ZestyAI, an AI-powered risk decision platform for insurers, has appointed David Friend as chief financial officer and John Ross as senior vice president of client development. Friend previously served as CFO at Quantum Metric, whilst Ross joins from LexisNexis Risk Solutions where he led the auto and home portfolio. The appointments follow strong growth for the San Francisco-based company, which has turned cash flow positive, more than doubled product usage, and added 26 new carrier customers including Lemonade and Marsh. ZestyAI has also surpassed 200 regulatory approvals nationwide. The company's platform uses AI for underwriting, pricing and portfolio management across multiple perils including wildfire and severe storms. In 2025, insurers using ZestyAI provided coverage to nearly one million previously difficult-to-insure families and businesses.

ZestyAI names David Friend CFO, John Ross SVP. Friend will lead finance and corporate development, while Ross will oversee client development for the insurance technology company. Anthony R. O'Donnell // June 18, 2026 (John Ross, SVP, Client Development; and David Friend, CFO, ZestyAI. Source: ZestyAI.) ZestyAI (San Francisco) has appointed David Friend CFO and John Ross SVP of Client Development as the company expands use of its AI platform across the property/casualty insurance industry. Friend and Ross join as ZestyAI says it has turned cash flow positive, more than doubled product usage, surpassed 200 regulatory approvals and added 26 carrier customers. Friend has more than 20 years of experience scaling enterprise software companies. He most recently served as CFO of Quantum Metric for five years as the company scaled through the $100 million annual recurring revenue milestone. Earlier, he was an investor at Bain Capital Ventures. At ZestyAI, Friend will lead finance, accounting and corporate development. Ross has nearly 20 years of P&C insurance experience across carriers, InsurTechs, and data and analytics providers. He joins ZestyAI from LexisNexis Risk Solutions, where he ran the auto and home portfolio and led commercial relationships across personal lines insurers. At ZestyAI, Ross will lead client development. "David and John are exactly the leaders we need at this stage," comments Attila Toth, Founder and CEO, 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." A ZestyAI statement notes that during the past year, the company has expanded product use across underwriting, rating and reinsurance workflows and added clients including Applied Underwriters, California Casualty, Lemonade and Marsh. The company says it also expanded commercial relationships with 12 existing enterprise customers, including Berkshire Hathaway, the California FAIR Plan and CSAA. Capping a Productive Year The company says it launched ZORRO, an agentic AI platform, and ZORRO Discover, a tool intended to reduce manual regulatory and market research for underwriters, product leaders and executives. ZestyAI also launched Z-SPARK, a property-level fire risk model. "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," comments 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." "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," comments 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."

AI storm risk tool integrated into Adaptive Insurance platform. June 9, 2026 Adaptive Insurance, a specialist provider of climate-focused insurance products, has selected ZestyAI, an AI-powered risk and decision intelligence platform, to integrate property-level storm risk scoring into its wind and hail underwriting and pricing programmes. ZestyAI's Z-STORM product will now underpin Adaptive's approach to assessing wind and hail exposure, offering granular risk differentiation at the individual property level rather than relying on broader territory or postcode-based methodologies. Z-STORM generates property-specific risk scores by analysing how local climatology interacts with the physical characteristics of individual structures. Its predictive capabilities span hail and wind exposure, drawing on verified carrier claims data to forecast both the frequency and severity of storm-related losses. The model is capable of identifying properties at elevated risk even when they sit alongside lower-risk buildings within the same neighbourhood. Key functions include assessing hail vulnerability through factors such as roof geometry and accumulated damage, evaluating wind susceptibility via AI-driven analysis of roof condition and complexity, and forecasting total storm losses by examining how climate patterns interact with each structure's unique features. Each risk score is accompanied by transparent explanations of the underlying drivers, which ZestyAI says supports more defensible rate-making. Z-STORM has received regulatory acceptance across 32 US states, with ZestyAI's broader portfolio of AI-powered risk models having accumulated more than 200 regulatory approvals nationwide. Adaptive Insurance CEO and co-founder Mike Gulla said, "What sets ZestyAI apart is their ability to split risk at the individual property level. Integrating the precision that Z-STORM offers will allow us to price and underwrite more confidently and offer coverage that truly reflects how storm risk behaves." ZestyAI founder and CEO Attila Toth said, "Adaptive Insurance joins a growing group of carriers bringing greater precision to storm risk underwriting. With Z-STORM(TM) delivering a sharper, property-level view of hail and wind risk, Adaptive can optimize price and coverage even further to identify pockets of exposure earlier, before they translate into outsized losses." Enjoying the stories? Investors. The following investor(s) were tagged in this article.