Mike McCoy - Partner

A longtime financial services industry leader, Mike was a senior executive at a Fortune 25 company.  A ten year career at Wells Fargo & Company included serving on the WFC Management Committee and President of Wells Fargo Consumer Credit Cards, an organization with over 5,000 team members, $20 billion in receivables.  During Mike's tenure he led the company to best in class performance through the recession and on to record performance in income and employee engagement.

 

Mike served as Chief Marketing Officer for two large financial services companies and led distribution organizations for two insurance companies during his 25+ year career.  He has held executive level positions with American Enterprise Life Insurance, Equitable of Iowa, and Security Life Insurance Companies.  Today, Mike consults with an Iowa based private equity firm and helps small entrepreneurial companies achieve the next level of growth.

 

Darren Wood - Partner, founder

A strategic leader, Darren has more than 18 years' experience delivering solutions to the insurance marketplace.  This includes senior project management and operational leadership roles at Marsh Consumer, and other MMC companies that focused on the delivery of employee benefit and affinity solutions to consumers through Fortune 1000 clients. 

 

Darren's additional insurance experience includes his role as a division president for Holmes Murphy, a top 25 insurance broker, where he was accountable for the delivery of value-added solutions to insurance clients.  Additionally, he consulted at Nationwide Insurance where he developed a middle-market commercial strategy for their corporate marketing group.  Darren has earned his Project Management Professional designation (PMP).

 

Allen Sabbag - Strategic Advisor

Mr. Sabbag is a successful entrepreneur and angel investor whose leadership has been crucial to building and developing successful exits for companies in the communication and mortgage lending industries.  Allen also had a successful career in corporate America serving as a senior executive at Meredith Publishing and CEO of Better Homes and Garden Realty.

 

Cameron Sutton – Strategic Advisor

Sutton received his bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska-Kearney, and his Juris Doctorate from the University of Nebraska's College of Law. He is a Certified Life Underwriter, an active member of several insurance industry groups and a former Trustee for the National Association of Life Underwriters.

After graduation from Law school, Sutton started his own insurance practice which was subsequently purchased by Alexander & Alexander (A&A) in 1981. Over the next 26 years, Sutton held several executive positions and spearheaded many key initiatives at A&A and it's subsequent purchaser, Aon, which is the world's leading risk management, brokerage and consulting organization. His last position at Aon was Executive Vice President and a member of Aon Consulting's Global Operating committee.  Mr. Sutton retired in December, 2006.
 
In August of 2007, Mr. Sutton came out of retirement to become the President and CEO of ARAG Insurance Company in Des Moines, Iowa.  ARAG is the global provider of legal insurance. The company has an international premium base of more than $1.7 billion and protects 14 million individuals and their families worldwide.  During Mr. Sutton's tenure at ARAG, the firm experienced increased profitability each year and in 2009 & 2010 the firm was voted the 4th & 3rd best places to work in the Insurance Industry by Business Insurance Magazine.  Mr. Sutton fulfilled his 3 year contract and again retired in December, 2010. 

 

Julie White – Strategic Advsior

Julie White is the president and founder of the consulting company, Tapestry Solutions, LLC.  The firm is focused on providing consulting and expertise to organizations and leaders in the areas of strategy, leadership, organizational culture, and people practices.  White opened the firm in 2012 and has since worked with clients in the for-profit, non-profit and academic sectors. 

 

White served as the Executive Vice President and Director of Human Resources of Wells Fargo from May 2007 until her retirement in February 2010.  Her responsibilities included the development and implementation of people strategies to support the business objectives of Wells Fargo, as well as the management of compensation and benefits, human resource service centers, systems and payroll, HR finance, team member relations and assistance, team member communication, talent management, learning and development and diversity for 281,000 Wells Fargo team members.  White and her team were responsible for the successful integration of people practices for the Wachovia merger.  Wells Fargo is a Fortune 50 company.

 

Prior to her move to San Francisco, White, a 24-year veteran of Wells Fargo, held executive leadership positions in Human Resources and Communications from 1986-2007 in Minnesota and Iowa.

 

James Mackay – Strategic Advisor

Mr. Mackay is a successful senior executive and consultant with extensive experience in financial services. Career experiences include commercial and investment banking, investment brokerage, and institutional investment management.  Mr. Mackay founded three venture capital funds and a consulting practice that focuses primarily on buying, selling, and merging privately owned companies.

 

Clients have included manufacturers, insurance companies, commercial banks, venture capital advisers, publishers, and electric utilities. Scope of practice has included enterprise valuation, mergers and acquisitions, credit risk management, investment portfolio policy and process, strategic planning, branding strategies, affinity marketing alliances, and non-traditional financing requirements of development stage companies.