Pine Walk CEO Rinku Patel takes leave of absence

By James Thaler, Scott Vincent, Ryan Hewlett

July 8 - (The Insurer) – Pine Walk founder and CEO Rinku Patel has taken a leave of absence from the Fidelis Partnership's MGA incubator platform, senior market sources told The Insurer.

It is not currently known how long the executive will be away from the helm of Pine Walk or whether his absence will become permanent, sources said. Pine Walk and the Fidelis Partnership declined to comment.

Patel co-founded Pine Walk in 2017 with support from Fidelis and its founder Richard Brindle as the group’s in-house MGU arm.

The former Hyperion chief financial officer and chief operating officer previously served as COO and UK CEO of TFP (formerly Fidelis MGU). He took on the role in early 2022 following the bifurcation project of which split Fidelis into a listed balance sheet business and managing general underwriter but was replaced as COO by Suzanne Welles in April.

TFP said at the time that the move would enable Patel to “focus solely” on his role as Pine Walk CEO.

Under Patel’s leadership Pine Walk has grown to handle gross written premium in excess of $900 million in 2024. Speaking exclusively to The Insurer in September last year, Patel said the MGA platform was expected to surpass $1 billion in GWP in 2025.

The first cell to launch via the platform was Radius, underwriting niche specialty XoL treaty business including cyber under the leadership of former Hiscox Re executive Rob Ashton.

Subsequent launches on the platform have included Clive Washbourn’s marine MGA Navium in 2021, surety-focused Oakside, upstream energy-focused Kersey and product recall-focused Perigon.

In March, Pine Walk unveiled international casualty MGA Seventa as its twelfth underwriting cell.