The moves split Chubb’s digital business into separate <a s transition into a newly created chief scientist role.
Johan Oosthuizen has been named global head of digital business, and Gabriel Lazaro has been named global head of digital growth and strategic consumer partnerships.
Ringsted, who has spent more than three decades at Chubb and its predecessor, Ace Group, spanning risk, digital transformation, analytics and actuarial leadership, was named chief scientist and executive vice president of Chubb Group, taking on responsibility for the company’s artificial intelligence, data and analytics strategy worldwide. He most recently served as executive vice president and chief digital business officer, where he led Chubb’s global AI efforts and built the digital business unit he has now handed off in two parts.
Two roles built from one
Oosthuizen assumes executive oversight for all facets of Chubb’s global digital business, including the acquisition and performance of partnerships and the deployment of approved products. He moves into this role from his position as global digital chief <a s global digital technology strategy and helped establish its embedded insurance and digital partnership capabilities over more than 20 years in digital transformation and innovation.
He reports to Paul McNamee, president of overseas general insurance and executive vice president of Chubb Group, and is separately accountable to Bryce Johns, president of Chubb Life, for life-related production.
Lazaro takes on responsibility for Chubb’s partnership relationships specifically, shaping growth strategies across digital <a s digital ambitions possible, and that his combination of deep technical expertise and commercial instincts for how partnerships create value makes him the right leader for the digital business's next phase of growth.
McNamee said Lazaro has consistently shown his ability to collaborate with digital partners across Chubb Overseas General to build lasting insurance relationships, and that his track record across that division speaks for itself.
The wider read
The structural logic here is fairly clear: rather than replacing Ringsted with a single successor covering his entire former remit, Chubb has divided his responsibilities into a technology and product delivery track under Oosthuizen and a partnership growth and relationship track under Lazaro, who reports into Oosthuizen as well as McNamee.
That division suggests Chubb views the management of its existing digital infrastructure and partnerships as a distinct discipline from the active pursuit of new ones. This split may reflect the significant scale of Chubb’s embedded and digital partnership book since Ringsted originally built the unit—a portfolio now large enough to require two dedicated global leaders rather than one.
