Executive Search Success Story: Building the Executive Team for a Private-Equity-Backed Insurance Brokerage Roll-Up

How JRG Partners executed a confidential, multi-role North American executive search strategy that equipped a private-equity-backed insurance brokerage platform with the operating, financial, M&A, carrier relations, and technology leadership required to integrate 60 acquired agencies, drive organic growth, and build a scalable platform for continued acquisitions.

The Challenge

A private equity sponsor had built an insurance brokerage platform through 60 acquisitions in three years, but the business remained a federation of independent agencies. Organic growth had slowed to 2% as acquired producers focused on legacy books, agencies ran on a dozen management systems, carrier relationships were fragmented and contingent revenue was being left on the table, and the sponsor’s lenders had flagged the lack of consolidated financial reporting. The founding CEO, a former producer, needed a professional executive team beneath him to prepare the platform for its next capital event. Executive leadership and the sponsor identified several critical vulnerabilities threatening the thesis:

• Sixty acquired agencies operating as independent units with no common operating model
• Organic growth of 2% against a thesis requiring high single digits
• No consolidated finance, reporting, or lender-grade forecasting
• An acquisition process dependent on the CEO with no integration playbook
• Fragmented carrier relationships leaving contingent and supplemental revenue unrealized
• A dozen agency management systems preventing data, service, and cross-sell capability

Recognizing that the platform required a professional executive team to scale, the sponsor and CEO engaged JRG Partners to recruit a Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Corporate Development Officer, Chief Carrier Relations Officer, and Chief Information Officer. The company required an executive search partner with deep insurance distribution expertise and experience building executive teams for private equity consolidation platforms.

Why They Chose JRG Partners

Insurance Industry Focus

JRG Partners maintains a dedicated practice serving insurance companies, including brokerages, wholesale distributors, managing general agents, and carriers, with a clear understanding of brokerage economics, carrier compensation, producer dynamics, and consolidation strategies.

Private Equity Platform Experience

Our firm has extensive experience recruiting executive teams for sponsor-backed consolidation platforms, with a clear understanding of integration, organic growth acceleration, and preparation for capital events.

Multi-Role Execution

Our team specializes in running coordinated operations, finance, corporate development, carrier relations, and technology searches in parallel, ensuring leaders are selected as a complementary unit aligned to a single platform plan.

Our Executive Search Strategy

Phase 1 — Platform Plan Alignment

Our consultants partnered directly with the sponsor, CEO, and board to review organic growth data, integration status, carrier compensation, financial systems, and the acquisition pipeline, defining five executive profiles aligned with the platform plan.

Phase 2 — Talent Identification & Mapping

Our research team performed an extensive talent mapping initiative targeting operating, finance, corporate development, carrier relations, and technology executives at insurance brokerages, carriers, wholesale distributors, and financial services consolidators who had led documented platform integrations and organic growth programs. Over 410 executives were systematically assessed across these sectors.

Phase 3 — Candidate Engagement

Priority during outreach was given to leaders with a documented history of integrating acquired agencies, accelerating organic growth through sales management and cross-sell, building lender-grade finance, running repeatable acquisition and integration engines, optimizing carrier compensation, and consolidating agency management systems. Only candidates meeting these strict performance baselines advanced.

Phase 4 — Selection Process

Finalists presented platform plans to the sponsor, CEO, and board, completed structured leadership assessments, and underwent reference verification focused on quantified integration, growth, and financial outcomes.

Key Outcomes

• 410+ insurance distribution and financial services executive profiles mapped across North America.
• Successfully placed a synchronized executive tier spanning operations, finance, corporate development, carrier relations, and technology within seven months.
• Integrated 60 agencies into a unified operating model within fifteen months.
• Accelerated organic growth from 2% to 8%.
• Increased contingent and supplemental carrier revenue by $18M annually.
• Completed 25 additional acquisitions and a successful recapitalization.