New CEO named for White Mountains unit

White Mountains Insurance Group is hiring California-based consultant Thompson Hutton to be chief executive officer and president of the company’s major reassurance subsidiary, White Mountains Re Group.

Hutton will be taking over the subsidiary from Steve Fass, who serves as CEO of the entire parent company, which is based in Bermuda but whose U.S. headquarters are in Hanover, N.H.

“I have known Tom for nearly five years. He is a seasoned, polished executive with clear vision and impressive accomplishments. He is an effective leader whose skills nicely complement the strong underwriting backgrounds of the other senior White Mountains Re officers. We are delighted to welcome Tom to our team,” Fass said in a released statement.

Hutton, based in Palo Alto, Calif., formed Thompson Hutton LLC in 2003 as a firm that provides management, investment and advisory services to private equity and venture capital firms and their portfolio companies.

He also was a venture partner of Trident Capital, also in Palo Alto. From 1990 to 2000, he was the CEO of California-based Risk Management Solutions.

Hutton is a board member of Montpelier Re Holdings Ltd, another reinsurance company under the White Mountain umbrella, though not directly affiliated with White Mountains Re.

Hutton told NHBR Daily that he will continue to live in California, but will probably work out of either New York City or Connecticut when he is on the East Coast, though he will visit New Hampshire often, both as a trustee at He also has at least one New Hampshire tie, serving as a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy, a prep school from which he graduated in 1973, and to meet with other White Mountain Insurance official.

“It doesn’t really matter that much where I am based, because I will be traveling most of the time, as my duties are international,” he said. – BOB SANDERS