brown is currently Towergate interim chief executive until 1 November after which he will step into his new role, while David Ross joins the broker as chief executive.

Between now and then Brown said he will work closely with Nathan and his team to review where the business is and to find out from brokers what they want.

“We will look at where we are, what we can do different, where we can put a bit of acceleration in one part of the strategy and may be pull back somewhere else,” Brown said.

“You are not going to see a radical big change. It is very much about me building on what we have got. Like any leader I will put my own stamp and bring my own ideas. But I will not come in with any preconceived ideas.”

Eight days into joining Towergate Brown has also spent his time meeting and reassuring brokers and staff about the future of the business.

He said: “There was clearly a lot of turmoil last year and early this year. That’s behind us now.

“A number of those brokers have had long term relationships with Towergate underwriting. I will be keen to find out from those brokers what they like about us, what they would like us to do.

“I want us to become a place where brokers feel they can’t afford not to do business with Towergate underwriting because we add significantly to their own proposition and customer requirements. If there are any brokers that want to talk to us about having a relationships I would be glad to hear from them.”

Nathan will step down from his role at the end of October and will leave Towergate in January 2016.

Brown stressed that Nathan was leaving Towergate on good terms after deciding that it was the right time to move on.

“I have known Clive for a long time,” Brown added. “I always had a massive professional respect for him. I have an even bigger personal respect for him for the way in which he has handled all this.

“He has been 12 years in this business and it got to a point where he felt it was the right time to hand the reins over to somebody else. He was really keen for that person to be me. It is no more complicated than that.”