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Mark E. Watson III (born May 2, 1964) is an American business executive. He is CEO of Argo Group International Holdings Ltd. (NYSE: ARGO), an international underwriter of specialty insurance and reinsurance products in the property and casualty market.

Childhood
Watson was born on May 2, 1964 in San Antonio, Texas.

Insurance tradition
His family has a long history in the insurance industry. His grandfather owned a small insurance company in San Antonio, and Watson’s father, Mark Watson Jr., is founder of Titan Holdings Inc. When he was young, Watson spent summers working with his father to learn about entrepreneurship and the insurance business.

Higher education
Watson graduated with a B.B.A. in finance from Southern Methodist University and a J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law.

Work life prior to Argo Group
In 1989, Watson was legislative aide to Texas state Senator Donald Henderson. While in this role, he helped draft legislation to create the first college savings bond program in the state and the first mandatory alternative fuels bill, both of which were enacted into law.

Upon graduation from law school, Watson moved to New York to become associate attorney with Kroll & Tract, a firm that focuses on international financial services. He served in that role from 1989 to 1992.

Watson returned to Texas in 1992 to work in his father’s company, Titan Holdings Inc. At various times, he served as executive vice president, general counsel, as well as secretary and member of the board of directors, until the company’s sale in 1997. Watson also helped take Titan public as a NYSE-listed company.

Following the acquisition of Titan by St. Paul Insurance, Watson left the company and co-founded a venture capital firm, Aquila Capital Partners.

Argo Group executive
While at Aquila, Watson invested in Argonaut Group, a financially struggling California workers’ compensation insurer. In 1999, he joined its board of directors. The following year, Watson was asked to run the company, becoming president and CEO. He moved Argonaut’s headquarters to San Antonio in 2001. Six years later, Argonaut became Argo Group when it acquired Bermuda-based PXRE Group.

Watson is now CEO of Argo Group. Under his leadership, Argo Group has grown to become a $2 billion underwriter of specialty and reinsurance products in the property and casualty market. This expansion is the result of steady revenue growth and profit, as well as a series of corporate acquisitions. The most recent of these acquisitions was Ariel Re. In November 2016, Watson announced that Argo Group had acquired Ariel Re, which writes a global portfolio of insurance and reinsurance business through Lloyd's Syndicate 1910. Argo closed the deal in February 2017.

Today, Watson is one of the longest serving CEOs of a publicly traded company in San Antonio and, at age 53, one of the youngest chief executives in the entire insurance industry. Under his leadership, Argo Group has seen its market value double to $2 billion over the past four years. Watson’s plan for continued growth is based on the company’s specific expertise in selecting specialty-insurance risk.

Board member
Watson is a member of the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a member of the board of governors of the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, and a member of the board of directors of the Association of Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers.

Major award winner
Watson is the 2016 winner of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award for the Central Texas Region in the Transformational CEO category. The award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.

Husband and father
Watson lives in San Antonio, Texas with his wife AnaPaula and their three children, Katalina, Marguerite and Marco.

Philanthropist
Under Watson’s direction, Argo Group established the Argo Foundation in 2008. Based in Bermuda, the foundation was set up to coincide with the company’s official move to the island. Since then, it has supported more than 50 Bermudian organizations involved in education, healthcare, youth programs, the arts, family support, child protection, as well as a host of other activities and interventions. In 2016, the foundation’s total contributions in Bermuda topped $1.25 million. Argo Group is also active charitably in all countries around the world in which the company has offices.

Art enthusiast
Watson is an admirer and collector of art. Argo Group’s San Antonio headquarters is home to one of the city’s best corporate art collections. Curated by Watson, the collection includes a series of photos of the King Ranch by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide; 10 woodcuts by local artist Nate Cassie; a full series of grocery bag digital photos by the late Chuck Ramirez; etched metal chairs by sculptor George Schroeder; photos by Dan Borris, George O. Jackson and Rick Hunter; and works by painters Ana Fernandez and James Cobb. He also sits on the board of the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Competitor
Watson is an avid climber, skier, cyclist, as well as a long-distance runner who qualified for and competed in the 2015 Boston Marathon. He is also an accomplished yachtsman, who has competed in many international events and won several regattas in the United States:

In 2008, he skippered Tiburon to win the New York Yacht Club’s Swan 42 National Championship in Tiburon, California.

In 2009, he took sixth place in the New York Yacht Club’s Invitational Cup, which was sailed on Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay. Representing the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Watson sailed alongside Olympians Peter Bromby and Ben Nicolls, and competed against Olympic silver-medalist Terry McLaughlin.

In 2010, he won the Newport Bermuda Race’s Royal Mail Cup in the open division aboard the 90-foot Genuine Risk. The course ran 625 miles from Newport, Rhode Island to Bermuda.

In 2011, he represented the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in the New York Yacht Club’s Invitational Cup, which was sailed on Rhode Island Sound and Narragansett Bay.

In 2012, he competed in the Etchells World Championship in Sydney, Australia against America’s Cup skippers.

In 2015, he skippered Lucky to win the Transatlantic Race, a 2,800-mile competition that runs from Newport, Rhode Island to Lizard Point, England. The team took just over 13 days and 11 hours to complete the course.