Nighttime in Times Square

This week I was in New York for the 2024 PLUS D&O Symposium, along with a thousand or so professionals from around the D&O insurance community. PLUS staged the conference at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square, the bright, beating heart of NYC. No matter how many times you may visit, there is still something special about being in New York. The conference was great as well, a great chance to catch up on the latest news and developments, to meet with my many friends in the industry, and to make some new friends, as well.

Here I am before the opening session on the conference’s first day with Robbie Thompson, the CEO of PLUS. I found out later that it was Robbie’s birthday that day. Belated Happy Birthday, Robbie.
It was great to have the chance to catch up with Nicole McAuley of the Forbes Chochia Leon law firm and Christopher Mutcheson of Swiss Re. Both are based on Toronto and active in the PLUS Canada chapter. I will be speaking to the PLUS Canada chapter in Toronto in October.
It was good to see Rajah Steede of Travelers again at the D&O Symposium. I first met Rajah at a conference in London in February. Both occasions are now documented on this site. Hope to see you again soon, Rajah.
I met a lot of people for the first time at this Symposium. One of them was John Farris of Assurtrak Insurance Brokers. I enjoyed meeting John and talking about his agency. Sorry the backlighting makes the picture a little hard to see.
I also met Alice Bennett of Beecher Carlson of Bermuda for the first time at the conference, as well. I enjoyed sitting next to her at lunch on the second day of the conference.
Here’s a picture with my good friend and former colleague, Giovanni Fanizza. Gio is based in Miami but he runs Casualty Treaty in Latin America for Partner Re. Between the two of us, we have seen just about everything there is.
At the reception on the first night of the conference, I met for the first time Kathy Arp of Skyward Specialty Insurance and Scott Karalis of Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions. I enjoyed meeting them. we had a very pleasant conversation.
Here’s a picture with Nessim Mezrahi of SAR. I always enjoy running into Nessim, we always have interesting conversations and I always learn something new.
It was also great to see my good friend, David Williams, at the D&O Symposium. Dave is an industry vet, a solid citizen, and an all around great guy.
After the last conference panel, I went out to meet with Vanja Nadali and Peter Schlamberger of Polaris Corporate Solutions. Vanja is based in Zagreb, Croatia, and Peter is based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. I had not seen them since before the pandemic, and it was great to have a chance to catch up.