Bessellieu Heads Sherwood's North American Operations

Supporting its bid to shift the bulk of its business to the North American market over the next three years, global insurance solutions provider Sherwood International (London) has brought on board former Cap Gemini Ernst & Young executive Steven Bessellieu as president of North American operations. Sherwood plans to grow the volume of business coming from the US and Canada from a current 30 percent figure to 60 percent, within a three-year period.

Following a year that saw advances in Sherwood's presence in the continent's insurance market—such as the acquisition of Canadian P&C software and solutions firm Concise Technologies and the securing of multi-year, multi-million-dollar contract with New York Life—Bessellieu sees additional opportunities for success. "Sherwood International is a well-positioned company with excellent technology solutions and a reputation as a leader in its market," he says. "I am very pleased to be joining the team and to enable the company to drive forward the continued growth of the business."

Bessellieu most recently served at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (New York) as senior vice president and Global Financial Services Executive Board member, in which role he was charged with responsibility for strategy, development and deployment of all financial services solutions worldwide. Previously Bessellieu had been managing principal at Bluebell, PA-based Unisys Insurance & Diversified Financial Services.

Mike Dropkin, who had been Sherwood's EVP North American Operations, has moved to a group role, where he will be involved with product, alliances and industry consultant positioning.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio