Higginbotham
Michael Parks
Higginbotham announced a series of promotions within the Financial Services division last week.
Koby Hackradt
Longtime executive team member Michael Parks has been elevated from COO to president of financial services.
Koby Hackradt has been promoted to COO, employee benefits.
Carter English
And Carter English will join Hackradt in overseeing employee benefits in a new role as chief business officer role.
These moves are designed to match growth at Higginbotham and prepare for future milestones by drawing on deep bench strength to scale-up operations and enhance client services, according to firm officials.
“Michael is a big-picture thinker,” Higginbotham Chairman and CEO Rusty Reid said in a statement. “He can look at every side of a decision and figure out exactly where and how things should fit together. As the company grows and moves forward, we need his keen mind working ‘on the business’ more than ‘in the business.’ So, we’ve moved him up and expanded his role.
“That gave us the opportunity to tap a pair of great new leaders to fill his previous post managing day-to-day operations in employee benefits.”
Parks will focus on executive strategy in a role that oversees many departments — including employee benefits, which he shepherded through impressive levels of growth for almost 35 years.
Hackradt has served Higginbotham for more than 14 years and looks forward to increasing the scope of that service by optimizing operations and enhancing employee benefits service delivery across a growing footprint of Higginbotham partner offices.
“Employee benefits service is such a vital part of the company, and we owe that to Michael Parks,” Hackradt said. “With the company also growing from a single-state shop to 16 states and counting, day-to-day management of those services has become an enormous task. That Michael was able to build a team under him and hand over responsibility when the time was right says so much about his character, his foresight, and his leadership.”
Parks received a BFA from TCU. Hackradt received a Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University, English earned a bachelor’s in marketing from the TCU Neeley School of Business.
“We’re filling big shoes in a rapidly growing company, so Koby’s going to be handling operations, while I look after revenue and sales growth,” English said. “He’s got all things facing accounts — account management and servicing, and our value-added services — while I’ve got all things facing producers — sales, growth, and carrier relations. It’s a team effort, which works great for us as we both have a background in football and football coaching.
“Michael has always been a mentor to me and Koby. Now he’s handed the employee benefits keys off to us, and we are determined to make him proud. Hopefully in the next 20 or 30 years, we’ll get to do the same for the next batch of leaders here at Higginbotham.”