Artex Risk Solutions
Mullen co-founded Artex alongside current chairman David McManus and North America president Jennifer Gallagher in 1997. He served as executive vice president of the company until he left for Aon in 2011. He spent eight years at Aon, as CEO of its captive and insurance management business, before, following a lunch meeting with McManus, taking the decision to return to Artex.
We spoke to Mullen after his homecoming to discuss why he has returned, how the company has changed and what we should expect Artex to look like under his leadership.
What was your motivation behind returning to Artex?
I had been with Aon for seven years, running their captive and insurance management business. I was getting to the point where I needed a new challenge and I had lunch with David McManus, the current chairman, who discussed his retirement with me and wondered if I would be interested in coming back. I found the thought of returning intriguing, especially the opportunity to work with McManus and Jennifer Gallagher again, as it was the three of us who founded Artex originally. It took a couple of conversations but the opportunity to return to work with close friends and Artex’s very impressive growth track record won me over fairly quickly. One of the things I like about Artex is the commercial flexibility that it has in being able to do smaller merger and acquisition (M&A) deals.
Is returning something you always hoped would happen?
To be honest no. It is not something I had been thinking about until I had that lunch with McManus about 18 months ago. What has changed in the eight years since you left Artex? Do you feel like you’re coming back to a new company? There’s a lot the same but there’s a lot that has changed. There were a number of acquisitions while I was away—the two principal ones were the Kane and the Heritage acquisitions—and much of what is now called Artex International, which is run by Nick Heys, didn’t really exist before I left, so, it is much more international at this point. The last few years have also involved a lot of integration of those acquisitions. What is terrific is that during that whole process Artex has been able to maintain a really strong organic growth rate, which is a testament to the new business engine within the company.
How has the start of your second term at Artex been?
I’ve spent it on the road. I did two days in the office getting set up and then I have spent the rest of the time on the road. I’ve been in Chicago, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Scottsdale, Guernsey and London, so it’s been busy just getting out there, visiting teams, and trying to understand the business segments that they operate in now.
I have found groups of very engaged people and some really top notch leaders in the business, all with a singular focus on delivering client service. That sounds like a commercial, but it is really true.
McManus said he was excited about the fresh perspective and energy you were going to bring to the role, how is Artex going to change under your leadership?
I don’t know yet. I’m not sure any CEO can come in and, after four weeks, say this is how things are going to change, especially when you’re coming in to run a company that has been really successful. It would be a peril to make changes for changes sake.
What I am doing is looking at the business by segment, rather than location. I am trying to fully understand the business segments that Artex operates in, the value proposition in each segment and our differentiators. I also want to understand how those business segments align with the operating platforms and talent agenda.
There will be, I think, a couple of decisions to make in terms of those segments as we go forward: firstly do we have a clear focus and clear leadership in all of the segments? And, secondly, how well are each of those segments aligned with the operational platform and the talent that we have? There could be minor tweaks to that alignment, once I’ve spent some time looking under the hood. I will emerge from that in about four to six weeks and I think that I will be looking to make tweaks. My initial instinct is that there are probably three areas that I am going to focus on. Firstly, organic growth, or as they say in McDonalds: “same store sales”. I want to make sure our organic growth engine is running really well.
Secondly, we have a project that has been underway for about 12 months called Future Fit, which is where we are developing our systems and processes to fit the business of the future for Artex. I think that is going to be really important, especially from a systems perspective.
Finally, M&A. I am going to focus on buying captive managers, administrators in the insurance-linked securities space, specialty programme managers and MGA’s and specialty reinsurance brokers. I will be looking at M&A targets that are strategically well aligned with Artex’s current business model. You mentioned making some little tweaks, should we expect any changes in personnel? I would say no. A significant tweak might be changing out one of the leaders, but that is not going to happen. I have met and talked to all the leaders, and we have a terrific team in place. When I say tweaks there might be some minor changes in reporting lines or organisational structure but it will be very minor.
What should we expect from Artex in the next 12 to 24 months?
As of right now, I want to maintain business as usual, which for Artex means we continue to grow at the same trajectory. Our combined annual growth rate for the last seven years is 17 percent and if I can continue along that growth rate I’d be very happy.
