Management Team

Jeff Rieder is President of Ward Group^®. Jeff has significant experience in the insurance industry with expertise in the property-casualty and life, health and annuity segments. Throughout Jeff's 18 year career, he has been involved with over 350 projects for numerous regional, national and international insurance companies, covering a diverse range of technology, performance, and operational evaluations. Jeff joined Ward Group in 1998, after he worked five years for a major property-casualty company in the corporate finance department. Jeff leads the firm's annual Ward's 50 analysis of the financial performance of every property-casualty and life-health insurance company in the industry identifying the top performers in each segment. The Ward's 50 Benchmark Group has achieved international recognition and is widely regarded as one of the insurance industry's distinct achievements.

Jeff is a frequent speaker at insurance industry conferences on a diverse range of subjects, including, among others, claims operations, human resources, information technology, agency management, distribution system analysis and expense benchmarking.

Jeff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting and international business certification from the University of Cincinnati.

Brad Stegman is Chief Operating Officer and has served at Ward Group since the company was founded in 1991. He was instrumental in the systems design and development of all Ward Group applications and technological infrastructure. Brad has over 19 years experience in the insurance industry and has been involved with and supported over 1,000 benchmarking and consulting projects at property-casualty and life, health and annuity insurance companies throughout the United States and Canada. He has extensive experience in applications design, development and implementation, systems analysis, process reengineering and financial modeling.

Brad holds a Bachelor of Science degree in industrial engineering from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to the founding of Ward Group, he was Project Engineer at Colejon Corporation.

Charlie Gall is Senior Director of Benchmarking Services at Ward Group. Charlie has over 17 years experience in the insurance industry, working with over 100 insurance companies throughout the United States and Canada. He has expertise in both the property-casualty and the life, health and annuity segments. Throughout his career, Charlie has directed numerous consulting projects covering a diverse range of operational performance, expense benchmarking and project management.

Charlie holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to joining Ward Group, he served as Project Manager and Controller for a national property-casualty insurance company.

Betty Cornelius is Director of Marketing and has served at Ward Group since 1994. Betty is critical to defining and implementing the corporate marketing strategy for Ward Group. She has coordinated efforts with marketing teams at many high performing Ward's 50 recipient companies and has been instrumental in making the certification and placement on the list of Ward's 50 companies an international recognition which is widely regarded as one of the insurance industry's elite achievements. More recently, Betty has led efforts to promote new benchmarking initiatives at Ward Group leading to significant growth and added value to Ward Group clients.

Betty holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the College of Mount St. Joseph. Prior to joining Ward Group, she served as an independent marketing and graphic design advisor.

Quin Netzel is a Director of Ward Group. During his 19 year career, Quin has lead various insurance processing, underwriting, claims and customer service operations. Quin is a disciplined business strategist successful in identifying improvement opportunities and retooling insurance operations to maximize performance and financial outcomes.

Prior to joining Ward Group, Quin served as Chief Operating Officer of Florida Citizens Property Insurance Corporation where he initiated corporate-wide projects to streamline underwriting and policy processing operations. Quin has also held senior management positions with Craig-IS, ACE USA, Renaissance Re US and State Farm.

Quin holds a B.A. in Business & Communication from the University of Illinois and a Juris Doctorate from Southern Illinois University.

Felix Schachter is Director of UK/Europe for Ward Group. He is responsible for developing Ward Group’s operations across the UK and Europe in property-casualty, life and health segments. He has extensive experience in strategy, commercial management, finance and M&A.

Prior to joining Ward group, Felix advised several investment funds and management consultancies on the insurance industry and prior to that worked globally for several multinationals , including AXA, RBS, Samsung and Andersen. In his last corporate role he served as Head of Group Strategy for AXA UK & Ireland.

Felix is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a MBA from London Business School.

Leah Hollstegge is a Manager at the Ward Group. Joining the Ward Group in 2005, Leah has led benchmarking and consulting projects at property-casualty and life, health and annuity insurance companies throughout the United States and Canada. She has worked with insurance companies in detailed assessments of their Information Technology Operations, allowing companies to maximize their Information Technology spend to meet corporate priorities. Leah also designed the quantitative approach Ward Group uses to measure the operational performance of clients.

Leah holds a Bachelor of Science in Actuarial Science and a Masters of Business Administration from Ohio University. Prior to joining the Ward Group, she worked as management consultant for the Voinovich Center.

William Lang is a Manager at Ward Group and has been with the company since 2001. William has led numerous benchmarking and consulting projects at property-casualty and life, health and annuity insurance companies throughout the United States and Canada. He was extensively involved in the development, testing, and launch of Ward Group's newest benchmarking application and continues to support the maintenance and enhancement efforts with the application.

William holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from the University of Cincinnati. Prior to joining the Ward Group, William worked in the Internal Audit department for the Union Central Life Insurance Company.

Matthew Ryan is a Senior Consultant with Ward Group. Since joining the company, he has led a wide range of benchmarking projects for property-casualty and life-health insurers in both the United States and Canada. Matt has been engaged in various consulting projects and was instrumental in launching the Ward Research Center. In addition to his role in benchmarking, Matt is responsible for coordinating, developing and administering operational research initiatives at property-casualty insurers.

Matt holds a bachelors of Science degree in finance from Miami University and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Cincinnati. He is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and also holds a Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM) designation. Prior to joining Ward Group, Matt worked in an agency manager role for the Broker-Dealer division of Touchstone Investments, part of the Western and Southern Financial Group.

Matthew Robbins is a Senior Consultant with the Ward Group. Since joining Ward Group in 2007, Matthew has led benchmarking projects for property-casualty and life-health insurers, including Claims and IT-specific studies. He has been engaged in a variety of consulting projects, and responsible for the development and administration of various strategic studies, to analyze key functional areas of property-casualty insurance company operations.

Matthew holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Transylvania University in Lexington, KY as well as a Masters in Business Administration from Miami University. Prior to working for Ward Group, Matthew worked as a claims representative for a large, national P&C insurer before completing his MBA.