Laurence Walker - Chief Executive
Laurence is also a founding director of SSP and is currently chief executive of SSP, taking responsibility for all three divisions. Laurence has worked in the insurance technology sector for over 20 years, both in the UK and overseas. He has experience in insurance companies, broker software houses and industry bodies culminating, prior to joining the SSP buy-in team, in the role of development and corporate director for CSC’s retail insurance division.
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Steve Bow - Managing Director, UK Broking Division
Steve joined SSP in 2005 from CSC where he was responsible for their UK Insurance and Banking activities. With over 15 years’ experience in the insurance technology market and has held a variety of senior management and directorship positions including, Group Accountant for HMV International, Finance Director of The Ra Group and Managing Director of North Park Computer Services Ltd.
He leads the UK Broking Division servicing brokers and intermediaries of all sizes across the UK.
Carol Thompson – Interim Chief Financial Officer
Carol joined SSP in July 2011 as Interim Chief Financial Officer & Company Secretary. Carol was previously Chief Financial Officer at utilities firm Electricity North West and Operating Partner at venture capital group Marwyn LLP. She has a wealth of board level experience across a variety of sectors, including insurance, having worked for six years in a variety of roles at RSA.
Non-Executive Directors
Brad Henske - Non-Executive Chairman
Brad is a Managing Director at Hellman & Friedman (H&F). Prior to joining H&F in 2007, he was the General Manager of the Consumer Tax Group (TurboTax) & the Chief Financial Officer at Intuit. Previously, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Synopsys, a Partner at Oak Hill Capital Partners (Robert M. Bass Group), the Chief Financial Officer at American Savings Bank & a partner at Bain & Company.
He is the Chairman of Activant Solutions, Datatel, Inc. & IRIS Software Group Limited. He is or formerly was a member of the Board of Directors of Goodman Global, Inc., Associated Materials, LLC, VeriFone Holdings, Inc., Williams Scotsman, Inc., Grove Worldwide L.L.C., Reliant Building Products Inc. & American Savings Bank.
Brad graduated with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rice University & earned an MBA, with Distinction, from the Wharton School.
David Rasche - Senior Non-Executive Director
David Rasche was co-founder of SSP & has been in the IT sector for almost 40 years, with 30 years leading & chairing software businesses. He has been involved in the insurance sector for 21 years this year. He was Yorkshire Business Leader of the Year in 2008 & Quoted Companies Chairman of the Year in 2009.
Nick Bate – Non-Executive Director
Nick was a founding member of SSP, joining as part of the original management buy-in team in 2002. He served as the Group’s Finance Director for over nine years before moving to a Non-Executive Director role in October 2011. Nick has a wide range of board level experience within manufacturing & service environments both in the UK & internationally.
Nick Discombe - Non-Executive Director
Nick joined the SSP board early in 2009. Nick was CEO at the time of exit of US based Witness Systems (NASDAQ – WITS) for just over $1bn in June 2007. Since leaving Witness Nick has been active in the US/UK private equity community & is currently Chairman of two private equity backed businesses including Complinet the global leader in news & analysis for risk & compliance professionals in financial services.
Nick’s other current responsibilities include his directorships at Iris which supplies business management solutions to over 60,000 customers as well as advisor to CEO & board of Atlanta based Secureworks a global leader in Managed Security Services.
Nick joined Witness Systems in March 2003, following the successful merger of Witness Systems and Eyretel. Nick spent five years with Eyretel & was CEO in 2000 when Eyretel successfully completed its IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
Stephen Duckett
Stephen is a Managing Director of Hellman & Friedman based in the Firm's London office. H&F is one of the leading investors in software globally and is currently investing from their sixth fund of $8.4 billion.
Stephen’s investment focus for H&F is on software, information services, technology and internet related companies in Europe. Stephen is currently Chairman of IRIS Software Group and was previously a Managing Director of ICG, a publicly quoted US venture capital investment firm and prior to that spent many years with Apax Partners, again focused on software and technology investments.
Stephen is an alumni of Oxford University, from which he has a first class MA in Engineering, Economics and Management and of Harvard Business School, where he was awarded an MBA with Distinction and was a Fulbright Scholar.
Gren Folwell - Non-Executive Director
Gren was appointed as non-executive Chairman of SSP at the time of the management buy-in in March 2002 & became Senior Non-executive Director at the start of 2006. Gren was the deputy Chief Executive of the Halifax Plc from 1996 to 1999, having joined its board as group finance director in 1989. During his time on the board, Gren was involved in the merger & integration of the Halifax & Leeds Permanent Building Societies, the £18 billion flotation of Halifax Plc & the £750 million takeover of Birmingham Midshires Building Society.
Since retiring from the Halifax, Gren has built up a portfolio of non-executive directorships in the financial services industry & the public sector including Debt Free Direct plc, Partnerships UK plc & Institute of Public Finance Limited.
Blake C. Kleinman
Blake is a Director at Hellman & Friedman in the London office.
Blake is a Director of Gartmore Investment Management plc and was active in the firm's investments in Arch Capital Group, Axel Springer AG, ProSiebenSat.1 AG, Mondrian Investment Partners Ltd and The Nielsen Company.
Prior to joining the firm in 2001, Blake worked in the Mergers, Acquisitions and Restructurings Department at Morgan Stanley and Co. in New York.
Blake graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.