Hyatt Hotels risk manager retires

Captive insurance management veteran Paul Smith has announced that he is retiring. He has been director of risk management at Hyatt Hotels Corporation since May 2023.

“After 35 years in the insurance business, I am officially retiring,” Smith said in a statement on LinkedIn. “I have meet so many wonderful people in the business during this time and I want to thank everyone for the great times we have had together along the way. No one does this alone, and I want to thank my family for the support they have given me while I have been on the road to exotic places (Russia, Austria, Singapore, Brazil, the Cayman Islands, etc.) and not so exotic places (eight weeks in a basement office in Winnepeg).”

Smith was director of insurance at FirstGroup America from February 2018 to February 2023 in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he managed risk for a large operator of school busses, transit busses and interstate busses in America. His job duties included managing a $750 million captive insurance company.

He was director of internal audit at Zurich North America from June 2015 to June 2017, where he managed a team of 17 auditors to develop and execute an audit plan of 80+ audits annually for operations in the US, Bermuda, and Canada.

Prior to that he was a senior manager at Ernst & Young from November 2004 to May 2015. His specialities at the position included captive insurance companies, alternative risk financing, insurance department risks and controls, and risk management documentation. He also spoke at the RIMS and VCIA annual conferences.

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