Lloyd’s of London general counsel Sean McGovern has left the business to join insurance and reinsurance company XL Group to work as chief compliance officer, head of regulatory and government affairs.
McGovern has worked at Lloyd’s since 1996 and has been credited for expanding its global licence network, developing relationships with regulators, and deepening trading links with the US market. He was also instrumental to ensuring that Lloyd’s was prepared for the introduction of Solvency II at the beginning of the year.
In his current role McGovern has worked as a member of the executive team since 2002 and was appointed to the franchise board in 2014.
In order to “protect commercial confidentiality” McGovern will no longer be involved in syndicate-specific activity. He will go on gardening leave in July before taking up his new role at XL in November.
Following McGovern’s departure he will be replaced as general counsel by head of legal and compliance Peter Spires while head of internal audit Hilary Weaver will take up the role of chief risk officer on an interim basis.
In the newly created role at XL McGovern will have responsibility for the business’ corporate and regulatory compliance and will lead its global regulatory and government affairs. He will report to the audit committee of the board and to chief executive officer Mike McGavick.
McGavick said: “There’s no greater endorsement of our strategy and our vision for the future than our ability to attract the industry’s leading talent and we’re very pleased to have Sean join XL Catlin in this key role.
“For some time, we’ve been considering, in light of the continuing evolution of global insurance regulatory standards and expectations, how to best arrange our compliance and regulatory areas. The addition of Sean allows us to accelerate our plans to more closely align and increase the profile of these critical functions.”
Last year XL Group acquired insurance giant Catlin Group for $4.2bn. Debevoise & Plimpton, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, and Slaughter and May all played key advisory roles during the deal.