Nashville Metropolitan Area
An accomplished President, COO, Business Executive with 25+ years of experience scaling for transformative growth and profitability across startups, private equity and public corporations. Experience in All Areas of Financial Services, Insurance and Technology. Expertise in scaling up companies and driving M&A, AI Strategy and Roadmap, Organic Growth, Strategy, Operations, Technology and Analytics. Current focus includes leveraging advanced technologies and AI for risk analytics and underwriting, especially in coastal property, CAT risk areas, and commercial middle market property sector. Experience in all areas of the Financial Services industry including Commercial Property Insurance, MGA, E&S, P&C, RIA, Broker Dealer, Employee Benefits, Banking, Wealth Management, Life Insurance, and FinTech. She has led teams of over 800 people and over $500M in revenue across business units including strategy, business development, marketing, technology, operations, analytics with companies such as AIG, Wells Fargo, Cetera and Farmers. A strategic technology and C-suite leader who has served on multiple PE-backed companies. Focusing on AI, data analytics, technology roadmaps, and led finance and operational transformations and delivered scalable back-office solutions that have resulted in significant EBITDA growth and value creation. As COO of the Liberty Insurance Brokerage, she played a key role in leading organic and external growth initiatives and delivered organic growth rate of 47%. She led and completed 37 acquisitions contributing to a significant increase in revenue within 12 months. As a result, Liberty company was awarded the fastest growing company in the insurance sector and received infusion of $350M investment. As COO of Farmers Financial Solutions, a division of Farmers Insurance. Sonia turned around a manual and low-investment financial services business, resulting in significant growth, higher customer lifetime value, and higher retention. Sonia is an endurance athlete who has competed in and won several ultra marathon races, won multiple awards, and has been widely recognized for her achievements. She frequently writes and speaks on the similarities between winning a race and successfully running a business – where she incorporates traits of resilience, grit, and determination from her running journey into her corporate and personal life.
- Driving innovation and managing strategic build out of AI driven underwriting platform for Velocity Risk Underwriters LLC, (MGA) specializing in property catastrophe). - Building an innovative and advanced AI-driven operational platform that will allow our team to underwrite risks with an accuracy and efficiency that is unmatched in the E&S market - Rolling out new Commercial Property Insurance products across wholesale and retail channels
InsurTech firm that offers AI based Predictive Analytics SaaS Platform - As President of Insurance Services, I led the Insurance business, managed P&L, developed and launched new, innovative AI based SaaS products supporting Commercial Property and CAT focused insurance firms to improve Submissions-to-Quote, Underwriters Efficiency, Loss Ratio. - Led a highly skilled team of data scientists, engineers and insurance experts to build and scale an innovation AI Commercial Property Risk Solution that leveraged Artificial Intelligence, advanced predictive analytics modelling to improve Loss Ratio in the E&S space.
Provided operational leadership across all business lines including Commercial Lines, Personal Lines, Employee Benefits, with direct reports including Head of Claims, Chief Technology Officer, Head of Ops, Head of Integration - Reported to Chairman/CEO and was hired to, grow middle market segment and lead pre-IPO planning activities of the Commercial and Personal Lines Insurance Brokerage business. - Played a key role in organic and external growth initiatives to deliver organic growth rate of 47%. Completed 37 acquisitions contributing to a substantial increase in revenue, to over $100 M in 12 months. - Implemented Global Shared Services model spanning multiple countries across the globe to optimize costs, enhance service and drive efficiency gains.
P&L ownership of four business units - Retail, Wholesale, MGA and TPA, Recruited to support the private equity firm and to execute the value creation plan, scale the business and lead necessary changes to deliver significant growth, EBITDA in less than two years. With 4 business units reporting to me including Retail, Wholesale, MGA, Underwriting Solutions, and Claims Administration, led all P&L and day-to-day aspects with direct reports including Business Unit Heads, Head of Distribution, Chief Underwriting Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Human Resources Officer • Strengthened financial performance of all business units – Retail Brokerage, Wholesale, MGA, TPA. Delivered 17% organic growth across all lines. • Led development and growth of MGA Programs including Trucking, Commercial Auto, Commercial Property, Public Entities, etc. • Improved commercial auto and commercial property underwriting processes, claims management, and reserve handling policies to improve Loss Ratio • Led expansion of agencies and brokers to drive profitable growth for Commercial E&S business through focused business development efforts. • Implemented several organic growth strategies and drove post-M&A integration synergies resulting in accelerated growth
P&L ownership of Farmer's broker dealer business, Improved financial performance while improving employee engagement, revenue and profitability of the investment and wealth management business. , distribution to over 5 million customers nationwide. Led the strategic transformation, and all day to day aspects of the broker dealer business at Farmers. Responsible for P&L of the broker dealer business, with direct team of Head of Marketing, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Finance Officer, Head of Operations & Technology. • Hired as CMO, promoted to COO within 12 months. • Turned around manual and low-investment financial services business from stagnant, and siloed into one that was modern, growing, and fully integrated with P&C Insurance business. • Played a key role in rolling out the Life & Financial Specialists channel to enable cross sell of P&C, Life and financial products resulting in higher customer lifetime value and retention, and improved NPS. • Scaled the compliance functions and implemented internal controls, oversight framework, and surveillance processes to supervise investment services provided by 13,000+ agents across the nation. • Drove conceptualization and implementation of product recommendations engine, resulting in reduction in operational expenses and improved user experience • Drove positive employee engagement (Employee Net Promoter Score from -35 to 45+) by building an inclusive environment that values diversity and empowered employees.
Led all aspects of cross-selling, marketing efforts and managed a team of marketing professionals and change agents. Built strategic roadmap and marketing plans and led execution of several cross-selling and marketing efforts to grow the business and improve client experience including digital channel, branding, customer experience, product expansion, marketing campaigns, etc. Led the strategy, planning and execution to enable ross-selling of Financial Products/Services with Personal Lines. Expertise Areas: Marketing Strategy, Agent Engagement, Client Engagement, Distribution Strategy, Omni Channel Strategy, Business Transformation, Change Management, Training/Coaching, Customer Analytics, Segmentation, Third-Party Product Distribution, Recruitment, Social Media, Employee Engagement