Our team
Our people are our core strength. We attract and develop the best talent in order to provide and uphold the highest standard of service and bespoke product offerings.
Executive Team and Board
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Role: Holly is responsible for driving the business forward and generating sustainable growth. Her role includes; setting the strategic direction, introducing new clients, nurturing relationships and advocating an entrepreneurial, client-centred culture. She is passionate about shifting the balance towards women in senior positions by promoting flexible working practices.
Experience: Soon after graduating in law, Holly entered the insurance industry. Her impact as a young insurance professional was recognised at both The Insider Honours and London Market Awards. Holly also collected the International Business Woman of the Year title at the International Women’s Day Awards.
Her insurance experience includes; directorships of two insurance businesses, and a warranty services firm she founded, as well as sitting on the Wholesale Brokers Advisory Board.
Managing Director
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John Shepherd is a very well-known and much respected figure in the Insurance market and has achieved an extremely high level of success. He has developed substantial business from worldwide clients and is also the CEO of a very successful and specialist Lloyd’s Insurance Broker.
John has the executive responsibility of overseeing the corporate affairs of White Oak.
Chief Executive Officer
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Clare acts as a Non-Executive Director on the White Oak Board.
Non-Executive Director
Chief Underwriting Officer & Head of Transportation
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Role: Lisa is responsible for driving the strategic decisions, portfolio risk management and leading the Underwriting teams.
Her role focuses on developing business plans and coordinating capacity for continued profitable growth within White Oak’s lines of business. She also builds and maintains external stakeholder relationships.
Experience: Lisa has a wealth of experience and expertise as a market leader, with a stellar reputation built up over 30 years in the industry.
Her previous roles include Senior Underwriter at Lloyd’s Syndicate, MS Amlin, managing a diverse global Motor portfolio, Lloyd’s Broker and Coverholder.
Lisa’s specialises in Truck Physical Damage, Motor Truck Cargo, Private & Commercial Comprehensive Motor, Forestry & Construction, Dealers Open Lot and Garagekeepers Legal Liability, in the US & Canada, Middle East, Caribbean and Europe.
Transportation
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Role: Scott is responsible for the day-to-day underwriting of the White Oak transportation portfolio and develops exciting business opportunities through new and existing relationships.
Experience: Scott is ACII qualified and has over 20 years’ experience working at some of the world’s leading insurance underwriting companies and broking firms. Scott specialises in the North American Commercial Auto markets.
Senior Underwriter
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Role: George’s role as Underwriter is to work on all aspects of the day-to-day underwriting and management of White Oak’s Commercial Auto business. This includes quoting, developing new business opportunities, portfolio management, new/renewal binder set up, and capacity liaison.
Experience: Since graduating university, George spent 5 years working as the Assistant Underwriter at one of the largest Lloyd’s Commercial Auto Syndicates, specialising in North American and Worldwide Auto. George then joined White Oak in October 2020. He is ACII qualified.
Underwriter
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Role: Ronnie, who is an Underwriter at White Oak, specialises in North American Transportation business. Everyday duties include quoting new and renewal business along with portfolio analysis.
Experience: Ronnie has worked for some of the largest insurance companies, developing through 8 years in the industry. Having experience in small P&C business and North American Transportation including Auto Physical Damage and Motor Truck Cargo. Ronnie joined White Oak in January 2021.
Underwriter
Assistant Underwriter
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Role: Sophie’s role as an Assistant Underwriter is to support the Transportation Underwriting team. This involves data management, ad-hoc reporting, setting up new/renewal binders and monitoring performance.
Experience: Sophie joined White Oak in November 2021, after having spent 5 years at a Lloyds syndicate where she worked as an Underwriting Assistant in the Specie division.
Assistant Underwriter
Claims
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Role: Barry’s role heading up the claims division at White Oak involves managing the claims team and making sure everything runs smoothly whilst assisting and guiding where needed. He Manages the Master Loss Funds and meets with capacity providers, underwriters, brokers and clients when required.
Experience: With 40-years claims experience under his belt, Barry joined White Oak in Dec 2020 to manage the Transportation and Warranty business.
He has previously spent 13 years broking and the 27 since claim’s adjusting. 36 years of these has been spent handling North American direct business which included liability, property, bodily injury & contingency and of that the last 20 specialising in Transportation in the US, USVI, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Spain, Italy & Ireland.
Claims Manager
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Role: At White Oak, Warren is the North American Transportation Claims Adjuster and operates an open door policy to handle claims presented from cradle to grave.
Experience: Warren joined White Oak in May 2013 having come from a broking background dealing with claims emanating from North America and Australia. The classes of business he handled were predominantly Property, Transportation and Med Mal.
Senior Claims Adjuster
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Role: Adam’s role as Claims Assistant at White Oak is to provide technical support to the claims handlers and external users.
Experience: Adam joined White Oak in November 2020 after gaining claims experience in his previous insurance claims role.
Claims Assistant
Warranty
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Role: Stuart is responsible for driving the strategic decisions, portfolio risk management and leading the development of the Consumer Products (Extended Warranty) Insurance Business Line.
His role focuses on developing Consumer Products Insurance business plans and coordinating capacity for continued profitable growth of extended warranty within White Oak. Stuart also builds and maintains external stakeholder relationships with insurance, reinsurers, brokers and consumer-facing clients.
Experience: Stuart has a wealth of Extended Warranty, All-Risks Insurance and Affinity lines experience and expertise having worked across the industry - within insurers, niche brokerages and consumer-facing (retail) organisations, over his 30 year career. This all-round blend of experience means Stuart really appreciates what ingredients are required to deliver a mutually profitable programme for all parties.
He previously has served as Head of Underwriting overseeing a business line of over €100 million in gross premiums annually. Stuart has held senior roles at Wakam, AXA Partners and Accenture.
Stuart specialises in Extended Warranty (Consumer Products). Mobile Phone & Gadget Insurance, All-Risks Insurance and wider afield - Affinity Lines, and has worked to place schemes in the UK/Ireland, Far-East and Australia.
Head of Underwriting - Warranty
Central Team
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Mat is a Chartered Accountant (Fellow [FCA] of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales). He has 16 years post-qualification experience, most of which has been gained within the insurance industry, having previously served as Finance Director at another Lloyd’s Broker as well as audit manager at Mazars LLP (provision of audit and non-audit services to companies and other vehicles within the London insurance market). Mat a member of the Board of the parent Company Shepherd Global Ltd.
Head of Finance
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Role: As Head of Operations at Shepherd Global incorporating White Oak, Kirstie oversees operational strategies to support transformation programmes, process efficiency and global growth. Her role looks at new processes, policies, efficiencies, and introducing new systems. She has oversight and responsibility of the Data Analytics team and Operational Support at White Oak.
Kirstie’s role combines technical expertise and deep insight of the Lloyds of London and Insurance market approval process, rules and regulations, with strong analytical and relationship management skills to identify business opportunities and help clients understand their obligations.
Experience: Kirstie is an accomplished and solution-orientated Insurance Executive with 32 years in the insurance industry with a track record of shaping new facilities and programmes, aswell as playing an integral role in driving successful transformation, operational process efficiency, P&L improvement and global growth strategies.
Head of Operations
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Role: James is the Senior Data Analyst for the business and also heads up the White Oak Data Team. He oversees the production and delivery of regular and ad-hoc reports whilst also adding knowledge and insight. Since James has been with White Oak he has looked to streamline and improve the data and reporting available to the Underwriting Team in order to fulfil both internal and external requirements. One of the things James enjoys most about his role is being able to analyse and translate data for stakeholders to enable fact driven decisions to be made which result in positive impacts within the business.
Experience: James has worked in data related roles within the insurance industry for over 16 years and previously headed up a team of data analysts and developers at Aon. He is experienced in working with both large and complex sets of data from multiple systems. Along with advanced MS Excel skills he is also familiar with other relevant applications such as MS Access, SQL, SAP Business Objects, SPSS and Power BI.
Senior Data Analyst
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Marita is White Oak’s Senior Intelligence Business Analyst, responsible for cleansing, analysing, and enhancing data from multiple sources to produce clear, insight-driven reporting. Using tools such as Power BI, advanced Excel, MS Access, and SAP Business Objects, she supports the underwriting team in making efficient, informed decisions. She joined White Oak in 2020 after completing her Master’s in Insurance and Risk Management at Cass Business School, having previously earned a First-Class degree in Financial Economics and gained experience through several insurance market internships.
Senior Business Intelligence Analyst
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Role: Josh’s role as a Junior Data Analyst see’s him process the bordereau data onto our system and produce reports for the White Oak team, such as the credit control.
Experience: Josh joined White Oak straight out of university where he studied Economics, with International Finance and Banking. Prior to University he completed a 2 year engineering apprentice scheme for a design consultancy, specialising in water treatment systems.
Junior Data Analyst
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Role: Emily’s role as Marketing Manager is to support White Oak with all their marketing requirements. From Marketing collateral, to website and event management, Emily works closely with the White Oak team to best deliver this.
Experience: Emily has 6 years experience in Insurance Marketing, having worked for some of the industries biggest insurance organisations.
Marketing Manager
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Role: Sharon is recognised for her ability to align HR and Business strategies across the business. Driven by getting the best out of people she takes pride in providing the best training and development opportunities. As Head of HR and Corporate Operations, her goals include championing diversity and inclusion; designing effective training programmes; attracting and developing current and future talent; and creating an award winning workplace for our staff. In addition to her primary job functions, Sharon is a member of the Executive Team overseeing other corporate functions, and known for bringing an entrepreneurial approach to challenges whilst championing change for improved performance and productivity.
Experience: Sharon is a Chartered member of the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development (CIPD) with an MSc in Human Resource Management and BSc (Hons) in Business Management.
Executive Director
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Tim has a career in the Lloyd’s market spanning 25 years, primarily in the compliance, technical, operations and claims spheres. Fully conversant with all aspects of FCA regulations & London Market practices, Tim also has an extensive technical knowledge across a number of classes, territories and distribution models, especially in the field of delegated authorities. As Head of Compliance, Tim is passionate about ensuring that compliance supports and helps grow the business rather than hindering it, always looking to ‘find solutions rather than problems’.
Head of Compliance