Leadership Team

John is the Chief Executive Officer and one of the founding members of Jencap Group. Under his leadership, Jencap has grown from an idea to the fourth largest wholesaler in the country in less than six years. John’s strategic vision for Jencap guides the ongoing management of existing entities, along with all future M&A activity at the firm.

John has more than 35 years of insurance industry experience, the past 30 of which have been focused exclusively on the wholesale distribution space. Prior to Jencap, John was CEO and a founding member of Wholesale Trading Co-Op Insurance (WTCI), which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Jencap. Other roles he has held in the insurance industry include President and CEO of Crump Insurance Services, and President of BISYS Commercial Insurance Services following its acquisition of Tri-City Brokerage where he was also the President.

John is an active supporter of many industry associations and various charities nationwide; including but not limited to the Spencer Educational Foundation, Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation, St. Baldrick’s Day and more.

Mark is the President of Jencap Group. Under his leadership, he works with the Jencap management team to develop strategic plans, drive overall growth initiatives, manage carrier and broker relationships, and work with affiliate company leaders to achieve an effective cross-selling practice.

Most recently, Mark was Chief Operating Officer of Jencap and President of its NIF Group division, a managing general agency and wholesale insurance brokerage where he served for over 30 years.

Mark began his insurance career in 1981 as a Property Facultative Broker at Willcox Baringer Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson and Higgins. Other roles he has held throughout his insurance industry tenure include Property Facultative Underwriter at Kaler Carney and Liffler; Underwriting Manager for Allstate Insurance Company; Assistant Vice President at Delany Management for both facultative and treaty reinsurance, on and off the New York Insurance Exchange; and Assistant Vice President at Danmar Associates.

Mark attended the College of Insurance Work-Study program from 1978-1982.

Dave is the Chief Financial Officer of Jencap.

Prior to Jencap, Dave was the CFO and a founding partner of Asset Growth Partners LLC, a boutique asset manager. Dave held the position of CFO at Community One Bancorp, a publicly traded Carlyle Group owned troubled small community bank acquisition platform, where he also led the company’s financial restructuring and acquisition activities.

His entire 30+ year career has been spent in the Financial Services industry, including as Chief Operating Officer of Wells Fargo/Wachovia’s Global Markets & Investment Bank, where he managed the operating infrastructure and also led the integration of Wachovia’s wholesale businesses into Wells Fargo.

He began his career in accounting and consulting at KPMG, LLP. Dave has a unique mix of operating and financial experience at both large and small companies, deep operational and financial integration knowledge, and significant private equity experience.

He graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from the University of Virginia and earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Darden.

John LaCava is the Chief Operating Officer of Jencap.

He has been an insurance professional since 1985 and has extensive underwriting, operational and technical experience. His corporate strategic planning and organizational leadership were instrumental in executing several agency acquisitions to grow Jencap Program Administrators product portfolio.

Prior to co-founding Aran Insurance Services Group (now known as Jencap Program Administrators LLC), in 2009, he held various C-level positions, most recently as an executive vice president and director for QBE North America.

John is active in his local community, supporting and coaching various local youth sports teams, and his local charitable activities include raising over $2 million for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation’s childhood cancer research efforts.

John holds an MBA from Pace University Lubin Graduate School of Business and a bachelor’s degree from Fordham University.

Maria has over 20+ years of experience developing and implementing effective Human Resources strategies. While she started her career in recruiting for Financial Services organizations, she quickly transitioned into HR Partnering roles with Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. After completing the Strategic HR Management Program at Harvard Business School, she progressed to more strategic HR senior leadership roles with WTW, formal Willis Towers Watson, and Markel Corporation. Her most recent role was as SVP of People with NIP Group where she led the Human Resources organization and implemented many innovative HR strategies for the insurance intermediary. Maria earned a BS degree in Human Resources and Finance from Salve Regina University. When not leading people professionally, Maria enjoys spending time with her family, especially sailing and sailboat racing.

Bijesh Jacob is the Chief Digital Officer at Jencap. He has a proven track record of leading large-scale IT and financial services solutions. Prior to his current role at Jencap, he led Technology & Standards for ACORD for four years, and spent 15 years at Marsh, where he was the CTO for North America. He also formerly served as VP – Technology Manager at J.P. Morgan Chase. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from New York Institute of Technology.

Denise serves as General Counsel at Jencap.

She oversees legal matters for all of Jencap’s operating companies, including corporate governance, litigation, and M&A. She brings over 20 years of legal experience to her role. Denise began her legal career at Lowenstein Sandler P.C. and was most recently a partner with Saiber LLC before going in-house. Denise has focused her career on corporate counseling, M&A and complex contracts. Denise has broad experience in the structuring and negotiating of mergers and acquisitions, litigation, drafting operating and shareholders agreements, business formation documents, corporate resolutions, and complex contracts. She works closely with business leaders throughout Jencap to identify and mitigate risk, while balancing the business needs of the organization. Denise graduated magna cum laude from Seton Hall University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology. She went on to obtain her Juris Doctor, also magna cum laude, from Seton Hall University School of Law.

Les is the Executive Vice President of Jencap. His role on the executive management team includes corporate development, business evaluation, integration, compliance and administrative management.

He was a member of the founding team of Wholesale Trading Co-Op Insurance Services, LLC, whose focus included the development of specialty market capabilities, programs, in-house facilities and administrative management. Prior to WTCI, Les was Executive Vice President of Crump Insurance Services, with duties comprising the firm’s national carrier relations and product development initiatives.

Before joining Crump’s legacy Tri-City operation in New York, he was a principal with an underwriting management and wholesale brokerage firm also located in New York.

Les was Chairman of the Surplus Line Association of CA, President of the Professional Insurance Wholesalers Association of New York State, an officer and Board Member of the Excess Line Association of New York, and has served on various committees of the National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices (now WSIA).

He holds a BA degree from the Pennsylvania State University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Sarah Gavlick is the Executive Vice President of Carrier Relations and Client Distribution at Jencap. In her role, she is focused on growing and enhancing relationships with Jencap’s strategic carrier partners and key retail broker clients.

Gavlick’s 30-year insurance career began at GenRe where she held various underwriting and leadership roles before moving to Markel where she spent the past 19 years. Over that time, she held leadership positions in their wholesale division including Regional President-Northeast and Chief Territory Officer- East. Gavlick has been active on the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation board and was a recipient of Insurance Business America’s Elite Women 2022 award.