After receiving hundreds of individual nominations earlier this year, we reveal the top 20 captive owners in the industry today
Welcome to the 2025 list of leading captive owners, as nominated by you readership.
A few years ago we recognised that the Power 50 alone couldn’t honour all the many global captive professionals who deserve recognition each year, so in 2021 we began publishing separate lists of captive service professionals and captive owners.
Of the nearly 2,000 individual submissions we received in the Power 50 survey this year, there were around 500 responses to the request for captive owner nominations, and alongside some well-known industry stalwarts, I was delighted to see a few newer faces receiving sufficient nominations for their first appearances in the list of leading captive owners.
The hard market of the past five to six years has brought to light the great value of captives, and more parents are now feeling comfortable to share how captive solutions have helped them reduce their cost of risk, cover almost uninsurable lines and serve as profit centres.
Spotlighting more of the successful captive owners that have made this happen can only be a good thing for the insurance industry as a whole, and serves to expand and benefit the flourishing community of captive owners that already exists.
Read on to find out m0re about the 20 captive owners nominated as some of the brightest and most innovative in the industry today:
Jennifer Allen
Senior director, Ally Dealership Insurance, Ally
Now a senior director in Ally Dealership Insurance at Ally, Allen was nominated in the leading captive owners list for her previous work as the director of insurance and risk solutions at the Ilitch Family Office from November 2021 to April 2025 where she managed the operations, strategic planning and profitable growth of two captive insurance companies, collectively named “Tenda”. Tenda provides a range of insurance solutions, including health coverage, property and casualty coverage and life insurance.
Tenda’s growth and innovative solutions for both the parent and third parties earned it the CICA Outstanding Captive Award in 2025. Allen’s prior experience spans valuation, risk management, corporate finance and captive insurance, primarily at Ally Financial.
Justin Bahorik
Senior director, insurance and risk management, GEODIS
Bahorik joined GEODIS in 2019 and oversees all insurance matters for operations in the US, Latin America and Canada. Bahorik played a key role in establishing and now managing GEODIS’s first single-parent captive, GreenStripe Insurance Company, which is transforming the company’s approach to risk management.
GEODIS also utilises an established group captive in its risk portfolio to mitigate its higher exposure risks. The use of captive insurance enables GEODIS to take a strategic approach to managing its unique business risks, transforming the insurance programme from a traditional expense into a value-added component that enhances service offerings for valued clients.
Cheryl Baker
Head of North America risk management, Stellantis
Baker has 25 years of experience in the insurance sector, navigating diverse domains such as mergers and acquisitions, professional liability, corporate claims, cyber risks and the strategic use of captive insurance companies.
While Baker recently announced she would be moving on from Stellantis, for the last three years she had been responsible for all insurance, claims and captive management in North America, as well as its global directors and officers programme. Baker served as president of Stellantis’s US-based captive, which continues to review potential synergies and strategic partnerships within the enterprise and, as a result, has achieved several million dollars in savings over the past 18 months.
Baker also sits on the CICA board, chairs its Amplify Women executive committee as well as serving as secretary of the Detroit RIMS Chapter board.
François Beaume
Senior vice president, risks and insurance, Sonepar
Recently appointed president of AMRAE, the French risk managers’ association, Beaume has been at the forefront of the efforts to bring forward French captive legislation. He joined Sonepar in January 2019, and in addition to his role serves as CEO of the group’s captive, Sonepar International Re. The captive is involved in property, cyber and liability programmes and actively contributing to structure prevention on these topics.
He has more than 20 years of experience in captives and risk management. He previously spent 11 years at Dalkia and four and a half years at Bureau Veritas, and has been on the AMRAE board of directors for nine years.
David Beyer
Director, risk management, Alaska Airlines
Beyer has spent 19 years working at Alaska Airlines, and 15 in his current role responsible for risk finance, insurance, bonds, alternative risk transfer, risk analysis, third-party risk assessment and captive insurance operations. He helped set up Alaska Airlines’ captive nine years ago and has been its board chair and leader since.
As well as successfully using the captive as a risk management tool and in partnership with commercial insurers to reduce the total cost of risk, he also managed the move of Hawaiian Airlines on to various existing captive programmes after its acquisition by Alaska Airlines last year. Beyer was subsequently named Risk Manager of the Year at the 2024 Captive Review US Awards.
Stanley Campbell
Chief operating officer, CCW Safe
Campbell is both the co-founder and chief operating officer of CCW Safe, an Oklahoma- based company that provides police union-style benefits to civilian concealed carry permit holders. Campbell, a former police supervisor, was a partner in a business that was not served in the commercial space, and is widely praised for how he has used captive solutions as a funding mechanism for the membership benefits at CCW Safe.
Campbell has spent the past 14 years at CCW Safe, and his role includes designing and implementing business strategies, plans and procedures; evaluating performance by analysing and interpreting data and metrics and assisting the CEO in increasing revenue for the organisation.
Craig Carson
Medical director, Oklahoma Arthritis Center
Carson MD started Oklahoma Arthritis Center (OAC) in 2000, and has since grown the business to six locations, 39 providers and 230 employees. Carson had utilised its captive, Millennia, for several years as part of a cell structure, but in 2023 moved to Helio Risk to undergo a redesign and build of a single-parent captive. In the past two years it has successfully added lines, increased limits and stabilised overall insurance costs, as well as saved OAC over commercial rates. In future Millennia is looking to add aviation and other lines to its current property and casualty offerings.
Andrew Clarke
General manager, ITX Re, Inditex
Clarke is a general manager with overall responsibility for ensuring Inditex’s captive, ITX Re, meets its strategic objectives and regulatory requirements. He has worked in the captive space for more than two decades, initially with VICO (VW captive) then Probus (Hertz captive) as an insurance executive. In his 13 years at ITX Re, the captive has become an important tool in the provision of optimal risk financing solutions, writing a diversified book of business. Business continues to grow in the captive, with a significant increase in employee benefits cover over the past 18 months while the captive is actively looking at new, emerging risks and possible risk financing solutions.
Heiko Ditzel
Senior director, risk finance and transfer, Adidas
Since joining Adidas in 2010, Ditzel has held various positions within its insurance department, culminating in his current role in 2021, and serving as a non-executive director of Adidas’s Ireland-domiciled captive, International Re DAC, since 2018.
Ditzel’s responsibilities include leading the non-life and life insurance business worldwide with a small group of experts. He has successfully integrated cyber insurance into Adidas’s captive, enhancing the company’s resilience against digital threats, and strengthened its retrocession agreement to become more flexible and independent. Additionally, he introduced the concept of a more robust, future-proof investment strategy aimed at optimising investment income, ensuring long-term financial stability and growth for the organisation.
Tracey Hassett
President and CEO, edRISK
Hassett runs edRISK, a Vermont-domiciled sponsored captive insurance company, that serves 29 educational institutions. For more than a decade, the medical stop loss group captive named edHEALTH has saved its member-owners millions of dollars under Hassett’s leadership. Last year, Hassett used the recently organised edRISK-sponsored captive to launch two new captive cells named edLIABILITY and edPROPERTY.
By doing so, she has enabled educational institutions to save even more by writing these other risk classes. Hassett also recently completed two terms as chair of the board of directors of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA), kicking off and implementing its recent strategic plan, and continues to serve on the VCIA Board.
Matthias Helmbold
Vice president, global risk benefits, health and wellbeing, DHL Group
Helmbold has more than 20 years of experience in employee benefits (EB) at companies including Syngenta, Coca-Cola and Maxis GBN. Since 2021 he has worked for German-based courier DHL Group. In his current role, he serves as director on the board of DHL’s captives and oversees all EB insurance across the group’s 220 territories, underwriting annual EB premiums in excess of €160 million.
DHL pioneered health risk engineering by developing a unique underwriting approach for its medical risks, a set-up that Helmbold further advanced in recent years, and which was recognised with Captive Review’s Captive Innovation Award in 2023.
Melissa Hollingsworth
Chief deputy officer of risk management, Los Angeles Unified School District
Hollingsworth has almost 25 years of experience in the insurance industry as a captive owner and risk manager. She joined the Los Angeles Unified School District in October last year, shortly after the formation of the Los Angeles Unified School District Insurance Company, LLC – the district’s captive – in Vermont with an $1 billion initial capital investment to formalise the risk programme of the second-largest school district in the US.
The captive insures the district’s general liability, auto, workers’ compensation and property risks, and under Hollingsworth’s leadership is currently in the process of adding other lines including benefits, cyber and the owner-controlled insurance programme.
Karen Hsi
Executive director – captive programmes, University of California
Hsi is one of the most respected and knowledgeable captive owners in the industry today after 16 years working at the University of California (UC), much of which spent managing its large and complex captive programme.
She was promoted to her current role in 2023 and has, in the past couple of years, been building out her team and refining the captive to make it more efficient and impactful. In addition, she is recognised as a great speaker and advocate for the industry due to her work on the CICA NextGen committee, and for launching a captive-funded internship giving UC students the opportunity to gain experience in the captive industry.
Megan Ogden
Vice president, captive subsidiaries, Energy Insurance Mutual
Ogden joined Energy Insurance Mutual (EIM) in 2020 where she has transitioned into various leadership roles at Energy Insurance Services (EIS) and Energy Captive Management (ECM). Under Ogden’s leadership, EIS has, in the past 18 months, added six new cells and increased written premium by 25%, with EIS having played a major role in some large utility companies’ wildfire insurance solutions.
Ogden began her captive management career in 2004 with Marsh in the Cayman Islands, and went on to open the JLT Insurance Management office. Her captive experience includes most industry sectors, including energy and all forms of captive structures, including protected cells and sponsored captives.
Jennifer Pack
Vice president of risk management, Hyatt Hotels Corporation
In her role with Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Pack oversees global insurance, health, safety, security and claims management. Leading a diverse team, she also manages Hyatt’s Arizona-domiciled captive Xenia Assurance Company as its president.
In her 18 years with Hyatt, Pack has helped transform the organisation’s risk strategies, and was this year recognised as RIMS Risk Manager of the Year. Among her accomplishments, she has successfully redesigned Hyatt’s short-term, long-term disability, and workers’ compensation programmes, moving them from a decentralised model to a centralised approach. The initiative reduced manual processing by up to 80,000 hours, improved compliance, reduced legal exposure and is linked to millions in savings.
Kristen Peed
Chief risk officer, Sequoia
Peed is responsible for the placement of Sequoia’s corporate insurance programmes, including captive operations. She oversees a team that underwrites various lines of coverage for Sequoia One, a professional employer organisation specialising in tech and life science companies backed by venture capital and private equity through its single-parent captive Mariposa, domiciled in Arizona.
She joined RIMS’ global board of directors in 2018 and has served on its executive committee as secretary, treasurer, vice president and now as RIMS 2025 president. During her presidency year, she has emphasised a greater focus on captive opportunities and education of risk professionals, leading to the new alternative risk transfer track this year at the RiskWorld conference in Chicago.
Theresa Severson
Senior vice president, insurance and risk, Kite Realty Group
Severson has more than 20 years of insurance experience, including the past three and a half years in her current role with Kite Realty Group overseeing an insurance and captive programme with $6 billion in total insured value and 187 locations.
Kite Realty Group’s captive-centric strategy adeptly integrates the captive with commercial insurance. This approach is guided by data-driven metrics, which aid in crafting a cost-effective programme that offers comprehensive, customised coverage. For this, Kite Realty’s captive was named Captive of the Year in 2023, and in the same year Severson was named RIMS Risk Manager of the Year.
Bart Smets
Head of risk and insurance, Umicore
Smets joined Umicore in 2017 after previously spending five years at international life sciences company Eurofins as its global risk and insurance manager, and prior to that around 15 years as a broker with companies, including WTW and Van Breda Risk and Benefits.
At Umicore, a global materials technology and recycling group, Smets heads the insurance and risk department, and in 2021 set up a reinsurance captive in Luxembourg. This is assisting the company in its broader risk management strategy by taking part in four different lines of insurance, with Smets actively looking at expanding its scope further. In 2024, Smets was also elected as president of Belrim, the Belgian Risk and Insurance Management Association.
Denis Waersaggers
Head of group insurance and risk financing, Holcim Group
Waersaggers has more than 30 years’ experience in the insurance industry, including five as global head of insurance at COFCO International, 10 as the deputy director of ENGIE’s insurance department, plus spells with Marsh and Aon. Since September 2022, he has been head of group insurance and risk financing at Holcim Group, a sustainable construction firm. In addition to this role, he serves as a director of Holcim’s Luxembourg-domiciled reinsurance captive Atlantic Re, and has played a key role over the past couple of years in recalibrating its capabilities, impact and organisation for the benefit of its parent company. This resulted in Atlantic Re winning Captive Programme of the Year at the 2024 Captive Review European Awards.
Daniele Zucchi
Managing director, Sigurd Ruck
Zucchi has worked at captive insurer Sigurd Ruck since 2010, first as chief operations officer and from 2013 as managing director. Before that he worked at its parent Saipem for seven years in its insurance department.
The Switzerland-domiciled captive received a boost last year when AM Best upgraded the captive’s financial strength rating to A- (Excellent) from B++ (Good) and the long-term issuer credit rating to “a-” (Excellent) from “bbb+” (Good) following the successful implementation of a strategic turnaround plan at Italian oilfield services multinational Saipem.
The plan was announced in 2022, immediately after Saipem had announced a material loss after tax, and included a €2 billion capital injection from its shareholders.
