Tysers Insurance Brokers in London has appointed John Lentaigne as its new global head of political risk trade credit.

Lentaigne previously served in Nairobi as acting CEO of the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), a position he had taken up in June 2019 following the suspension of the company’s former CEO George Otieno. Prior to that, Lentaigne had been ATI’s chief underwriting officer since 2016.

Throughout his 15-year career in the credit and political risk insurance market, Lentaigne  has also held positions at Brit Insurance, Axis Capital and AXA XL.

At Tysers, he is tasked with consolidating the political risk and credit capabilities of Tyser and RFIB, the independent specialist Lloyd’s broker that Tyser acquired at the end of last year, as well as continuing to  expand the business over the next few years.

He will work closely with the existing team, including Richard Macfarlane, managing director of international property and casualty at Tysers and Toby Heppel, director of political risk and trade credit at RFIB.

“John will be joining us at an exciting time, as we look to consolidate Tysers’ and RFIB’s political risk and credit capabilities, and his expertise will be invaluable as we look diversify into new markets,” says Heppel.

Commenting on his move, Lentaigne says: “I am excited to join Tysers as the company has a strong position in the specialist political risk trade credit insurance market, and several of their existing clients are in the multilateral space. This is a great opportunity for me to build on my recent experience working at African Trade Insurance Agency.”

ATI, a pan-African provider of credit and political risk insurance, recently appointed Manuel Moses, a veteran of the World Bank’s IFC, as its new CEO.

In February this year it named Deepak Dave as its chief risk officer, a newly created position for the company.

“We are thrilled that John is joining Tysers, where we hope to have an opportunity to continue working with him, albeit in a different capacity,” Benjamin Mugisha, ATI’s chief underwriting officer, tells GTR. “While at ATI John moved mountains helping to position ATI as a truly global institution – Tysers is lucky to have him.”