About
Us

Management Team

Ross Ballantyne
Co-Founder and CEO

Ross has 30 years experience in the London market. Ross began his career at Minet before joining Millers where he spent 8 years in the Programmes & Facilities division before moving to RKHarrison. Ross joined Benfield in 2008 and, most recently, Ross was CEO of Decus Insurance Brokers for over 6 years.

Richard Spragg
Co-Founder and Director of Broking

Richard has over 30 years experience in the London Market. An outstanding producer, Richard was on the Non Marine Board of RFIB and was responsible for the establishment and growth of the FI, D&O, Professional Lines and Cyber Product Lines for RFIB. Previously, Richard was Managing Director of Financial Institutions at AJ Gallagher (UK).

John Harris
COO / CFO

John has over 40 years experience in the London market. John began his career in 1980 for Sedgwick progressing into Marsh as a Senior Vice President until 2009 where he was responsible for Operations for the Property and Casualty department. John then joined Decus Insurance Brokers Limited, progressing to CFO and then COO where he was also responsible for the creation and implementation of a successful on-line quote and bind trading platform.

Broking Team

Ross Ballantyne
Co-Founder and CEO

Ross has 30 years experience in the London market. Ross began his career at Minet before joining Millers where he spent 8 years in the Programmes & Facilities division before moving to RKHarrison. Ross joined Benfield in 2008 and, most recently, Ross was CEO of Decus Insurance Brokers for over 6 years.

Richard Spragg
Co-Founder and Director of Broking

Richard has over 30 years experience in the London Market. An outstanding producer, Richard was on the Non Marine Board of RFIB and was responsible for the establishment and growth of the FI, D&O, Professional Lines and Cyber Product Lines for RFIB. Previously, Richard was Managing Director of Financial Institutions at AJ Gallagher (UK).

Paul Cousins
Broker

Paul has over 40 years’ experience in the insurance industry across underwriting, broking and managerial positions. Paul began his career as a reinsurance underwriter, eventually becoming Chief Underwriting Officer. After 25 years in underwriting, Paul moved into Broking. He served as Global Head of Business Development for Aon Benfield Facultative and then undertook the same role for the Delegated Authority Division. He also had roles as Managing Director, Delegated Authority at Gallaghers and Executive Director at Kaufman Group. Paul retains a focus on supporting MGA’s and insurers requiring capacity or operational support.

Matt Taylor
Broker

Matt started his insurance career in 1997 and has worked at a number of insurance brokers including most notably RFIB, Corrie Bauckham & Batts and Chesterfield before joining Ballantyne in 2023. Matt has handled many classes throughout his over 25 years career, however he specialises in North American transportation, property facilities/ binding authorities, and facultative open market risks.

Operations, Account Handling and Claims

John Harris
COO / CFO

John has over 40 years experience in the London market. John began his career in 1980 for Sedgwick progressing into Marsh as a Senior Vice President until 2009 where he was responsible for Operations for the Property and Casualty department. John then joined Decus Insurance Brokers Limited, progressing to CFO and then COO where he was also responsible for the creation and implementation of a successful on-line quote and bind trading platform.

Derrick Lloyd
Director of Claims

Derrick has over 30 years experience in the London market. Having started his career with Stewart Wrightson’s handling all classes of North American Non Marine business. He moved to Minet’s and then spent 15 years with HSBC Insurance Brokers becoming the North American Claims director. Derrick spent 3 years with Marsh and spent the last 7 years as the Claims Director at Decus Insurance Brokers.

Kieran Harris
Claims Broker

Kieran started his career at Decus Insurance Brokers where he spent 7 years as a Claims Broker, responsible for the claims handling for a variety of insurance coverages including North American Property, Liability & Cyber.

Trisha Tank
Account Handler

Trisha has over 10 years experience in the London Market mainly within Operations and Underwriting Management. Her previous roles focused on regulatory reporting, process implementation, data quality monitoring and Underwriting controls. She has worked at AmTrust, MSAmlin and most recently at Pioneer/K2 International prior to joining our operations team.

Eleanor Poland
Account Handler

Eleanor recently graduated from the University of York and has joined BBL after work experience with several Lloyd’s brokers.

Organisational Effectiveness and Projects

Alex King
Director of Organisational Effectiveness & Projects

Alex started her career as a management consultant at Accenture in 1992 specialising in managing large scale transformation projects in the Financial Services sector. Alex then moved to Deutsche Bank where she was responsible for the operations of their online global HR platform. Finally she moved to Credit Suisse where she spent 8 years as a Director of Organisation Effectiveness.