Kim Rich has over 35 years experience as a manager, corporate executive, leader and business consultant. During his career, he has consistently demonstrated the ability to quickly analyze a variety of businesses, identify the key changes required to improve results and then drive those changes into the organization to turn underperforming businesses into profitable, growing, out-performers.
After serving two years in the U. S. Marine Corps, including 12 months in the Republic of South Vietnam, Kim began his career at the Travelers Insurance Companies Home Office in Hartford, CT. During his nine years there he not only received multiple promotions, but completed an undergraduate degree, attained a major professional designation and attended several advanced management programs designed for individuals demonstrating longer-term executive capabilities.
Kim subsequently joined Orion Capital Companies as the Director of Product Management, a role in which he was responsible for bringing to market multiple new products intended to accelerate the company’s growth. After three successful years in this role, he was asked to help turn-around the Northwest Region of the company, a region that had a history of unprofitable results and poor customer service. Results improved significantly within a year and within two years he was appointed the Regional Vice President. Two years later, he was promoted to Senior Vice President, responsible for the leadership of roughly one third of the Orion’s branch offices. In that role, Kim was required to address significant operational problems in multiple branches concurrently. In each case, immediate action was taken and results improved quickly and consistently.
In 1992 he joined the United States Fidelity and Guarantee Insurance Companies as a Senior Vice President, to lead the Workers' Compensation product line. At the time, USF&G was in serious financial difficulty and the Workers' Compensation results were a major contributor to those poor results. In the next two years, Mr. Rich put in place a new management team, developed a radically different product strategy and, with his team, improved results by some $300,000,000. Concurrently, Mr. Rich was “drafted” to assist and/or provide counsel on other troubled areas of the company.
In 1994 he was asked to assume the leadership role of USF&G’s largest geographic region, the Western Region. While its results were generally profitable, revenue growth had stalled and multiple growth opportunities were not being taken advantage of. Within six months, a new management team was in place, the existing branches were “revitalized”, and three new branches had been opened. A year later, the Region was recognized as one of the fastest growing in the nation.
In 1996, Kim was appointed Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Family and Small Business Insurance Group and in 1997, President of that group. With revenues in excess of $1 billion, and approximately 1,000 employees, the Group represented approximately one third of USF&G’s entire operations.
In 1998, USF&G was acquired by the St. Paul Insurance Companies, the culmination of a significant corporate turn- around. Once again, Mr. Rich was in a key position to help make that transaction happen and in fact, was subsequently appointed as USF&G’s executive liaison, overseeing the merger/acquisition process. While offered a senior executive position with the St. Paul Companies, Kim decided to leave the insurance industry and open his own consulting business.
Since 1999, Kim has consulted with a broad spectrum of businesses, each with unique issues, challenges and opportunities; from multiple "turn-around" situations to high tech start-ups, from retail stores to commercial service companies. His clients have consistently benefited from his expertise, experience and insight into the business issues they face and his work with clients has resulted in multiple success stories – successes that his clients can "take to the bank".
