Brian Duperreault

Brian Charles Duperreault (born May 8, 1947) is a Bermuda-born American executive in the insurance industry.

He stepped down as executive chairman of American International Group in December 2021.

Duperreault was born in Paget, Bermuda in 1947.

His parents had separated before he was born, and in order to be near her closest friend, his mother had moved to Bermuda.

A Catholic single mother, after his birth she moved with her 5-month-old son to Trenton, New Jersey where her sister lived, and worked as an accountant.

Duperreault was educated at Catholic schools, graduating in 1965 from St. Anthony High School, since renamed Trenton Catholic Academy.

He attended Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where he received a B.S. in mathematics in 1969.

He began to pursue a master's degree in mathematics at the University of Maryland but was drafted in November 1969.

After receiving a waiver to complete his first year of study there, he enlisted in the U.S. Army in May 1970 and spent three years at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Duperreault had originally thought of becoming a professor of mathematics but, newly married, he decided he wanted a better income than an academic life could provide.

After he was discharged from the army, he researched job ideas at a library, where he learned about the actuary profession.

Duperreault's entire career has been in the insurance industry, beginning in 1973 as an actuary at AIG.

He quickly rose through the ranks to become one of AIG's most senior executives, eventually heading all of AIG's international operations.

At the age of 26 in 1973, shortly after completing his military service, Duperreault was hired at AIG as an actuary.

AIG at the time was a midsize property-casualty insurer, and was in the early stages of its transformation by CEO Maurice R. "Hank" Greenberg into one of the world's largest financial-services firms.

Duperreault rose steadily through several leadership positions.

He was chief actuary from 1978 to 1981, senior vice president of AIG subsidiary American Home Assurance from 1981 through 1988, and chief casualty officer from 1985 through 1987.

He became one of AIG's most senior executives.

From 1989 until 1991 he was CEO of AIG affiliates in Japan and Korea.

From 1991 to April 1994 he was president of American International Underwriters, AIG's overseas property-casualty insurance unit.

In June 1993 while still president of American International Underwriters he was concurrently named to the additional position of executive vice president of AIG's Foreign General Insurance, and in April 1994 he was promoted from president to chairman and CEO of American International Underwriters; in these two positions he headed AIG's entire international operations.

He was regarded as a likely successor to CEO Hank Greenberg, but as Greenberg showed no signs of retiring Duperreault left AIG in 1994 to head ACE Limited, a boutique specialty-insurance company based in Bermuda.

During his 10 years as chairman and CEO of ACE Limited, Duperreault transformed it into global multi-line insurance and reinsurance powerhouse.

This also helped to transform Bermuda from an island nation with a small, reinsurance-focused market into a global insurance center.

He was long considered by industry colleagues and Wall Street analysts to be a potential successor to Greenberg, but Greenberg showed no signs of retiring, and after 21 years at AIG, Duperreault resigned in September 1994 to head ACE Limited, one of AIG's competitors.

In October 1994 Duperreault became the chairman, president, and CEO of ACE Limited, which at the time was a boutique specialty insurance company based in Bermuda with 50 employees.

He greatly expanded and diversified the company, particularly via targeted acquisitions.

He quickly added new lines of insurance, including satellite, financial lines, aviation, and excess property coverages.

In 1996 he led the acquisitions of Tempest Re and Lloyd's managing agencies Methuen and Ockham.

After retiring in 2006, upon request Duperreault came out of retirement in January 2008 to turn around the ailing Marsh & McLennan Companies, which was still suffering after a 2004 bid-rigging scandal that cost the company both hundreds of millions of dollars and also its reputation and morale.

In his five years as president and CEO of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Duperreault returned it to profitability and growth, rebuilt morale and reputation, and revived the confidence of investors and clients.

Duperreault retired again on December 31, 2012, but soon became interested enough in cutting-edge data analytics to create an insurance company focused on advanced data science with the co-founders of the hedge fund Two Sigma Investments, a leader in quantitative analysis.

The result was Hamilton Insurance Group, founded in Bermuda in December 2013 with Duperreault as CEO.

He grew the company via acquisitions, including insurance and reinsurance, operations in the U.S., and a syndicate at Lloyd's of London.

In late 2016, Hamilton Insurance Group also partnered with AIG and Two Sigma to create Attune, a data-enabled, algorithm-driven company that sells commercial insurance online to small and medium-sized businesses.

In 2017, AIG, still underperforming after its long saga following the 2008 financial crisis, called upon Duperreault to turn around the company following then-CEO Peter Hancock's March 2017 resignation.

Duperreault was hired as CEO of AIG In May 2017.

He began his tenure as CEO by immediately curtailing share buybacks and instead using capital for acquisitions.

He installed a new team of top-tier senior management and 125 senior underwriters to execute his vision of tighter efficiencies and smarter risk-taking.

He also eliminated AIG's prior separation into commercial and consumer businesses, instead restructuring the company into three new units: General Insurance, Life and Retirement, and a stand-alone technology unit called Blackboard Insurance which had been Hamilton's U.S. division acquired by AIG upon his hiring.