By John George – Senior
Reporter, Philadelphia Business Journal
January
2, 2019
Petplan
has hired Paul Guyardo to
serve as the Newtown Square-based pet health insurance company's president and
CEO effective Jan. 28.
Guyardo
was most recently chief commercial officer for Discovery Communications, where
he is credited with quadrupling subscribers of Eurosport Player — a Discovery
European sports OTT service — from 250,000 to nearly 1 million within one year
and introduced nine TV streaming apps. Prior to that he was chief revenue and
marketing officer at DirectTV. Earlier in his career, he was chief marketing
officer for Kmart Corp. and executive vice president of Television &
Marketing at HSN.
Petplan
founders Natasha Ashton and Chris Ashton previously
shared the CEO title. The Ashtons still have their ownership stake in Petplan,
but they are no longer involved with the day-to-day management of the company.
“Health
insurance for pets is a big business in Europe but has yet to take off in the
United States and Canada,” said Vernon W. Hill II,
Petplan's board chairman. “Given Paul’s incredible track record, he is the
perfect person to introduce Petplan to millions of pet-loving homes across
North America.”
Guyardo
— who has his own 1-year-old Shichon named Huncho — noted about 1 percent of
the 185 million dogs and cats in North America are insured. “Petplan is
well-positioned to be the brand of choice given its higher-level of coverage
and customer service," he said.
The company
insurers more than 200,000 pets.
Petplan
policies are administered by Fetch Insurance Services LLC , which does business
as Petplan, and underwritten by XL Specialty Insurance Co. in the U.S. and XL
Specialty Insurance Co.–Canadian Branch in Canada.
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