Bill Blake
Skills and experience
William "Bill" Blake is the Southwest Executive, SVP, for Zurich in North America. Bill is responsible for the business that Zurich transacts in Arizona, Southern California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. Prior to taking on this position in 2007, he was on the home office executive team for the Commercial Markets business unit.
External appointments
Bill served as Regional Vice President for Zurich North America Construction Business Unit’s Southwest and Northwest regions. In that role, he was responsible for providing leadership and direction to the regional team in the development and execution of regional strategy and achievement of the region's profitability, production, people and service goals for all lines of business.
Bill joined Zurich in 1997 in the Construction Business Unit, and has held several positions of increasing responsibility, including account executive and regional executive for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. In 1999, he assumed the position of Casualty Vice President for the Northwest and eventually served as the Regional Executive for the West for the Construction Business Unit.
Prior to joining Zurich, Mr. Blake served as assistant vice president at General Star Management Company. He also held various underwriting positions handling general liability, contractors' pollution liability and miscellaneous professional liability. Before that, he was a senior underwriter at the Hartford Insurance Group.
Educational background
Bill received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Hobart College in Geneva, NY.