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The Once and Future C&F - C&F Now
CHAPTER 6 C&F Now
I had 10 years to study C&F before becoming CEO. The 200-year-old platform was ready and able to do anything we wanted with it. C&F had a kernel of great people and businesses. I was fortunate to have run three of the four divisions: Fairmont Specialty, Seneca and First Mercury. I knew the people and the business. I had a number of corporate jobs in my early career — mainly Chief Actuary and CFO roles — but I also had exposure to Claims, Operations, IT, and HR. I appreciated the delicate balance between establishing corporate controls and running a division. In addition, I had experienced all aspects of the insurance company life cycle: start-up, merger, acquisition, divestiture, turnaround, run-off. I felt the thrill of getting an insurance company off the ground — and saw the carnage when an insurance company fails. I knew how to make big changes in a company and was confident I could put Fairfax’s guiding principles into practice. I had done it before. I knew what to do. I was ready to start. As you can probably tell, I was blissfully ignorant of what was actually ahead of me. When I arrived at 305 Madison Avenue in September 2014, the home
office that Bill Ridgway and Bobby Russell built had seen better days. Right outside my office was a giant dumpster collecting the steady flow of tan liquid that was dripping from a pregnant ceiling tile. C&F needed a little TLC. I n years prior, visits to Morristown were kind of a bummer. People did not look happy. Beyond the 37 buckets around the office collecting brown ceiling water, there were subtle cues pointing to low morale. Gallows humor. Low-grade cafeteria food. Holiday parties where everyone looked like they just got kicked in the pants. People saying, “Please, take me with you!” This was still the situation when I showed up as CEO. A couple of weeks into the job, I realized that I needed to act fast or risk having the home office change me for the worse — instead of me changing it for the better. If I did not want to work in that kind of environment, why would anyone else? I thought long and hard about how to make C&F a great place to work. It might seem uncharacteristic for an actuary to start with culture, but Fairfax is all about culture. You can’t have a great company without great people. And you are not going to attract great people without a great
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