David Friend joins as CFO and John Ross as SVP of Client Development as the company scales its AI platform across the P&C industry
SAN FRANCISCO, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ – ZestyAI, the Risk Decision Intelligence Platform for the insurance industry, today announced the appointments of David Friend as Chief Financial Officer and John Ross as Senior Vice President of Client Development. Both executives bring decades of experience across insurance and enterprise technology and join ZestyAI as insurers increasingly adopt the company’s AI-powered platform for underwriting, pricing, and portfolio management.
The hires come as ZestyAI turns cash flow positive, more than doubles product usage, surpasses 200 regulatory approvals, and adds 26 new carrier customers.
Friend brings more than two decades of experience scaling high-growth enterprise software companies. He most recently served as CFO of Quantum Metric for five years as it scaled through the $100M annual recurring revenue milestone. Earlier, as an investor at Bain Capital Ventures, he partnered with founders building category-defining enterprise software companies. At ZestyAI, he leads finance, accounting, and corporate development.
Ross brings nearly two decades of P&C insurance experience across carriers, insurtech, and data and analytics providers, with a track record of leading teams that drive growth through a relentless focus on customer service. He joins ZestyAI from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, where he ran the Auto and Home portfolio and led the industry’s largest commercial relationships across personal lines insurers. At ZestyAI, he leads client development, ensuring customers realize measurable value through precision underwriting, improved rate segmentation, and enhanced access to reinsurance capital.
“David and John are exactly the leaders we need at this stage,” said Attila Toth, Founder and CEO of ZestyAI. “David has built and scaled the financial foundation of high-growth enterprise software companies, and John has spent his career inside the P&C insurance market helping carriers turn data into better underwriting and portfolio decisions. They strengthen how we operate as a company and how we partner with customers as AI becomes core decision infrastructure across the insurance enterprise.”
“ZestyAI is operating at the intersection of two major shifts in enterprise software — the move to AI-native platforms and the transition from systems of record to systems of intelligence,” said David Friend. “The carriers pulling ahead are using property intelligence and agentic AI to underwrite more accurately, deploy capital more efficiently, and respond to risk faster. ZestyAI is built to give them that edge. I’m looking forward to helping more carriers put it to work.”
“What drew me to ZestyAI is a rare combination: a company with the technology to genuinely change this market for the better, and the opportunity to do it in partnership with carriers, reinsurers, and ultimately the consumers they serve,” said John Ross. “I’ve spent my career helping insurers turn data into better decisions in challenging markets and move beyond the inertia that too often defines the industry,” said John Ross. “ZestyAI combines property intelligence, predictive modeling, and agentic AI to give carriers a precise view of risk across their portfolio and materially improve how they manage it.”
A Year of Momentum
In the past year, ZestyAI has:
Turned cash flow positive while more than doubling product usage across underwriting, rating, and reinsurance workflowsAdded 26 new clients, including Applied Underwriters, California Casualty, Lemonade, and MarshExpanded commercial relationships with 12 existing enterprise customers through new agreements, including Berkshire Hathaway, the California FAIR Plan, and CSAASurpassed 200 regulatory approvals nationwide, spanning multiple products and perilsLaunched ZORRO, its agentic AI platform, and ZORRO Discover™ — which reduces manual regulatory and market research by 95% for underwriters, product leaders, and executivesLaunched Z-SPARK™, a property-level fire risk model grounded in modern fire science with 30× greater accuracy than traditional methodsWelcomed Scott Stephenson, former Chairman, President, and CEO of Verisk Analytics, to its Board of Directors
Building on its continued leadership in wildfire risk analytics, in 2025 ZestyAI significantly expanded the adoption of its severe convective storm, wind, hail, and non-weather water suite of models, reinforcing its evolution into a multi-peril decision intelligence platform. That precision gives carriers something rare in catastrophe-exposed markets: the confidence to grow. Insurers using ZestyAI are writing policies they otherwise couldn’t have priced — expanding their books while maintaining underwriting discipline. In 2025 alone, that translated into coverage for nearly one million families and businesses previously considered difficult or uneconomical to insure.
About ZestyAI
ZestyAI is the Risk Decision Intelligence Platform for the insurance industry. Trusted by Property & Casualty carriers, reinsurers, brokers, and regulators across the United States, ZestyAI helps insurers make better decisions faster and with greater confidence. The platform unifies property-level data, predictive AI models, and agentic AI automation to transform how insurers see, price, and manage risk. Through machine learning, computer vision, and regulatory-grade transparency, ZestyAI delivers precision and performance across underwriting, rating, reinsurance, and regulatory workflows. Validated by climate science and historical loss data, ZestyAI’s models cover major perils including wildfire, severe convective storm, and non-weather water. From improving pricing accuracy to strengthening reinsurance outcomes, ZestyAI brings trusted AI to every insurance decision—helping the industry operate with speed, accuracy, and resilience.
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SOURCE ZestyAI
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