Michael Doak
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER & CO-CHAIR
Michael Doak is Chief Executive Officer, Managing Partner and Co-Chair of Griffin Highline. Prior to founding Griffin Highline, Mr. Doak served in various leadership roles at entities associated with RenaissanceRe, a global provider of reinsurance and insurance services, since June 2010, most recently as President of RenaissanceRe Ventures U.S. LLC and the portfolio manager of the direct investments equity portfolio.
Mr. Doak serves on the Board of Directors of The Woodlands Financial Group (NASDAQ: TWFG) and on the Board of Managers of Open Road Ultimate Holdings LLC and Inness Ultimate Holdings LLC. He previously served on the boards of Falcon Risk Holdings LLC, Trupanion, Inc. (NASDAQ: TRUP), Tower Hill Insurance Group and DaVinci Reinsurance Ltd.
Prior to RenaissanceRe, Mr. Doak was an investment banker in the Financial Institutions Group at Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC. He received a BA from the University of Virginia and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Robert Alpert
CO-CHAIR
Robert Alpert is a Founding Partner and the Co-Chairman of Griffin Highline. He is also the co-founder and principal of 210 Capital, LLC. He currently serves as a director of P10, Inc. (NYSE: PX). He formerly served as Co-CEO and Chairman of the Board of P10, Inc. Mr. Alpert is the Chairman of the Board of Crossroads Impact Corp. and a director of Elah Holdings, lnc. (OTC: ELLH). Mr. Alpert is also Chairman of the Board of Incline Insurance Group, LLC, a national property, and casualty insurance company and a managing member of Merfax Financial Group, LLC, an investment fund and shareholder of Incline Insurance Group.
Mr. Alpert was formerly the CEO of Globalscape, Inc. (NYSE: GSB) a software developer offering secure enterprise FTP solutions. Before founding 210 Capital, Mr. Alpert was the founder and portfolio manager of Atlas Capital Management, L.P.
Mr. Alpert received a B.A. from Princeton University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.
William Cornog
BOARD MEMBER
William Cornog serves on the Board of Managers of Griffin Highline. Until 2022, he was the Global Head of KKR Capstone, which he joined in 2002. Mr. Cornog chaired KKR’s Americas, EMEA, APAC, Infrastructure and TMT Growth Portfolio Management Committees, while also serving as a member of the Investment & Distribution and Valuation Committees.
He has extensive operational experience across a broad range of geographies and industries. Prior to joining KKR Capstone, Mr. Cornog was with Williams Communications Group as the senior vice president and general manager of network services. Prior to Williams, he was a partner at The Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Cornog has also worked in direct marketing with Age Wave Communications and in marketing and sales positions with SmithKline Beckman.
In addition to Griffin Highline, Mr. Cornog sits on the board of BrightView (NYSE: BV), Livewire (NYSE: LVWR) and Blue Crow Sports Group. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of The Knight Campus at the University of Oregon.
Mr. Cornog earned a BA from Stanford University and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Bryan Dalton
BOARD MEMBER
Bryan Dalton serves on the Board of Managers of Griffin Highline. Mr. Dalton has served in various leadership roles at entities associated with RenaissanceRe since 2002, most recently as Senior Vice President and the Chief Underwriting Officer - Property. He has nearly two decades of underwriting experience.
Mr. Dalton was the former Active Underwriter for Syndicate 1458 and Chief Underwriting Officer of Europe before his transition to Chief Underwriting Officer - Property. Previously, Mr. Dalton managed the International Property Catastrophe portfolio for RenaissanceRe, including the underwriting of retrocessional and primary reinsurance transactions, based in Bermuda. Mr. Dalton began his career with RennaissanceRe in Dublin as a catastrophe analyst.
Mr. Dalton holds a Masters in Chemical Engineering from the University of Manchester and a Masters in Management Science from University College Dublin.
Peter Hearn
BOARD MEMBER
Peter Hearn serves on the Board of Managers of Griffin Highline. Throughout nearly four decades in the reinsurance industry, Peter has served in a number of senior leadership roles. He was Vice Chairman of Marsh & McLennan Companies. He was the Chief Executive Officer of Guy Carpenter & Company, LLC, and a member of the Marsh & McLennan Companies Executive Committee from 2015 – 2021. Most recently, he was Global Chairman of Willis Re from 2011 to 2015. Prior to that, Peter served as the company’s Global CEO from 2005 to 2011, during which time he was also a member of the Willis Group Executive Committee. Mr. Hearn began his reinsurance career in 1978 with Willis Faber and Dumas.
Mr. Hearn holds a BA in history and political science from Lake Forest College.
Kent McGaughy
BOARD MEMBER
Kent McGaughy serves on the Board of Managers of Griffin Highline. Mr. McGaughy is the founding shareholder of CPMG, Inc., a private investment firm. Prior to joining CPMG’s predecessor, Cardinal Investment Company, Inc., in 1997, Mr. McGaughy worked at Simmons & Company International. In addition to serving as a partner of CPMG, Inc., Mr. McGaughy is a Director of Instil Bio, Inc. (NSDQ: TIL). He also serves as a director of various private companies.
Mr. McGaughy holds a BA from The University of Texas at Austin and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Scott Eckman
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Scott Eckman is a Managing Director and Operating Partner at Griffin Highline.
Mr. Eckman is a seasoned operating executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience driving growth, transformation, and enterprise performance in various industries and functions. Throughout most of his career, he has worked in businesses owned and sponsored by leading private capital providers — including Cerberus, Bain Capital, Oaktree Capital, and Blackstone — to scale businesses and deliver results.
Mr. Eckman has held a range of C-suite and line-leadership roles spanning marketing, distribution, revenue growth, and general management, with responsibilities that have included full P&L oversight, go-to-market strategy and execution. His leadership has spanned commercial and consumer channels, direct and partner distribution.
During his tenure at GMAC Insurance Holdings, Mr. Eckman served in multiple senior roles including Chief Marketing Officer, Head of the Agency Business, and Head of the Direct Business, where he led strategic positioning, expanded distribution reach, and enhanced customer acquisition performance across a complex, multi-channel insurance platform.
In addition to his time at GMAC Insurance, Mr. Eckman led a Commercial (B2B) paper business at Georgia Pacific, was President of one of the national largest and most successful home furnishings companies (Loloi Rugs), and had various leadership roles including Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer, and President at the nations leading B2B market place Andmore (owner of Las Vegas Market, Atlanta Market, and a majority of the assets in the High Point Furniture Market).
Mr. Eckman received a BS from Louisiana State University, a Masters in Experimental Psychology from the College of William & Mary, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Lauren Heard
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Lauren Heard is a Managing Director and part of the investment team at Griffin Highline.
Mrs. Heard has six years of direct private equity experience across a variety of industries and geographies. Her main responsibilities have included the origination, due diligence, transaction structuring, execution and management of portfolio company investments. She has led the underwriting and post-close support of platform roll-up strategies, portfolio company mergers and integrations and multiple exit processes.
Mrs. Heard serves on the Board of Managers of Open Road Ultimate Holdings LLC and Inness Ultimate Holdings LLC. She previously served on the board of Falcon Risk Holdings LLC. She was formerly a Vice President and member of the Portfolio Management team at Hastings Equity Partners. Previously, she served as a member of the investment teams at both Lime Rock Resources and HitecVision. She started her career as an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, where she was involved in a variety of both M&A and capital raising transactions.
Mrs. Heard received a BBA in Finance from The University of Texas at Austin and a MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mike Remmes
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Mike Remmes is a Managing Director at Griffin Highline, leading Dallas Specialty Insurance Company.
Mr. Remmes led strategic investments and corporate venture capital activities at State Farm as the Ventures Executive. His work focused on identifying and developing opportunities that support innovation, technology adoption, and long-term strategic growth across the insurance and financial services ecosystem. He previously worked in the State Farm legal department where he led the Tax, Reinsurance, and Securities units, and spent a significant amount of time on corporate and governance matters.
Mr. Remmes is a Certified Public Accountant and an attorney. Over the course of his career, he has led numerous corporate structuring, mergers, and acquisitions initiatives, combining legal, financial, and operational expertise to drive organizational growth. Before joining State Farm, Mr. Remmes began his career with Arthur Andersen, where he worked in tax and advisory services. He later joined State Farm, holding senior roles across legal and corporate development before assuming leadership of the Ventures Office.
Mr. Remmes holds a BSBA in Accounting from Creighton University and a J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law.
Deran Taskiran
MANAGING DIRECTOR
Deran Taskiran is a Managing Director at Griffin Highline.
Ms. Taskiran spent several years as a leader in the KKR operating team, Capstone, where she played a material role in underwriting several large acquisitions as well as undertaking transformations across portfolio companies. She also has significant experience leading teams as she took on interim CTO (transformation officer) roles across KKR portfolio companies and prior to that she served as the CEO of a large retailer overseas. Her leadership experience extends to the insurance segment as the Chief Development Officer responsible for product and market development at Devoted Health, a high growth Medicare Advantage carrier.
Ms. Taskiran is also the founder of a home services business that is actively operating in NY state, where she currently serves as a non-executive board member. She has been actively serving on other private and public boards in the US and overseas participating in Audit, Risk, Corporate Governance and Strategic Finance Committees.
Ms. Taskiran started her career at the Boston Consulting Group, where she worked as a Partner and Managing Director after earning her PhD in Economics from Yale University.
Yunhua Ge
CONTROLLER
Yunhua Ge is a Controller at Griffin Highline.
Mrs. Ge has experience with private equity funds, hybrid hedge funds and fund-of-funds. She also has experience working complicated fund structures and high transaction volumes. Prior to joining Griffin Highline, Mrs. Ge served as a Director at Gen II Fund Services, Senior Fund Controller at MUFG Capital Analytics. She began her career as an Analyst at Fortress Investment Group.
Mrs. Ge received a BC in Accounting from University of Southern Queensland and MS in Accounting from Golden Gate University.
Ben Moner
ASSOCIATE
Ben Moner is an Associate and part of the investment team at Griffin Highline.
He assists with the origination, due diligence, transaction structuring, execution and management of portfolio company investments. Before joining Griffin Highline as an Analyst, Mr. Moner began his career in management consulting at Infosys Consulting, where he served clients in the finance and insurance industries.
Mr. Moner received a BBA in Finance from Southern Methodist University.
Ben Caton
ANALYST