Our Story

Who We Are

The Clipeum GroupTM is an elite team of experts and professionals who are:

  • Determined to create value in the marketplace for our clients and for our community.
  • Servant leaders who focus on the growth and well-being of employees, clients and other stakeholders who work with us. 

Our staff, our team, and our culture are built on the relentless pursuit of creating value and revenue growth for our clients. In return we will be a merit-based company that will highly incentivize and reward this achievement of excellence that serves others while growing the vital capabilities of our firm.

Our Team

 

Jeff Conway

Chief Executive Officer

For over 30 years Jeff been a leading innovator in multiple facets of the insurance industry. He has grown a wholesale E&S company with the responsibility for overall vision, strategy, product development and leadership. Jeff has succeeded in founding and building multiple insurance, and insurance associated, companies (Conway Holdings Group), focused on program brokerage, program management, MGA/MGU, wholesaler, captive management, and insurance support services. Jeff’s has deep expertise in large deal insurance negotiation, and placement, which drives his passion to lead our teams to create customized insurance programs, as well as to design, implement, and manage micro-insurance companies for our clients.

 Russ Johnston

Executive Vice President

National Director, Sales and Marketing 

Russ has been an insurance professional since 2010. He’s worked on the brokerage side as well as the business development, marketing, and sales sides of the business.  From 2010 – 2014, he created and grew the Western Division of Conway E&S as the VP of Conway Insurance Services, West.  For the last 5 years, Russ held the position of Western Regional Sales Director for AON, the largest insurance brokerage in the world, managing thousands of broker relationships within a 13-state territory. In 2021 He re-joined Conway Holdings Group to lead marketing and sales across Conway E&S, The Clipeum Group, and other subsidiaries.  As a golf team member and graduate of the University of Akron (Zips), Russ continues to utilize golf to entertain clients and to accumulate as many industry Scramble titles as possible. 

 Cherie Rogan

Chief Financial Officer

Cherie leads the financial teams of several Conway Holdings Group companies.  She has over 15 years of accounting & finance experience, 10 years being in the insurance industry. She has experience auditing insurance companies (including captives) and worked for a medical malpractice insurance carrier who sold directly to the insured. Cherie moved to Pittsburgh in 2016 and spent the last 4 years consulting small businesses with their accounting and finance needs. Cherie holds a BA in Accounting and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration and has recently been appointed a Pennsylvania Notary. She manages 12 captive insurance companies’ finance and operations and is involved with the reporting and accounting for our programs.

Matt Barrett

Director, Captive Insurance Group

Matt brings decades of insurance industry experience to The Clipeum Group, along with over 10 years of experience managing the entire process of analyzing client needs to design a captive solution, through the formation, and then ongoing  management of captive insurance companies.  Matt has managed large groups of captives, and brings a unique understanding of on-shore and off-shore structures and strategies.  He leads the firms efforts to engage new and existing clients in a comprehensive analysis of their  risk management needs, and the subsequent development and implementation alternative risk strategies that protect their businesses, while also growing new revenue streams. 

Joanne Paras

Director, Data and Information Systems

Joanne has been managing insurance system and data analysis with the firm for 18 years.  In addition to her daily supervision of all data and analytics, she also coordinates all of Clipeum’s state and individual licensing compliance requirements. Joanne strives to be efficient in all that she does and she is constantly creating data analysis tools that allows her to manage reporting needs of the firm along with the surplus lines requirement in all US states.  She is the proud mother of three adult children.

Carrie Chappie

senior underwriter

Carrie has been in the insurance business for 29 years. Throughout her career she has held positions as a retail broker, large lines underwriter, team leader and Chief Product Officer. Carrie has overseen insurance for a wide variety of clients from Fortune 500 clients to small startup operations all the way to exclusive program creation and management. As a graduate of Liberty University, Carrie majored in Business Management & Social Science. She is a member of the Insurance Club of Pittsburgh and holds her AIS designation. Carrie lives in Pittsburgh with her husband where they are actively involved in their church and youth mentoring.

Patricia A. Butwinski

Associate Director, Captive Insurance Group

With 30+ years in the insurance industry, Patty has held positions ranging from Coder to Underwriter with various insurance companies, as well as a Customer Service Representative on the Retail Agency side in both Personal and Commercial Lines.  Her wholesale career started with DVUA as a Broker Assistant.  She joined Conway E & S in 1999 as a broker assistant.  Patty was an underwriter in the MGA / Small Business unit before transitioning to work with Captive companies and currently holds the position of Vice President of Administration for Conway Alternative Risk Solutions managing the administration of Captive Insurance Companies.  Patty earned her ASLI designation in 2014 and AU in 2015.  Patty lives with her husband in Beaver County.

Maximilian Malloy

Program Manager, Programs Group

For several years Max has brought a diverse range of experience to the product development team in which he leads projects that drive innovative approaches to private insurance companies, insurance programs, and other alternative structures for our clients. A licensed insurance professional, Max is also trained in research methodologies and has published several articles in academic journals.  Max graduated with honors from McGill University with a degree in international studies and economics.  Fluent in French and Spanish, Max has been in over 16 countries and during that time has diverse experience in research, finance, economics and managing teams in start up companies.  

 

Megan L. Krut

Assistant Controller

Megan is a 2014 graduate from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, with a major in accounting. Megan joined the accounting team in 2016 as an Accounts Payable Associate and having excelled in this role was quickly promoted to Staff Accountant in 2017, and then to Assistant Controller. Megan now oversees the daily accounting for all of our captive clients, and is currently responsible for managing the day to day accounting activity and quarterly financial preparation for Clipeum’s Captive Group.

Cory Gill

Program Underwriter

Corey leads the firm’s underwriting efforts with our new insurance programs. With over 9 years in the insurance industry, Corey has extensive experience writing new and renewal commercial insurance business with admitted and non-admitted carriers.  He has lead the underwriting of nationwide programs with extensive broker networks.  Corey has written all lines of business across many industries.  Corey is also interested in mentorship of others and has been involved in several initiatives in this area.

 Jake Ford

Insurance Data Analyst

Jake graduated from Geneva College with a major in Applied Mathematics and minors in Actuarial Science and Data Science. Jake started working at The Clipeum Group as an Insurance Data Analyst to work with our product development teams. He has passed the actuarial exams of Exam P, Exam FM, Exam IFM, Exam FAM-S and Exam STAM and will continue to work towards earning his Associate of the Society of Actuaries (ASA) credential.  Jake was a multi-sport athlete in football and basketball through college and enjoys working on teams to achieve common objectives.