Cactus appoints Keith Bernhard as CFO and Head of Audit
Bernhard joins from Hamilton Insurance Group to help the fast-growing insurtech scale governance, controls and security.
Hamilton, Bermuda — 7 May 2026. Cactus, the award-winning insurtech focused on underwriting intelligence, today announced the appointment of Keith Bernhard as Chief Financial Officer and Head of Audit. Bernhard brings the rigour of public-company audit to a growing insurtech and will lead the work behind certifications including ISO 27001 and SOC 2.
Keith Bernhard is a seasoned audit and risk management professional based in Hamilton, Bermuda, with over three decades of experience spanning the insurance, reinsurance, financial services and public sectors across four continents.
Keith joins Cactus from Hamilton Insurance Group, where he had served as Chief Audit Officer since May 2014. There he developed and executed a risk-based internal audit plan across Hamilton and its subsidiaries, led the organisation's Sarbanes-Oxley compliance programme, coordinated wider regulatory compliance, and supported the development of the company's risk and control culture. Earlier in his career, Keith held roles at KPMG and Deloitte. He is a Chartered Accountant and holds the Certification in Risk Management Assurance (CRMA).
At Cactus, Keith will lead financial management and reporting, together with the related supporting processes, governance and security. He will also lead the work to obtain and maintain ISO 27001, SOC 2 and similar standards which independently verify the controls Cactus has in place around platform security and reliability.
I am delighted that Keith has chosen to join us at Cactus. Having known Keith for almost a decade and worked with him closely for four years, I have seen first-hand the dedication, integrity and infectious enthusiasm he brings to everything he does, and we are fortunate to have him on the team. His appointment is a clear signal of the seriousness with which we approach governance, controls and trust. Keith's experience leading audit through the demands of a public listing will be invaluable as we scale Cactus and continue to demonstrate that we deserve the confidence of our customers and partners.
— James Robinson, CEO of Cactus
I am thrilled to have joined Cactus as they continue to solve the prickly problems of insurance. I have been impressed by their dedication, execution and focus on what matters to clients, the industry and world at large. I look forward to assisting Cactus solve even more problems in better and secure ways.
— Keith Bernhard, CFO and Head of Audit, Cactus
About Cactus
Cactus helps insurers, MGAs and risk professionals to analyse and transact insurance risk. Formed by the recent merger of Bermuda-based Cactus and Y Combinator-backed CatX, both graduates of the Lloyd's Lab accelerator, the company's flagship platform Cactus Risk Studio is used by clients including Ark, Helix and First Specialty across Bermuda, the US and London.
The platform delivers end-to-end underwriting capabilities, from data ingestion and risk assessment through to policy issuance and reporting. It keeps the underwriter properly engaged with every decision, rather than handing them a model's output to sign off - an approach most of the industry has skipped. Every data point is traceable to its source, every analysis is built on information the underwriter has validated, and every decision is recorded.
Cactus is led by CEO James Robinson and President and COO Benedict Altier. Robinson is a Cambridge graduate who previously held roles at Hamilton Insurance Group and Barclays. Altier is an Oxford graduate who co-founded and led CatX, the Y Combinator-backed property and catastrophe risk analytics and exchange platform for hedge funds and institutional investors, prior to its recent merger with Cactus in September 2026.
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