Leadership

Richard J. Schmitzer
President and CEO
Mr. Schmitzer was named President and CEO of James River Insurance Company in March of 2010. Prior to this Mr. Schmitzer had served the company as Senior Vice President and Chief Underwriting Officer since joining James River in July, 2009. Prior to James River, he spent 19 years with the Scottsdale Insurance Company most recently as Vice President, Brokerage, Professional Liability, and Programs. He began his career with the Sentry Insurance Company where he was Underwriting Manager for the Western and Pacific regions prior to joining Scottsdale. Mr. Schmitzer earned a BS degree, Business Administration/Economics from Central Michigan University (1977).

John G. Clarke
Senior Vice President, Director of Marketing
Mr. Clarke joined James River Insurance Company in 2003. Prior to joining James River, he served most recently as Senior Vice President and Chief Product Development officer for Wyndham Partners Consulting, a division of Renaissance Re U.S. Holdings (RUSH). Prior to joining RUSH, Mr. Clarke spent ten years as Markel Corporation Vice-President in a variety of roles including Director of Marketing for the Essex Insurance Company and Shand-Morahan Group, and the management of various commercial and personal underwriting areas within Markel American Insurance Company and Markel American Underwriting Managers. Prior to joining Markel, Mr. Clarke was a Product Manager for Progressive Casualty Insurance Company for six years, managing multi-state underwriting operations for non-standard auto and other specialty lines. A graduate of the University of Richmond (1980), Mr. Clarke also holds an MBA from The College of William and Mary (1984), and the CPCU designation.

Richard H. Seward
Senior Vice President, Chief Actuary
Mr. Seward joined James River Insurance Company in 2009 bringing over 20 years experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining James River, he served as Vice President and Actuary for Endurance Specialty Insurance, Ltd., responsible for pricing the portfolio of casualty business written through their Bermuda office. Previously, Mr. Seward served as Assistant Vice President at Portfolio Recovery Associates, where he was responsible for the pricing and management of distressed receivable portfolios. Prior to this, Mr. Seward worked with Wyndham Partners Consulting, a division of Renaissance Re U.S. Holdings with pricing, reserving, catastrophe modeling, and product management responsibilities. Mr. Seward has also worked with Markel Corporation as a reserving actuary. Mr. Seward received a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Mathematics, both from the University of Virginia. He also has attained the ACAS, MAAA, FRM, and ARe designations.

Thomas E. Peach
Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer
Mr. Peach joined James River Insurance Company in March 2019, bringing over 30 years of IT leadership experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining James River, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Zurich North America. As CIO for Zurich North America, Mr. Peach was responsible for end-to-end delivery of all technology services including strategy development, application service management, infrastructure, desktop services, as well as outsourced services. Prior to joining Zurich North America, Mr. Peach was a member of the Information Technology executive team at the Maryland Casualty Company in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Peach earned a B.S. degree in Information Systems Management from the University of Maryland Baltimore County. He has also participated in executive course work from Northwestern Kellogg School of Business and the Center for Creative Leadership.

Angela J. Burnett
Senior Vice President, Chief HR & Operations Officer
Mrs. Burnett joined James River Insurance Company in April 2009. Prior to joining James River, she held the position of Vice President of Human Resources at LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. In the 20 plus years Mrs. Burnett has been in the Human Resources field, she has held leadership positions with responsibilities in many areas of HR including talent management and change leadership, strategic HR program development and planning, succession planning, leadership and management training, large-scale project planning and execution, merger integration, talent acquisition, employee relations, benefits, compensation, operations and process improvement. Mrs. Burnett earned a B.S. degree in Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University, graduating Magna Cum Laude. She holds the Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) designation.

Timothy S. MacAleese
Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
Prior to joining the James River Insurance Company in May 2018, Mr. MacAleese was a founding member of Elephant Insurance Company, serving as its CFO since inception in 2008. While there, he helped grow the startup to over $200 million in annual direct written premium and over 600 employees. During his tenure, Mr. MacAleese was responsible for building and leading numerous functions, including finance/accounting, pricing/actuarial, legal, compliance, IT/MIS, data services, reinsurance and internal audit. Prior to Elephant, he co-led the US consulting practice for the high-tech and telecom vertical at Gartner. In total, Mr. MacAleese spent over 10 years consulting businesses on sales, marketing and operations strategy. He began his career as a CPA at Coles & Bodoin, a public accounting firm in Boston, MA. Mr. MacAleese holds a B.S. degree from Babson College and an MBA from the Darden Business School.

James W. Gunson
Senior Vice President, Chief Claims Officer
Mr. Gunson joined James River Group in September 2021. Prior to joining James River, he served as Senior Vice President of Complex Casualty Claims for CNA Insurance, where he was responsible for establishing and implementing strategy for continued improvement of claim handling, customer service, and claim results for all Casualty Lines of Business, for providing his underwriting and actuarial business partners with information related to claim trends and product development, and for oversight and resolution of all “portfolio” exposures including CNA’s legacy asbestos and pollution exposures, abuse, and opioid claims. Prior to joining CNA, Mr. Gunson held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility in Chubb’s General Counsel and Claim Department that culminated with him serving as Chubb’s Worldwide Casualty Claim Manager. Prior to joining Chubb, Mr. Gunson worked for close to a decade as a partner in a New Jersey law firm, CMK, where his areas of practice included insurance defense, insurance coverage litigation, construction defect litigation and complex commercial disputes. He began his legal career as a law clerk to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. Mr. Gunson is a former U.S. Army Military Police Officer who served with the U.S. Army’s 59th Ordinance Brigade in Siegelsbach, Germany. He is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Delaware and received his Juris Doctorate magna cum laude from the University of Maine School of Law.

Christy Miller
Regulatory Compliance and Product Development Manager
Mrs. Miller joined James River Insurance Company in December 2011. She has a background in regulatory compliance & products. Prior to joining James River, she worked for Capital One Financial as Bank Fraud Operations Analyst. Prior to joining Capital One, Mrs. Miller was self employed providing insurance products and warranties to auto dealerships in North Carolina. Prior to living in North Carolina, Mrs. Miller was a Regulatory Compliance Specialist with Markel Insurance Company.

Eric Taylor
Vice President – General Casualty, Sports & Entertainment and Commercial Auto
Mr. Taylor joined James River Insurance Company in June 2004 with 16 years of insurance underwriting experience. Prior to joining James River, he served as Underwriting Director of K&K Insurance Group. In this role, Mr. Taylor was responsible for the underwriting profit and performance of various multi-line, program business for Lexington and Nationwide Insurance. Other positions held during his fifteen years at K&K include Underwriting Manager, Vice President of Product Development, and Sr. Vice President of Underwriting. Prior to joining K&K, Mr. Taylor worked as a Casualty Underwriter for two years for a regional insurance company based in Indianapolis, IN. Mr. Taylor earned a B.S. degree in Public Finance from Indiana University - Bloomington, IN and holds the CPCU designation.

Crileen Kixmoeller
Vice President – Excess Casualty, Life Sciences and Manufacturers and Contractors
Ms. Kixmoeller joined James River Insurance Company in 2003 as Manager of its Excess Casualty division. In 2009, she assumed additional responsibility for managing the Manufacturers & Contractors and Life Sciences Divisions. Prior to joining James River, she served as Branch Manager for AIG’s Middle Market Umbrella Division, opened and managed the standalone Excess facility for Kemper in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain states, and was Vice President at Cravens Pacific managing their binding authority programs for small umbrella and contractor’s general liability. Ms. Kixmoeller has over 20 years of experience as an underwriter and underwriting manager. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from California State University Fresno, and completed one year of Law School at Concord School of Law, Los Angeles, CA.

David S. Weisenberger
Vice President – Allied Healthcare, Medical Professionals, Professional Liability (non-Medical), Small Account – Casualty and Contract Binding
Mr. Weisenberger joined James River Insurance Company in October 2009. Prior to joining James River, he served in a variety of positions over seventeen years with Markel Corporation. Most recently, Mr. Weisenberger was a Managing Director- Casualty for Markel. He previously worked in the Markel Shand division on two separate occasions. Mr. Weisenberger earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business and Economics from Virginia Military Institute (1992) and holds the CPCU and RPLU designations.