Alan Jay Kaufman is chairman, president and CEO of independent wholesale insurance brokerage Burns & Wilcox, as well as Kaufman Financial Group, its parent company. He recently answered SmartBrief’s questions about leadership, continuing education and other issues in insurance.
How would you describe your leadership style?
It is framed from a variety of experiences. I learned a great deal from my father, the late Herbert W. Kaufman, who founded Burns & Wilcox in 1969. I find that my work ethic, leadership style and entrepreneurial spirit are complemented from years as an attorney in private practice.
My father built Burns & Wilcox into a nationally recognized wholesale broker and underwriting manager. When I took over the leadership of the company, my focus was the future growth of Burns & Wilcox and the Kaufman Financial Group. We expanded internationally and added other leading companies that deepened our expertise and made us more globally competitive. (read more…)
SmartBrief caught up with CME Group Executive Chairman and President Terry Duffy this week on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference. In Part one of this two-part interview, Duffy addressed the evolution of leadership in the exchange world. Today he chats about regulatory reform, the London Interbank Offered Rate and social media.
We are coming up on the three-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act. What did Dodd-Frank get right?
The implementation of the first phase of mandated clearing went into effect in March and came off without a hitch because the central clearinghouses that are involved in it have been doing this for a lot of years, just using futures. We take our risk models and deploy them toward swaps. Obviously you have to add in a deeper cushion of liquidity with the swaps versus a standardized futures contract, but you are basically deploying the same kind of risk-management strategy. (read more…)
SmartBrief caught up with CME Group Executive Chairman and President Terry Duffy on the sidelines of the Milken Institute Global Conference. In Part 1 of this two-part interview, Duffy talks about leadership in the exchange industry. In tomorrow’s Part 2, Duffy shares his views on what Dodd-Frank got right, Libor reform and the role Twitter stands to play in the financial markets.
How has leadership in the exchange world evolved during your time in the industry?
We walk a very fine line. What we never want to do is disintermediate our futures commission merchants community. … When you are working with a big bank and you are working with their clients, you must work together. I think that is different today than it has ever been in the history of our business. An exchange used to be just four walls for gathering price. Now you have to go out and cultivate clients. (read more…)
Whether it was introducing Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler’s keynote address or sharing his witty take on NASCAR advertising with reporters, IntercontinentalExchange founder, Chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher was the man about Boca at last week’s International Futures Industry Conference. There is no doubt that Sprecher is at ease in the spotlight that comes with ICE’s play for NYSE Euronext. Below are a few of the opinions Sprecher shared throughout the week.
On the very timely issue of exchange mergers and acquisitions: “We’ve had to move things around like chess pieces in order to keep up with our client needs. We think that’s driven a lot of growth for us. M&A has not so much been about trying to get big for scale sake. It’s about trying to have enough pieces to solve customer problems.”
On the greatness of U.S. capital markets: “The public markets are a great place to raise capital. (read more…)
Last week’s International Futures Industry Conference in Boca Raton, Fla., featured luminaries from all aspects of the futures industry. The speeches and panel discussions included witty and insightful comments from regulators and industry executives. Here’s a handful of highlights.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler on the London Interbank Offered Rate investigation: “[Libor] has been readily and pervasively rigged. At each bank, the misconduct spanned many years, several cities, numerous employees including senior management, multiple benchmarks and currencies, and there was clear evidence of collusion. … We should not think of any benchmark as too big to replace.”
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing CEO Charles Li on regulatory reform: “From an Asian perspective, we are the innocent bystanders of a major traffic crash. … We are talking about medicines that are going to cure all these problems, and we are not part of the cause. Now we end up having to eat some of the medicines that are being prescribed. (read more…)
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