MANAGEMENT TEAM
Edward Beckwith
CEO
Ed is a co-founder and the CEO of Certa bringing considerable industry experience to the company.
He was previously the Active Underwriter of Aspen’s Lloyd’s Syndicate whilst concurrently running International FINPRO. Prior to that he was International Head of PI and Cyber having joined Aspen in 2011.
He started his insurance career as a graduate trainee for Bain Clarkson doing Marine Hull broking for Greek fishing boats. Following stints at Sedgwick / Marsh, Ed’s first foray into underwriting came at REBRown / Markel specialising in Financial Institution Insurance. In 2003 Ed joined Allied World to build and run the European Financial Institutions & Professional Indemnity offering.
Ed will look to grow Certa from a specialist Tax MGA into other lines that complement our model of profitable, specialist underwriting in growing niche products areas.
Call: +44 (0)7976 982 511
Email: Edward.Beckwith@certainsurance.com
Tom Cartwright
Head of Tax Insurance
Tom is a co-founder of Certa and heads the tax underwriting team. A highly experienced tax advisor, Tom has been writing tax insurance policies since 2015, when he headed the Tax Liability Insurance team at Pembroke Managing Agency, underwriting risks in over 20 different jurisdictions. Before joining the insurance industry, Tom spent 15 years as a tax lawyer, latterly as a tax partner in the international law firm, Pinsent Masons.
Tom has been an active member of various tax industry bodies as well as policy consultation panels with HMRC. He’s also written articles and spoken extensively on tax insurance in many different jurisdictions.
Tom has a BA in History from Brasenose College, Oxford University, and an LLM in Tax Law from King’s College, London.
Call: +44 (0)7776 186 634
Email: Tom.Cartwright@certainsurance.com
Adam Singer
Tax Insurance Director
Adam is a co-founder of Certa with many years' of experience of analysing tax issues. He has been underwriting tax insurance since September 2015, when he joined Pembroke Managing Agency, and has underwritten tax risks all around the globe. Adam is a regular conference speaker on tax insurance.
Prior to joining the insurance industry, Adam spent 9 years as a tax lawyer at Bird & Bird LLP, Nabarro LLP and Allen & Overy LLP. Adam has a BA in Modern History from St. Anne’s College, Oxford and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Call: +44 (0)7813 204 607
Email: Adam.Singer@certainsurance.com
Rachel Hine
Tax Insurance Director
Rachel is a senior tax lawyer and a co-founder of Certa. Prior to joining Certa in January 2019, Rachel underwrote tax liability insurance across multiple jurisdictions at Pembroke Managing Agency together with fellow Certa co-founders, Tom Cartwright and Adam Singer.
Rachel started her career at Nabarro LLP, qualifying as a solicitor into the Tax department in January 2008. Following 6 years in private practice, Rachel moved in-house to join the EMEA Corporate Tax Front Office Advisory team at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for the next 5 years before joining the insurance industry in early 2017. Rachel has a Law degree from the University of Nottingham and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Call: +44 (0)7950 188 766
Email: Rachel.Hine@certainsurance.com
LONDON OFFICE
Laura Foley
Senior Tax Underwriter
Laura is a senior tax lawyer with many years’ experience, advising on a broad range of domestic and cross-border tax matters.
Before joining Certa, Laura was a senior solicitor in Macfarlanes LLP focussed on M&A and private equity transactions, investment structuring and group tax planning. Whilst at Macfarlanes, she spent time on secondment at an international private equity group. Prior to this, Laura started her career at Nabarro LLP where she focussed on real estate transactions.
Laura has a MSc in Natural Sciences from Selwyn College, Cambridge and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Email: laura.foley@certainsurance.com
Matthew Everett
Senior Tax Underwriter
Matthew is a UK tax lawyer with broad experience of international transactional, contentious and advisory tax matters.
Prior to joining Certa, he was a senior associate in the tax team at Freshfields, where he worked on private and public M&A, restructurings, and tax authority enquiries for clients across a range of industries, including private equity and financial institutions. His training at Freshfields included a secondment to the firm’s New York office.
Matthew has a degree in law from the University of Oxford, and spent a year of his degree at Leiden University in the Netherlands studying aspects of European and international law.
Call: +44 (0)7857524407
Email: matthew.everett@certainsurance.com
Alistair Godwin
Senior Tax Underwriter
Alistair is a tax advisor with wide experience of advising on UK and international tax matters.
He started his career as a lawyer practising at Magic Circle and City law firms. Latterly he was a Director in EY’s financial services international tax practice, focusing on supporting asset managers in the private credit space with their fund formation and transactional activity.
He has experience across the range of corporate and real estate matters, with particular expertise in credit transactions and structured finance.
Alistair read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at The Queen’s College, Oxford. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, having completed a dissertation on tax aspects of hive-down and sale M&A transactions.
Call: +44 (0)7563 866916
Ben Furtick
Senior Tax Underwriter - US
Ben joined Certa in April 2020 to spearhead Certa’s growth into the US market. Ben has many years' experience spanning US corporate and partnership taxation, international provisions of US tax, and global operational taxes.
Ben joined Deloitte in 2012 before joining Bank of America’s front office Corporate Tax Advisory team. Ben re-joined Deloitte in 2017, where he built a practice advising financial services industry clients on US and global operational tax compliance.
Ben is a licensed CPA in the state of New York. Ben holds a master’s degree in accounting and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Call: +44 (0)7887 245 805
Email: ben.furtick@certainsurance.com
Angus Pinner
Tax Underwriter
Angus joined Certa in August 2021 to enhance Certa’s tax insurance offering and brings many years of tax experience to the business.
He joined Deloitte in 2013 as part of their prestigious Scholar Scheme programme. He completed placements with the UK Tax Compliance, UK M&A Tax Advisory and FS Tax teams. Since then Angus has advised multinational financial services industry clients on global information reporting regimes including FATCA, CRS and US withholding taxes.
Angus has an Accounting and Finance degree with the University of Bath, is a Chartered Accountant with the ICAEW and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Call: +44 (0)7817 614 080
Email: angus.pinner@certainsurance.com
Annabel Kilpatrick
Financial Controller
Annabel has joined Certa to manage the financial side of the business. She is a qualified Chartered Accountant with many years’ experience in financial control in both large and small organisations in a number different business sectors. Annabel trained in audit with PWC in the banking sector before moving into industry. She has experience of growing a start-up business, managing external investment to the eventual sale of the business.
Annabel has a First Class Geography and Statistics degree from the University of Exeter and, is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.
Call: +44 (0)7974 231697
EUROPEAN OFFICES: SPAIN - BARCELONA
Julia Monsech
Senior Tax Underwriter
Julia joined Certa in January 2022 to drive expansion in the European market. Julia is a Spanish tax specialist with many years' experience in the tax industry with a particular focus on M&A taxation for corporate clients and private equity.
Julia joined PwC in 2015 as part of their prestigious Scholar Scheme program in collaboration with Instituto de Empresa in Madrid. She moved to Garrigues, before re-joining PWC in Barcelona in 2018.
Julia holds a bachelor's degree in Law from Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and a double master's degree in Law with a specialisation in tax from Instituto de Empresa. She speaks fluent English, German, Spanish and Catalan.
Call: +34 622 85 75 64
Email: julia.monsech@certainsurance.com
Alejandro Rams
Tax Underwriter
Alejandro is an experienced tax specialist with 7 years of experience in the management of tax risks and tax structuring of M&A transactions. He joined Certa in June 2024 to support growth in the European market.
His experience involves management of tax risks mainly focused on Real Estate and Infrastructure, the design of restructuring transactions, refinancing processes, and implementation of SOCIMI (Spanish REITs) structures. He speaks fluent English, Spanish and Catalan.
Prior to Certa, Alejandro joined PwC’s tax M&A team after completion of the renowned Masters in Tax Management and Consultancy in collaboration with the prestigious Esade Business & Law school in Barcelona in 2018. Alejandro holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and economics from Universitat Politecnica de Valencia.
Call: +34 677 42 22 79
Email: alejandro.rams@certainsurance.com
Martha Goodman
Operations Manager – Europe
Martha joined Certa in May 2022 after spending more than 10 years in the Financial Lines Insurance Industry where she specialized in placing Multinational D&O and Cyber Insurance solutions with TM HCC and Beazley. Martha has a master’s degree in International Relations and Human Rights and is based in Barcelona. She speaks fluent English, Italian and Spanish.
Call: +34 667 60 15 85
Email: martha.goodman@certainsurance.com
EUROPEAN OFFICES: GERMANY - HAMBURG
Dr. Sarah Slavik-Schulz
Senior Tax Underwriter
Sarah is a German certified tax lawyer with more than 12 years' experience advising on the full range of German taxation. Prior to joining Certa in January 2024 she was a partner at Heuking, focussing on M&A transactions, reorganisation, restructuring and German real estate transactions as well as VAT.
She started her career at KPMG, before working at Norton Rose Fulbright and spending 5 years at Heuking.
Sarah has a law degree and a PhD in German tax law from the University of Hamburg and is an IFA member.
Call: +49 (0) 152 59 26 43 81
Email: sarah.slavik@certainsurance.com
Alexander von Reuss
Senior Tax Underwriter
Alex is a German qualified Attorney at Law (Rechtsanwalt) and Certified Tax Adviser (Steuerberater). With over ten years of experience as a lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright and DLA Piper and over six years of experience in an in-house position at Union Investment, he offers expertise in a wide variety of complex, domestic and cross-border tax matters, including real estate matters, M&A, reorganisation processes and advice on the insurability of tax risks to insurances and MGAs.
Alex studied law in Cologne and holds a Master degree (LLM) from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.
Alex joined Certa in April 2025 to further strengthen the German office.
Call: +49 (0)152 03 44 14 50
Email: alexander.reuss@certainsurance.com
NEW YORK OFFICE
Michael Bice
Senior Tax Underwriter
Mike joined Certa in December 2025 to help launch the company’s physical presence in the United States. Mike has been internationally active in the Capital Markets for over 30 years. He has focused on numerous matters involving U.S. and international Tax.
Mike has worked at several international financial organizations in several roles from client facing front office to legal. For the past eighteen years he was at Deutsche Bank where he tackled a plethora of domestic and cross border tax issues.
Mike is a licensed attorney in the State of New Yor (Hofstra University). He holds an MBA (Finance and Information Systems) from Fordham University and a bachelor’s degree (Business Administration) from Villanova University.
Call: TBC
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