Kevin Croft
Kevin Croft, Distinguished EMC Associate Professor of Practice and Director of the Kelley Center for Insurance Innovation, teaches Finance, Risk Management and Insurance classes. Professor Croft began his career at the Principal Financial Group where he was involved in a diverse set of roles including insurance product pricing, financial statement preparation, reserve determination, developing asset liability management solutions, managing mutual funds, and investing non-affiliated insurance portfolios. Prior to joining Drake, Professor Croft served as senior vice president and head of structured products at American Equity where he co-led the investment team managing a $52 billion portfolio and oversaw growth in the structured products portfolio from $2.7 billion to $12.9 billion.
Nick Gerhart
Nick is responsible for proactively seeking out and developing opportunities to optimize company growth through innovation that is consistent with Homesteaders’ core values, purpose and vision. A proven change agent, strategist and executive leader, Gerhart previously served as Commissioner of the Iowa Insurance Division, where he transformed that department and increased the State of Iowa’s international prominence through his thought leadership and the creation of the Global Insurance Symposium held annually in Des Moines. He also previously served as Chief Administrative Officer for FBL Financial.
Matt Junge
Matt Junge leads Swiss Re’s property treaty underwriting for the United States market. In this role, he is responsible for treaty underwriting strategy and portfolio steering, as well as leading a team of reinsurance underwriters, actuaries and catastrophe modelers who are responsible for Swiss Re’s property treaty reinsurance portfolio across the United States. He has served in a variety of property and casualty underwriting roles with Swiss Re for the last 16 years, including leading flood and parametric product development from 2018 – 2022. He is a strong advocate for closing the natural catastrophe protection gap. Matt is a graduate of Drake University and holds his Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation.
Barnes Kelley
Barnes, Associate General Counsel, is committed to serving the legal and insurance needs of The Weitz Company, a full-service construction company, general contractor, design-builder, and construction manager. By serving these needs, he supports its core purpose, to “Build a Better Way,” which includes delivering the highest levels of safety, integrity, and market leading innovation. Barnes previously worked for EMC Insurance in various roles over an eight-year career. Before that, he was an attorney in private practice with The Bradshaw Law Firm. Barnes is a graduate of Drake Law School, holds his Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (“CPCU”) designation and currently serves as Vice President of the Iowa Chapter of the CPCU Society.
Chris Murphy
As the Vice President of Risk & Safety at Holmes Murphy, Chris is responsible for leading the Holmes Murphy Commercial Risk & Safety team, serving clients directly with their risk management needs, and mentoring insurtech founders through BrokerTech Ventures. Chris has more than 23 years of insurance carrier and broker risk management experience and has earned his Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Certified Risk Manager (CRM), and Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) professional designations. Chris is actively involved in the Iowa CPCU Society Chapter, Iowa Insurance Hall of Fame, Iowa-Illinois Safety Council, and American Society of Safety Professionals.
Marie Norcia
Marie Norcia is the Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer of F&G where she leverages her broad range of experience to guide and lead the risk management framework and team, including all aspects of investment, financial and operational risk. Marie has over 25 years of experience in risk management and operations, leading teams, driving organizational interventions and evaluating mergers and acquisitions to manage and mitigate risk at publicly traded and Fortune 500 enterprises. She has a proven track record in building, empowering and motivating cross-departmental teams to evaluate and take action to reduce the impact of company risk whether financial, operational and/or reputational. Marie’s experience includes more than 10 years at The Hartford where she worked with middle and large commercial clients as a risk management expert and consultant covering all Property and Casualty lines. Marie was the risk expert for over 100 companies, helping some of the nation’s largest enterprises assess their financial and operational risks, helping to reduce claims and payouts and manage reserves. She was also responsible for leading The Hartford’s Risk Management Information System (RMIS) with responsibility for strategy and execution while transforming digital for multiple business units in connection with traditional (claims, risk engineering) and non-traditional (IoT) services. Marie joined F&G in 2022, serving as Chief of Staff to the CEO, a role she continues to play, facilitating strategy and execution frameworks, capability and outcomes across the enterprise. Prior to her current role, she served as Chief People Officer heading multiple shared services such as Human Resources, Vendor Management and Marketing. Marie is also an adjunct professor at Emmanuel College in Boston, Massachusetts. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and earned her Masters in Business Administration from Nichols College.
Tim Soderholm
Tim Soderholm has over 24 years of experience in the financial services industry, and currently serves as a Chief Risk Officer at Principal Financial Group®. He joined Principal in 2017 as the Chief Risk Officer of its Retirement and Income Solutions businesses where he spent 7 years leading a team responsible for identifying, assessing and mitigating risk, including those associated with the negotiation, due diligence and integration of one of Principals largest strategic acquisitions, Institutional Retirement & Trust from Wells Fargo. Tim recently moved to an enterprise role, where he is overseeing the development and evolution of the company’s enterprise risk management framework, key governance processes, and leading efforts to prioritize and execute strategic enterprise risk initiatives. Tim also leads the global technology risk management team and corporate insurance team. Prior to joining Principal, he served in multiple leadership roles at Wells Fargo including Vice President of Operational Risk and Compliance for Home Mortgage Retail Fulfillment and Vice President of Operational Risk and Compliance for Capital Markets Loan Operations. He also spent time in sales, project management and leading operations while at Wells Fargo. Tim received his bachelor’s degree from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Dusan Stojanovic
Dusan Stojanovic has 25 years of banking industry experience, most recently with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines where he served for 12 years, mainly in the roles of Chief Risk Officer and Chief Operating Officer. FHLB Des Moines is among the largest of 11 federally chartered, wholesale banking cooperatives, serving 1300+ financial institution members – commercial banks, savings institutions, insurance companies, and credit unions headquartered in 13 states and three U.S. territories.
Prior to joining the FHLB, Mr. Stojanovic was a bank supervisor in various capacities with the Federal Reserve System, as well as the Vice Governor for Bank Supervision with the National Bank of Serbia.
Steven Walsh
Steve Walsh, CPA, VP – Enterprise Risk Officer, provides strategic oversight of all enterprise risks at EMC Insurance. Steve has over 20 years of experience, spending the last 12 years at EMC serving in roles including head of investor relations prior to its publicly-traded holding company’s going private transaction, AVP Strategic Research and Analysis Manager, and has spent the last three years in his current role. Prior to his time at EMC, he served in various SEC financial reporting and audit roles. Steve received his B.S.B.A in accounting from Creighton University.