Marsh shakes up senior leadership

Marsh has announced a raft of changes to its senior executive team, with former Asia-Pacific chief executive Martin South (pictured) being appointed president of the broker’s US and Canada divisions.

South has replaced Rob Bentley who is moving to work on ”strategic initiatives across Marsh & McLennan companies’ risk and insurance services segment”, which includes both Marsh and Guy Carpenter.

South will move to New York and report directly to Marsh president John Doyle.

As a result of the appointment, Marsh’s businesses in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, which previously reported in to South, have been realigned into three regional units: Marsh Asia, Marsh Pacific and Marsh Middle East.

The new Marsh Asia chief executive is David Jacob. He was previously Asia sales and specialty leader and has also served as chief executive of Marsh Hong Kong and Marsh Philippines.

Commenting on his appointment, Jacob said: “I am incredibly excited about the opportunity to lead Marsh in this dynamic region. Our clients, which come from across Asia and every sector of the economy, depend on us for risk and insurance advice as they seek to protect and grow their businesses in the region and globally. I look forward to working with all of our colleagues as we further develop our offering to meet our clients changing needs.”

Scott Leney will continue to serve as chief executive of Marsh Pacific, based in Sydney, and Stephen Lundin will continue as chief executive of Marsh Middle East, based in Dubai. 


All three regional heads will now report directly to Doyle.

In a seperate announcement, the broker also announced the appointment of Marcus Pearson as country head of New Zealand, reporting in to Australia’s Leney. Pearson will assume the role on 31 January and replaces David Duffield, who has been interim country head since the departure of Grant Milne.