Ian Hutchinson (seen above) has been hired by io.insure, a division of the insurtech giant POP Holdings Group, as a senior partner in the Asia Pacific region (APAC).
With this position, Hutchinson will be in charge of creating strategic alliances that will assist the growth of the online M&A insurance marketplace for small- and medium-sized business transactions known as Mio. Mio is a digital platform developed by io.insure.He will also oversee distribution, sales, and product development in this role. In responsibilities involving business development, M&A law, in-house legal, product development, strategy, operations, and general management, Hutchinson has more than 15 years of expertise.
Hutchinson has spent the previous six years living in Asia, most recently working as general manager of Hyphen Group's Singapore office, one of the biggest fintech firms in Greater Southeast Asia. He also served as head of staff and general counsel for this organisation. He has also worked as an M&A attorney, spending time at the Dublin offices of Addleshaw Goddard law firms William Fry and Eugene F. Collins.
“I am looking forward to working with the team at io.insure as the firm continues to experience well-deserved global success,” he said. “Having worked in this space for some time I have seen first-hand the problem in finding appropriate and niche solutions in the SME M&A and broader specialty space.” Hutchinson is headquartered in Singapore, but he will collaborate with the Australian team of io.insure there.
“Ian joins us at this exciting time as we develop new solutions to meet the needs of APAC’s growing SME M&A and financial lines insurance markets,” said Killian McDermott, io.insure co-founder and executive partner. “Having recently launched Mio, the first global M&A insurance platform for SMEs, which was created to address the significant risk protection gap in the SME market, we have several other exciting initiatives planned for the region in 2023.”
“We are building a global ecosystem of clients, brokers, advisors, insurers and MGAs as commercial partners on the io.insure platform,” said io.insure co-founder and executive partner David Rogers. “Our plan is to provide a platform for a full suite of specialty products.”
Early last year, io.insure introduced its online M&A insurance marketplace to Australia. According to McDermott hsvign, the country's robust M&A sector presents a good possibility for the platform to be successful. “The offline M&A product has a lot of uptake in Australia so you’ve got a very experienced ecosystem when it comes to M&A insurance in general,” he said at that time.