Innes Dey

Definity Financial Corporation

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“I had a picture of a house, and the house was Premiere Mortgage Centre”

Kerri Reed, Premiere Mortgage Centre

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Winner: Law Department Leader of the Year

Winner : Law Department Leader of the Year

A presence at Economical Insurance since 2011, Innes Dey held a range of senior executive roles including General Counsel, Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Risk Officer and Chief Legal Officer before assuming his current post as Senior Vice-President, Legal and Strategy of Definity Financial Corporation. From day one, Dey played a critical role in steering the company through a complex demutualization process, while at the same time strengthening the corporate and operational capabilities across the enterprise that the company would need to thrive as a public company. A key piece of that puzzle was building a legal team of sophisticated professionals from scratch, a career defining privilege that Dey points to as one of his most rewarding experiences at Economical Insurance, now Definity. A trusted partner in that mission has been Michael Padfield, a seasoned professional who joined the team to help guide day-to-day management as General Counsel, while Dey’s executive leadership portfolio expanded. Together, they have pursued a strategy focused on talent selection, mentorship, and empowerment to foster an environment of professional growth for a robust team of ground breakers who consistently operate at the highest level in their field. In 2021, Dey and his team saw the culmination of over a decade of hard work with the successful conclusion of Economical Insurance’s demutualization – the first of its kind in Canada -- and the concurrent initial public offering of the newly formed parent company Definity Financial Corporation. Although the life insurance industry saw successful transactions completed decades earlier, the prospect of demutualization in the property and casualty insurance industry was both novel and, in some respects, controversial. In an environment marked by opposition over concerns about the elimination of mutual companies upon which rural communities depend, Dey led a government relations team who worked with the Federal government to create a regulatory framework that would ensure fair treatment of stakeholders and permit demutualization to proceed in a way that would allow demutualizing companies to realize their full potential once public. With that framework in place, the team successfully worked through a multi-year process of court-supervised stakeholder negotiations to establish a formal conversion plan and secure an extensive series of regulatory reviews and eligible policyholder approvals, leading to its eventual IPO. Key to Economical’s success was consistent and proactive engagement with OSFI and the federal government, effective management of multi-stakeholder negotiations, and the technical expertise required to navigate the complexities of parallel capital markets transactions. In the end, Definity completed a C$1.6-billion IPO and C$800-million concurrent private placements, marking the second largest debut in TSX history. The legal team’s exemplary performance through a particularly complex period illustrates the excellent work they do on multiple fronts every day and is a testament to the quality and stability of the leadership investment that’s been made over many years. Throughout, Dey brought a steady hand to help guide Definity’s transformation. In the trenches of the transaction, Dey challenged his team to dynamically anticipate issues in uncharted waters to navigate complexity and ensure that Definity’s objectives were achieved across concurrent transactions. At the same time, he invested significant time in the boardroom, helping his peers and the Board align on a broad range of legal and business objectives to help position Definity for long term success as a public company. As a newly minted public company, the Definity team is at the forefront as the company executes against an ambitious growth agenda designed to place it among the leaders in Canada’s property and casualty insurance industry.

Andrea is an Employee Learning and Development professional with two years of experience who is passionate about using her skills to implement innovative and pioneering HR initiatives to drive a culture of professional development. Her strengths lay in people and relationship management, critical thinking and delivering behaviour change projects with an innovative twist. She has been responsible for introducing compliance learning tailored to our significantly diverse employee base of over 12,000 and using her skills to create engagement for and roll out of 'Altogether Autism & Neurodiversity awareness programme at The Warehouse Group. She has shifted the way our team engages with learning, cultivating a continuous learning and development culture specific to their journey.

Built from scratch, Innes Dey helms a dynamic, sophisticated, and groundbreaking legal team at Definity

A steady hand through unchartered waters

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