David Ross: the almost single company man who is leaving Gallagher for Towergate

In fact, he worked for 18 months in Dublin where his grandfather had founded the "Irish equivalent of Bupa".

"As an energetic, ambitious teenager I came to London on a working holiday and interviewed with a lot of people. It was like listening to rock and roll for the first time; I felt completely liberated," he said.

"So I resigned and ran away from Dublin. My grandfather didn't speak to me for a year but he got over it."

Given the recent well publicised friction between both firms' underwriting operations you would think this would be the case, but perhaps Gallagher International chairman Tom Gallagher is more forgiving than Ross' grandfather.

So why has Ross decided to move to Towergate?

Money will have played a part, but ultimately he could quite simply be ready for a new challenge having spent most of his working life at Gallagher, building up the international arm from the age of 35.

In the same interview with Post, Ross commented on how Gallagher "was such a small company [when I started]".

But under his stewardship, the business has recently taken over the ‘acquisition machine' mantle that used to belong to Towergate.

Having done the Heath Lambert deal after JLT and Towergate could not make it work, Ross has left a significant mark with a string of deals from First City to Giles to Oval.

He has also attracted some significant hires with the likes of RSA's Adrian Brown and Aviva's Janice Deakin coming on board, whilst many others - Peter Blanc, Adrian Colosso etc ... decided not to hang around.

Towergate's new investors were obviously wooed by Ross' talent at bringing on the big names and consolidating businesses quickly - learning lessons from where others, including his new employer, have failed in the past.

Whether Ross' exposure to a single insurance culture - that of Gallagher - will work for or against him remains to be seen, and it would not surprise me if he picked up his contact book and pulled in a few surprise ‘name' hires.

Also, whilst his work at Gallagher in recent years is to be admired, the integration of the recent deals is still a work in progress, and some may argue the jury is out on Ross' success here.