Brown & Riding, founded in Northern California in 1980, and headquartered in Los Angeles since 1987, has elected to officially relocate its corporate headquarters to Dallas, Texas.
In 2007, Brown & Riding began a rapid national expansion, resulting in a coast-to-coast footprint with more than half of all offices, employees, and customer relationships now east of the continental divide. The company has since become one of the Top Five largest wholesale brokerages in the nation and the largest wholesale brokerage free of outside ownership. The company is 100% owned by over 50 employee shareholders. According to Chris Brown, Chairman, “Brown & Riding has been a national company for over a decade. Our organic growth has reached over $2Billion in annual premium volume and is paced to continue on a steep trajectory. Centralizing our headquarters is a natural step to continue to best serve our business partners and staff throughout the country.”
According to Jeff Rodriguez, Brown & Riding’s CEO since 2010, and Texas resident since 2016, “The company chose and implemented a highly flat organizational structure that is decentralized and ultra-adaptive. As such, Brown & Riding has executive leadership and senior administrative staff located in many of its geographies and locations.” Brown & Riding’s Compliance Department has been based in Mississippi since 2013, and its Chief Human Resources Officer, Christopher Welty, has resided in Atlanta since 2014. More recently, Harold Nam, Brown & Riding’s CFO, elected to move to Dallas to more effectively interact with the accounting and compliance teams situated across the country. According to Nam, “It was time for me to choose a central location to make it easier to communicate with all time zones and for our teams to more efficiently and effectively service our internal and external customers.”
Mike Boseman, Brown & Riding’s COO based out of Los Angeles, adds “Although our operations continue to rapidly expand nationally, particularly in Texas, the South, and the Midwest, we continue to see strong growth in our West Coast locations – including California where we are in the process of executing new long-term leases, expanding our office footprints by roughly 30%.”
Rodriguez added, “While many of us have relocated over the past 5-10 years, there are those that remain committed to residing on the West Coast, including Chris Brown and Mike Boseman, who are both staying in Southern California. We also have several executive leaders with national roles, including our Chief Distribution Officer, Cristi Carrington, who resides in the Pacific Northwest.”
Brown & Riding will remain 100% employee owned and managed, and focused on continually providing clients and employees best-in-class opportunities and service. The relocation of its corporate headquarters to Dallas will only further solidify the firm’s position as a nationally recognized industry leader.