The Ardonagh Group Executive Team Update

The Ardonagh Group (“the Group”) today announces the appointments of Diane Cougill as Chief Financial Officer * (“CFO”) and Sarah Dalgarno as Chief Risk Officer (“CRO”).

Diane Cougill

Diane has been working as an advisor to the Group Executive for a number of weeks. She will start in her role as CFO with immediate effect.

Diane was previously CFO and Insurance Director of the motoring and financial services group RAC. In her seven years she, alongside the CEO, sold the business out of Aviva to the Carlyle Group and more than doubled the enterprise value of the Group ahead of the eventual sale to GIC and CVC.

Diane is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants and has previously held senior management roles at a number of financial and energy companies including Aviva and TXU.

Sarah Dalgarno

In May 2016, Sarah was appointed Strategic Risk Director of The Towergate Group, heading up a legacy resolution unit leading on the simplification of Towergate’s legal entity structure and tackling liabilities including ETV and UCIS redresses.

Prior to Ardonagh, Sarah worked at Arthur J. Gallagher, where she spent nine years, latterly as CRO. Previously, she managed the London Market Insurance Brokers team at the FSA.

Commenting on these appointments today, CEO of The Ardonagh Group, David Ross said:

“Diane has been working closely with the team at Ardonagh over the past couple of months on our full year 2017 and Q1 2018 financial results, closely followed by the completion of a successful £98m bond raise. Her advice and counsel over this time has naturally evolved into this appointment, which we are delighted to confirm today.

Working closely with Antony Erotocritou as Group Finance Director, Diane is a hugely complementary addition to our finance leadership, bringing unique experience to the Executive table and working closely with our shareholders and the broader investment community.

Sarah has spent the last two years tackling a project that only she could have done – the unravelling of legacy issues in Towergate which sat at the heart of the turmoil that engulfed the company back in 2014.

There was one person the Board and shareholders entrusted this crucial task to; Sarah and her team have successfully liquidated and removed almost 50% of Towergate’s legal entities from the organisational structure, with 80% of Towergate’s distribution business now being renewed into a single legal entity, culminating in the rollout of Acturis across the advisory branch network.

With the back end of Towergate fixed, Sarah now steps into the CRO role for Ardonagh, where she deploys her commercial approach to working in a regulated environment so expertly.”

Diane Cougill added:

“The opportunity to join the Ardonagh team proved hard to resist. The pace of execution and a real appetite for challenging the status quo made this role particularly appealing.

I am delighted to be on board and look forward to working with the Executives and shareholders as we move into the next phase of the Group.”

Sarah Dalgarno said:

“The past two years provided me with an incredible opportunity to get under the bonnet of this business and build fresh foundations for compliant and ambitious growth. With the customer very much at the forefront, we now look to future opportunities to expand and innovate from this platform.”

* subject to regulatory approval

Notes to Editors

About The Ardonagh Group

The Ardonagh Group is the UK’s largest independent insurance broker with global reach. We are a network of over 100 office locations and a workforce of almost 6,000 people. The Ardonagh Group was created in June 2017, bringing together Autonet, Chase Templeton, Direct Group, Price Forbes and Towergate, with the additional acquisitions of Healthy Pets in August 2017, and Carole Nash and Mastercover announced in December 2017.

Our understanding of the communities we serve, together with our scale and breadth, allows us to work with our insurer partners to deliver solutions that meet our customer needs.