Forness now Group CEO MultiStrat, James promoted to CUO, Grealy takes expanded PM role

MultiStrat, the specialist underwriter, and reinsurance investment facilitator, has announced two senior promotions within its underwriting team, with Kier James, Vice President, Underwriting, stepping up to become Chief Underwriting Officer (CUO), while Patrick Grealy, Executive Vice President, transitions to the expanded role of Portfolio & Performance Management.

Both promotions come as the company continues to expand its expertise, talent, capital, brokers, investors, and carrier partners in 2024 and into 2025.

At the same time, MultiStrat also confirmed that Bob Forness, who previously served as the company’s Chief Executive and Chief Underwriting Officer, will now shift his focus on leading as Group CEO.

A renowned veteran across both the insurance-linked securities (ILS) space and reinsurance industry, James brings over 15 years of expertise towards his new role.

Throughout his career, he has served in a variety of analytics and underwriting positions in both Bermuda and London.
He joined MultiStrat in 2023, following a near two-year stint at Everest Re, the reinsurance arm of Everest Group, where he served as a Property Underwriter (Bermuda).

In addition, James is also a Bermuda qualified lawyer, Professional Risk Manager (PRMIA) and ACII designation holder.
Moreover, Grealy has worked at MultiStrat for over 10 years, having joined the reinsurance investment facilitator in November 2013.

A prominent figure across the firm, Grealy is responsible for developing MultiStrat’s portfolio and performance management of its growing book of transactions and portfolios for investors.

However, in his expanded role, Grealy will primarily be focusing on insurance and investment performance, portfolio optimization, capacity allocation, analytics, reserving, and legacy resolutions.

“MultiStrat is primed for growth and continues to build out its team to help achieve our ambitious growth goals. While we continue to add exceptional new professionals to our team, today I want to highlight two members of our team who deserve enhanced roles within our growing company. Kier and Patrick’s promotions are testament to their extensive understanding of underwriting, actuarial, and collateralized reinsurance space and their commitment to MultiStrat’s exciting evolution as a company,” commented Forness.

Adding: “During 2024 and 2025, MultiStrat will continue to build out its talent base to meet growth demands, increase its footprint into other lines of business and territories, further develop its technology infrastructure for data automation and analytics, underwriting, pricing, claims oversight, collateral administration, and insurance and investment portfolio optimization. We have a phenomenal opportunity in front of us.”

In April, it was revealed that MultiStrat had so far deployed $1.75 billion of investor capital through its completed casualty ILS deals. It was also revealed that MultiStrat had underwritten and placed more than 50 single and multiclass transactions since its launch in 2014.