McClain to Lead Arkansas Insurance Department: Personnel Matters

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has appointed Alan McClain to be the state's insurance commissioner. McClain succeeds Allen Kerr, who resigned to take a job in the private sector, officials said. (Related: National Guardian Life Hires CFO for New Dental and Vision Business: Personnel Matters) The name of Kerr's new employer is not yet available. McClain previously was commissioner of the Arkansas Rehabilitation Services  division of the state Department of Commerce. The Arkansas Insurance Department is now part of the state's Department of Commerce. McClain has a bachelor's degree from Hendrix College and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He worked for Sedgwick Insurance Group early in his career, then began working for the Arkansas Insurance Department in 1992. He worked for the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission for 13 years and was the chief executive officer of that commission for about nine years. In other personnel news: The board of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina has named Dr. Tunde Sotunde to be North Carolina Blue's president and CEO. Sotunde is now president, Medicaid business unit, at Anthem Inc.'s government business division. Sotunde also has worked as president and CEO of Amerigroup Georgia, an Anthem subsidiary. Sotunde has a degree from the University of Ibadan College of Medicine in Nigeria. He completed his residency at the Howard University Hospital Residency Program in Pediatrics. He also has a master's degree in business from the University of Memphis. Before Sotunde went to work for Anthem, he practice medicine at a hospital in Trinidad, and he served as chief of pediatrics at Syracuse Community Health Center in Syracuse, New York. Sotunde has also served as a chief medical officer and in other leadership roles at organizations such as UnitedHealthcare and Cigna. The board of First Financial Northwest Inc., a bank in Renton, Washington, has named Diane Davis to its board. Davis previously was president of Farmers New World Life Insurance Company. She also has been a regional chief risk officer at Zurich Insurance Company Ltd. Davis has a bachelor's degree in actuarial science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a master's degree in business from the University of Washington. She is a fellow of the Society of Actuaries. — Read Tennessee Has a New Insurance Division Head: Personnel Matters, on ThinkAdvisor. — Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.