IFNY Honors Beale, Lanning

300 Gather at New York’s Historic Union League Club to Honor Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyd’s and Mary Lanning, Public Service Leader; Supt.Vullo address audience; IFNY interns present accomplishments

Nearly 300 insurance leaders joined in the Insurance Federation of New York’s (IFNY) 104th Annual Award Luncheon honoring Dame Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyd’s of London, as she received the Federation’s 2018 Free Enterprise Award.  Mary Lanning, President of Yes!Solutions, Inc., ML&G Associate and Co-Vice Chair of Boys Hope Girls Hope New York was presented with IFNY’s 2018 Public Service Award.  Superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, the Hon. Maria T. Vullo, addressed the insurance, reinsurance and financial services leaders present for the event, long considered one of New York’s premier industry gatherings.

During the ceremonies, held at the Union League Club in Manhattan, the Federation renewed its support for the IFNY Summer Intern Program. Working with Boys Hope Girls Hope New York and Mary Lanning, IFNY arranges for inner city high school students to visit top corporate offices where they learn the business of insurance and its many segments.  Over fourty high-achieving students have already “graduated” from the program.

The Free Enterprise Award’s distinguished recipients are business leaders who have advanced business, often those in the business of insuring, espousing the highest ethical principles of free enterprise for which IFNY has stood for since 1913.  Recent past recipients of this prestigious award include Gregory Case, Chairman of Aon, Steve Kandarian, Chairman, President and CEO, Metlife, Inc.; Evan Greenberg, Chairman and CEO of Chubb Group; Robert Benmosche, former President and CEO of AIG; J. Hyatt Brown, Chairman and CEO of Brown & Brown Insurance; and Donald Kramer, Chairman of ILS Capital LLC.

In presenting the award to Dame Inga Beale, IFNY President Nick Pearson cited both her stewardship of Lloyd’s, a worldwide force in insurance. Plus her contributions to social justice and the public interest. Prior to Lloyd’s, Dame Beale was the Group Chief Executive Officer at Canopius, a prominent Lloyd’s managing agent, from 2012 – 2013. Dame Beale joined Zurich Insurance Group in 2008 as a member of the Group Management Board in Zurich with responsibility for Mergers & Acquisitions, Organizational Transformation and Internal Consulting, before becoming Global Chief Underwriting Officer in 2009.

In 2006, she was appointed Group Chief Executive Officer of Converium in Switzerland (now part of the SCOR Group) after 14 years at GE Insurance Solutions. Dame Beale held various underwriting management roles at GE and gained experience across London, the US, and France, before becoming President of GE Frankona and Head of Continental Europe, Middle East and Africa for GE Insurance Solutions based in Germany.

She began her career at the Prudential Assurance Company in London in 1982 and trained as an international treaty reinsurance underwriter.

Dame Beale is also an external Board member to the Government’s Financial Services Trade and Investment Board.

IFNY’s Public Service award honors an individual who has contributed meaningfully to the public good, either in the public or private sectors.  IFNY, whose members distinguish themselves through community service, determined it is only fitting to honor outstanding leaders who have served New Yorkers selflessly and extraordinarily, in keeping with the ethos of the insurance industry in serving societal needs and offering security to families and businesses.

In his introduction of Mary Lanning, Nick Pearson expressed the gratitude that so many felt for her exemplary service, stating, “For more than four decades, Mary has tread the halls of government and the towers of world financial institutions as a regulatory consultant and compliance advisor in the U.S. commercial insurance and financial sectors. She has done this as president of ML&G Associates, Inc., a registered lobbying and government relations firm that supports attorneys, investors, business expansion  strategists, and financial product innovators that do business in the regulated global risk, insurance, and financial products marketplace.  She is known for her unique personal brand of intervention and advocacy.  Public and private sector clients rely on her to facilitate best outcomes in public policy development and potentially competing commercial ventures.”

Mary is Co-Vice Chair at Boys Hope Girls Hope New York, an international youth development organization which leads young urban teens past their limiting Pasts through a rigorous residential college preparatory education.  BHGHNY teaches them lifetime learning skills, re-shapes their expectations of themselves and the world, redirects their hopes, and builds habits and tools for a wholesome, self-directed life in and after college.

Mary is the founding President of YES!Solutions, Inc., a grassroots community-building charity based in Harlem, NYC.  YES!Solutions connects the needy and the broken with those who want to make a difference to the forgotten homeless and elderly, to the dying and those who care for them, to “un-owned” immigrant families, to under-nourished / under-nurtured children, to impoverished recovering ex-cons and addicts struggling to rebuild their lives, and to others who fall between the cracks of public and private services, unnoticed in their isolation.  Mary’s street life is tightly intertwined with her corporate professional life.  Most of her hundreds of volunteers are her business colleagues from the commercial insurance and investment industries and their families who share her simple process of bringing a little kindness to the streets.

Mary, a nun and businesswoman, is a regulatory compliance advisor and a community builder.  “That woman, Mary”, is her most common name on the street and in the halls of government.

Superintendent Vullo set aside her remarks and used the occasion to talk about her own progress as a professional woman and as a leader in the Financial sector, thanking her parents for their values and her Alma mater, The College of Mount St. Vincent, whose President, Dr. Charles Flynn, was present. Her recounting of the work ethic she adopted and the fearlessness need for women to progress were warmly received.

The Insurance Federation of New York

Since 1913, the Insurance Federation of New York has been a force for communicating ideas among all sectors of the insurance industry, bringing public and private interests together for the benefit of all. The Insurance Federation of New York’s prestigious Free Enterprise Award—presented to some of history’s legendary entrepreneurs—continues to salute risk takers and leaders whose creativity and initiative has enabled the expansion of business throughout New York, across the country and around the world. In the insurance industry, it is the commitment and vision of these leaders that has created and refined the risk transfer mechanism to spur economic growth and contribute to personal financial security for countless millions.

Today, the Insurance Federation of New York’s annual calendar of events brings together the “best and brightest” to ensure that industry intelligence is shared and that support for best practices in insurance business, law and regulation earns the understanding of leaders across the spectrum. This shared goal draws business executives, legislators and regulators to our Annual Luncheon, our “Breakfast with…” programs, professional seminars, and other events. We also note the establishment of the IFNY Intern Summer Program. Federation members have given most generously of their time and finances to support this program that reaches out into the community and gives highly motivated teens, from challenging backgrounds, an in-depth opportunity to learn about the insurance industry in all its facets and to consider a career in insurance.

The Insurance Federation of New York is a not-for-profit New York corporation that does not engage in lobbying activities and is open to all.

The IFNY Board of Directors includes the following distinguished professionals: President Nick Pearson, Insurance Consultant and Attorney; Chairman Lance J. Albright, QBE North America; Financial Vice President, Stephen Boon, Jr., Harold L. Lee & Sons, Inc.; Vice President Michael Fusco, Consultant; Vice President Douglas Hayden, Wright Public Entity; Vice President Manfred Ruskin Moscou Faltischek, P.C.; Vice President David J. Walsh, Former CEO, Amalgamated Life Insurance Company; and Vice President, Managing Director Steve Acunto, CINN.

DIRECTORS: Kermitt Brooks, AXA U.S.; Michael Catina, Zurich North America; Huhnsik Chung, Stroock; Maura T. Clancy, Clancy & Clancy Brokerage, Ltd.; James Corcoran, Continental General Insurance Company; Regina Degnan, Aon; Rudy Dimmling, Alvarez Marsal; Eric R. Dinallo, The Guardian Insurance Co.; Amy L. Feller, CHUBB; Donald D. Gabay; Jason Jacobs, Baker Tilly; Howard Mills, Deloitte Services LP; Roger M. Moak, Arbitrator; Kevin Rampe, CHUBB; Raul Rivera, Former CEO, National Benefit Life Insurance Company; William M. Savino, Esq., Rivkin Radler, LLP; Francine L. Semaya, Esq., Legal and Insurance Regulatory Consultant; Wendy R. Shapss, FTI Consulting; Jeffrey A. Silver, Applied Underwriters; and Richard White, ShelterPoint Insurance Company.