Paul Washington (for Rob Cohen)

Paul Washington
Chief Administrative Officer, IMA Financial Group, Inc.

Paul Washington is a highly respected business and civic leader with over 30 years of experience in senior operating roles for both commercial and public sector entities. Paul brings deep expertise in corporate board roles; business strategy and execution; managing a P&L; finance; M&A; law; economic development; and corporate governance.

Paul currently serves as the Chief Administrative Officer for IMA Financial Group (IMA), the fifth largest, independently held, commercial insurance brokerage company in the U.S. He oversees all IMA’s governance, administration, and integration of acquired companies.

He is also president of the company’s venture fund and leads all early-stage investments in insurtech companies; having generated 40% IRR to date. Paul also oversees the company’s real estate strategy, involving over 400K sf of office space.

Prior to joining IMA, Paul was a regional president for JLL, a commercial real estate services firm with over 90,000 employees worldwide. He was responsible for developing and executing business strategy, and managing a team of more than 300 professionals, with full responsibility for an $80M P&L for all business units in Colorado, Utah and Idaho. While at JLL, Paul enjoyed 17% average annual revenue growth; developed annual and long-term business strategies; grew to #1 market share in key submarkets; recruited a top-performing multi-family brokerage and finance team; built a 40K sf, award winning, regional HQ office; and recruited more women brokers (as a percentage of total employees) than any other region at JLL.

Prior to his role at JLL, he served as the Executive Director of Economic Development for the City of Denver, a Mayoral-appointed, cabinet-level position. Paul managed a $60M annual budget and a staff of 290 employees where he developed and oversaw the execution of the economic development strategy of the City and County of Denver. Notable accomplishments included the reduction of the default rate on the City’s small business loan portfolio from 18% to 5%; successfully recruiting a dozen corporate and divisional headquarters to Denver; and developing and executing the 2012-2016 JumpStart economic development strategies, which directly influenced the creation and retention of more than 30,000 jobs and leveraged $818M in private capital investment.

Paul also enjoyed a 10-year career in investment banking. He was the founder and president of LJS Holdings, an international investment banking firm, where, among other accomplishments, he represented GHCL Ltd., a large conglomerate based in India, on its acquisition of Dan River, Inc., the 2nd largest textile company in the U.S. He began his career as a corporate attorney, focused on mergers and acquisitions of public companies, for the international law firm of Hogan Lovells.

Paul is considered one of the most influential business and civic leaders in the State of Colorado. In 2019, he was recognized as the Most Admired CEO by the Denver Business Journal. He currently serves on the boards of Independent Bank Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: IBTX), Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka (FHLB), Catamount Constructors, Colorado Concern, Denver Museum of Nature and Science (DMNS), and the Downtown Denver Partnership. His board service includes Gubernatorial appointments; member of the board of directors at Denver Health; chairman of Colorado Housing Finance Authority and vice-chair of the University of Northern Colorado; committee chair roles in audit (DMNS) and governance (FHLB); and secretary of the board of IMA.

Paul earned both his law degree and his degree from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was graduate student body president. He also has a master’s degree in tax from the University of Denver.