Thomas P. Ruggieri is CEO and founder of Advisen Ltd., a leading provider of information on businesses, policies/programs, loss data and news for the commercial insurance industry. Through the application of technology solutions via the web, data feeds and offline, Advisen supplies analytical models, quantitative benchmarking, and comparative text tools to allow professionals to more productively gain insight from information.
Thomas has spent 25 years in commercial insurance striving to raise the industry's profile as an integral component of the professional financial services sector. He is a stalwart champion of increasing the availability of market pricing and loss information, and other risk-assessing data tools as well as evolving the insurance industry's nascent steps towards electronic transactions. In an attempt to cure the dearth of analytic and efficiency tools available to insurance professionals and foster greater information transparency, Thomas founded Advisen in August 2000.
Thomas began his insurance career at Marsh, Inc. where he spent 15 years. He was one of the youngest leaders in the firm's history to be named Managing Director and he participated regularly in strategic planning and implementation projects. At Marsh, he focused on clients and retail management in the Property and Casualty sector and became an expert in developing and implementing brokerage information systems used to capture and communicate market dynamics. It was his first major effort to use technology to rectify deficiencies in market transparency and bring commercial insurance to a technological par with other financial services industries.
He utilized his experience in broker information systems to build a brokering specialty business at Marsh which grew to $45 million in revenues and 125 employees in three years. It was this combination of brokerage system experience and organization building which compelled Thomas to start this company. Together with professionals from the insurance industry, technology fields and financial services, Advisen was designed to use the internet to fulfill the gaping need in the industry for market information and provide clarity on pricing, risk assessment and market dynamics. Today, Advisen serves thousands of senior insurance professionals at top risk organizations, brokerages and insurance carriers.
Thomas's technology service experience includes advising Intralinks.com, the financial service industry's leading business collaboration service. Thomas holds a BA in Economics and Law from Ohio Wesleyan University.
David Dahlquist, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer
Knut Danielsen, Finance Director, Controller
Knut Danielsen, Finance Director, leads the finance initiatives for Advisen. His path of experience leading up to this role includes eight years in the cruise and shipping industry as a Financial Analyst and Controller as well as nine years spent with international engineering and real estate development firms. For the past 12 years, Knut had pivotal finance roles in the theme park and entertainment industry. In his most recent engagement with Mondial International Corp., he helped determine which subsidiaries were candidates for re-engineering, spin-off, or shut down in order to maximize shareholder value. This effort ultimately resulted in the sale and merger of 3 operating entities into one company, Elaut USA Inc. Knut was also responsible for the risk management and oversaw the insurance portfolio to ensure that both the operating companies were in compliance with contractual obligations, and that the various state and federal requirements, covering as many as 40 different jurisdictions, were satisfied.
Knut received an MBA from the University of Miami, a BA from The Johns Hopkins University, and completed post graduate work in Accounting and Financial Reporting at Pace University. Knut speaks Norwegian fluently, and he volunteers with the Boy Scouts of America and US Coast Guard Auxiliary.
Lucy Buggy, Corporate Secretary
Lucy Buggy, Corporate Secretary, manages corporate governance for Advisen including investor relations. Previously, Lucy was manager for a life and disability insurance producer and she formed and ran a 501(c)3 following the events of 9/11/2001. She was an Investor Services Officer at UST and had an early career in event management.
Lucy received a BA in Economics and Management from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1985.
Dave Bradford, President of R&E, is a Co-Founder of Advisen Ltd, leads the Research and Editorial Division. He is Advisen's principal insurance industry analyst, and Editor-in-Chief of all Advisen publications including the daily Advisen Front Page News (FPN) and the annual RIMS Benchmark Survey, produced in partnership with the Risk and Insurance Management Society.
Prior to co-founding Advisen in 2000, Dave spent 20 years in the reinsurance industry in underwriting, marketing and strategy development roles. He was most recently a senior vice president with Swiss Re where he led the Global & National Division of Swiss Re America, a $500 million profit center. Prior to Swiss Re, Dave was a senior vice president at Reliance Reinsurance Corp where he founded and managed the Special Programs Department. Dave began his career as an actuarial analyst and treaty underwriter with Allstate's Assumed Reinsurance Division.
Dave is a frequent speaker at industry events and is regularly quoted in insurance and business publications.
Jeffrey M. Cohen, CMO of R&E, joined Advisen in July 2003 after spending over 15 years at Bloomberg LP, where he played pivotal roles in sales, sales management, and global marketing. Jeff is a member of the senior management team at Advisen. His primary objectives at Advisen are to lead new client acquisition and retention efforts as well as play a key role in client support services, marketing, branding and operations. Jeff's insurance hobby is to pursue the online community aspect that relates and connects buyers, brokers, underwriters, and all other commercial insurance professionals.
Jeff graduated from Cornell University in 1987 with a degree in Biology. He serves as President of the Board at the Center for Hearing and Communication, a non-profit agency in New York & Florida that provides hearing health services to people of all ages who have a hearing loss.
John Pagliaccio, EVP & Director of Analytics
John Pagliaccio, Exective Vice President & Director of Analytics, brings 40 years of experience in insurance, reinsurance, and enterprise risk management analytics to Advisen. He serves as the executive vice president in the Information & Analytics unit, responsible for leading the analytics innovation in Advisen's new unit. John was previously President of Carvill ReAdvisory, an intermediary specializing in professional liability reinsurance solutions. Prior to that, he was a Managing Director focusing on analysis of all lines of P&C at Gallagher Re, Guy Carpenter and RMS. John is an ACAS, ASA, CERA, MAAA, ARM, and PRM.
Dennis Sauer, CAO of Information & Analytics, leads and manages global operations, including Advisen's New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Philippine teams. His responsibilities include structure and operations of our client support platform and back office operations as well as working with associated teams that are cross-functional and multidisciplinary. Dennis retired from the U S Marines after 20 years of active service. His duties, highlighted by a 2 year assignment as senior drill instructor at Parris Island, SC, and on the staff of the Commander in Chief, European Command. His final military assignment was instructor of ROTC candidates at Villanova, University of Pennsylvania, Drexel and Temple.
While performing these duties, and without a bachelors degree, he applied, was accepted, and successfully completed the Master of Science in Organizational Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania. Dennis has over 29 years of experience in leadership, team building, and working within large organizations.
Barry Criscuolo, Director of IT, OPS
Barry Criscuolo, Director of IT, OPS, joined Advisen in August of 2006. He currently leads the Operations Team based in Pennsylvania which supports the corporate, development, integration and production infrastructure environments. He also leads the Data ETL Team based in Pennsylvania and the Philippines which is responsible for the extraction, transformation and loading of provider and proprietary data for Advisen’s core products.
Prior to joining Advisen he spent six years working for The Electron Factory, Inc. which provided both internal applications and ETL processing for Advisen, along with providing data services for the Insurance and Financial Industries. He also had responsibility for the company’s corporate and data processing infrastructure. Barry’s other experiences range from the Director of Development for Support Systems International which specialized in a Work’s Compensation Software Application and as a Database Administrator for E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Company.
Barry has a bachelor’s degree of Business Administration with a major in Management Information Systems from Loyola University in Baltimore, MD.
Kate Schaub, Director of Client Management
Jim Blinn, Product Manager, Portfolio Insight
Jim Blinn, Product Manager, leads the development and maintenance of Advisen's proprietary MSCAd and policy forms databases. In addition, he works closely in the delivery of Advisen's consulting and content development engagements. He has over 30 years of experience in property/casualty insurance matters. Prior to joining Advisen, he was the Managing Partner at Ernst & Young responsible within the Americas for the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) business advisory service. Jim also worked at Reliance National in the Risk Management Services Division where he assisted in the structuring and implementation of risk financing programs that responded to the unique needs of clients. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Spencer Educational Foundation. In the past he has served on the Editorial Advisory Boards of Risk Management and The Self-Insurer magazines, coauthored the ARM 56 textbook and served as the Chairman of the Self-Insurance Institute of America.
Jim has a Bachelor of Science degree from Yale College in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as well as a Masters in Business Administration from the Wharton School.
Daniel Hobbs, Product Manager, Brokers
James Willison, President, WCL
James, having worked as a management consultant for the last 5 years, joined as Managing Director in August 2006. James has a joint honours degree in law and accountancy, gained a diploma in management studies from Kingston Business school and has completed his Advanced Diploma in Insurance.
As a management consultant James worked for the LMP office, now known as the Market Reform Programme Office (MRPO). James key tasks were the management of the LMP slip audit team, development of the LMP slip, the Market Reform slip and ACORD compliant Global Placing Document (GPD).
Andrew founded Web Connectivity in 2003 building on his previous experience as an implementer of early Web service technology. He was - and still is - convinced that there had to be a better way to control the use of Web services and that conviction led to the concept and design of EnabledB2B.
He has been a leading participant in various ACORD working groups, especially in the creation of Repository Interoperability standards and the ACORD Security Profiles implementation guide for Web Services Security.
Andrew previously worked as CTO of August, where he implemented a shared Document Repository for a major London broker. Prior to this role he filled a number of technology-oriented positions in service provider / software house environments in the insurance industry.
Tim Ellis, Director of Development, WCL
Tim is a skilled IT professional, having over 18 years IT operational experience covering software and hardware implementation, IT operations and support, outsourcing and professional services which has resulted in his leading a diverse range of projects and teams across many industry sectors.
Before joining Web Connectivity, Tim's employment history covers Ernst & Young, August, Telewest, Detica, Xerox and Netkonnect.
In addition, Tim is a Certified Information Systems Security Specialist (CISSP), an ITIL Service Management practitioner, and has recently completed a BSc (Hons) in Computing and IT from the Open University.
Edward Forer, President of Risk Management & E-Commerce, directs all initiatives for the auxiliary team which leads Advisen's projects for creating new products. He has over 25 years of experience in the areas of management, marketing, analysis, and restructuring. From the original idea of Advisen to the building a successful brand over the past ten years, Edward has played instrumental roles at Advisen from day one. He was responsible for leading the initiatives in structuring the original formation of Advisen's teams from Operations and Development to the present structure of Client Support and Sales. From Advisen's development cycle of its core product to the highly acclaimed Front Page News, Edward has played a major role in bringing these to fruition. Prior to Advisen, he was a founding partner of Apex Consulting Group, Inc., a provider of experienced SAP consultants to Fortune 100 companies. A major career highlight was that Edward led Apex annual sales to exceed $3 million in the second year of operations. During his reign at Apex, Edward gained extensive expertise in dealing with major clients like IBM, Arthur Andersen and Price Waterhouse. Before founding Apex, Edward spent 10 years at E.I. duPont de Nemours & Company in various roles, including Senior Analyst, Software Application Supervisor, and Account Representative.
Eddie received a Bachelors of Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology.