Osborne to lead S&P N. American practice

NEW YORK—Standard & Poor's Corp. has named Grace Osborne leader of the firm's North America Insurance Practice.

Ms. Osborne succeeds Steve Dreyer, who was named U.S. practice leader for utilities and project finance within New York-based S&P's Industrial Ratings Group.

Ms. Osborne, a managing director at S&P, most recently was leader of the ratings agency's advanced analytics team, which performs tailored capital analysis and rates funding agreement-backed notes for institutional and retail markets, catastrophe bonds and insurance-related securitizations.

She also was the chairperson of S&P's Americas Insurance Criteria Committee, a group responsible for overseeing development and implementation of ratings criteria for the insurance sectors in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Bermuda and for coordinating criteria issues with other regions and practices at S&P.

A certified public accountant, Ms. Osborne was the accounting coordinator for S&P's North American insurance sector, with responsibilities including identifying accounting issues of importance to the ratings process.

Rodney Clark, an S&P director, will succeed Ms. Osborne as leader of S&P's Advanced Analytics team. He previously was an analyst for life insurers, life reinsurers and insurance-related securitizations.