Deborah Smallwood
Co-Founder
Smallwood Maike & Associates
A co-founder of Smallwood Maike, Deb Smallwood has held leadership roles in a premier insurance company, professional services firm, and research advisory, where she consistently found new ways to leverage technology in achieving optimal business performance. Her skill set includes business strategy, the development of business and IT roadmaps, and the delivery of enterprise solutions and systems to the business.
Prior to Smallwood Maike, Deb served as Chief Transformation Officer for Insurance Company of the West (ICW Group), a Property & Casualty regional carrier. Recruited to ICW to deliver as much IT functionality to the business operations as possible in the least amount of time, Deb led company wide change initiatives that included developing and integrating the corporate business strategies into a new Business/IT roadmap and expanding capability of the IT organization's people, process and technology.
Before joining ICW, Deb launched and served as Managing Director of TowerGroup's Insurance Research & Consulting Practice, where she led cutting edge research on topics like P&C underwriting, claims, and business & IT alignment, and provided strategic advisory services for leading top tier insurers and solutions providers.
Prior to TowerGroup, she was a Partner at KPMG LLP, where she launched an IT consulting practice specializing in the assessment and management of IT risks for the insurance industry, and assessed over 100 insurers.
Deb began her career at Liberty Mutual, where she directed a variety of large scale system development projects, and rose to leadership of the commercial lines application and development group.
Deb is a frequent contributor to leading insurance trade journals, and has been a keynote speaker at leading conferences such as ACORD/LOMA Forum, NAMIC, ISOTECH, and IASA. Deb is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Business Administration.