MANAGEMENT TEAM
Karen Barbour
President & Founder
Performance excellence, expert surety knowledge and a track record of building a powerful collaborative network of business ties are hallmarks of a career underscored by an indelible commitment, enabling the competitive positioning and growth of client companies—from start-ups and small businesses to Fortune 1000 firms.
Karen Barbour, founder and president of The Barbour Group, LLC, has decades of surety bonding industry experience. Performance excellence, expert surety knowledge and a track record of building a powerful collaborative network of business ties are hallmarks of her career, along with an indelible commitment to enabling the competitive positioning and growth of client companies—from start-ups and small businesses to Fortune 1000 firms.
Recognized throughout the surety industry for her leadership, Barbour complements her surety bonding experience with a solid background in the construction industry coupled with a strong track record in surety underwriting.
She established The Barbour Group in 2002 as an independent insurance agency focused on construction bonding and commercial insurance. The Barbour Group primarily services the surety needs of a wide range of construction clientele, from startups to medium-sized companies ($50M - $100M) to large firms with more than $100M in annual gross revenue, including Fortune 1000 companies. Increasingly, the agency is capturing business with Fortune 1000 companies. Winner of multiple industry awards and holder of several key certifications, the agency has enjoyed consecutive double-digit sales growth.
Under Barbour’s leadership, the company has become nationally known as one of the most knowledgeable and creative brokers in the business, providing a comprehensive suite of surety bonds for the construction industry, from Alaska to Puerto Rico.
Prior to starting her agency, Barbour was a partner of Barbour Construction Corp. (trading as Specialized Metals) for 10 years. The company performed work throughout the Mid-Atlantic region as a steel erection and metal fabrication subcontractor.
Barbour’s previous experience includes leadership roles at two large regional brokerage firms servicing the Washington, DC metro area, where she developed and implemented strategic marketing and sales plans to achieve corporate goals for delivery of bond and risk management programs. She also succeeded in establishing and nurturing relationships with key strategic partners and industry leaders.
Prior to that, Barbour gained invaluable experience as a surety underwriter with two major bond companies in Maryland. For over 11 years, Barbour underwrote and analyzed new and renewal surety business while overseeing operations in multiple U.S. regions and Canada.
Barbour’s accomplishments as a surety underwriter included producing an underwriting profit by controlling risk acceptance, declination and cancellation of all surety bond products; developing and maintaining strong agency and broker relationships; and effectively marketing company
products and services through the agent/broker community and related
industry contacts.
Throughout her career, Barbour has been active in key construction trade associations to help address business issues impacting the industry. Currently, Barbour serves as co-chair for the Governor’s Commission on Small Business (MD) and as a board member for the
Carroll County (MD) Economic Development Corporation.
Barbour is a former president of the Mid-Atlantic Surety Association, and is proud to have served on the board of the American Subcontractors Association of Baltimore, and on the Board of Governors for Washington Building Congress.
Barbour has received numerous awards and distinctions for her contributions to the success of contractors in the building industry, including selection as one of nine women entrepreneurs to participate in the 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneurial Winning Women™ program. Barbour was named 2008 Maryland Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) – the first surety agent to receive this SBA top honor. Recently, Barbour was honored as one of The Daily Record’s 2010 Innovators of the Year.
Barbour’s agency has also won many accolades. For three years running – 2008, 2009 and 2010 – Inc. magazine named Thee Barbour Group as one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in the U.S. The company is also a three-time recipient of Maryland’s Top 100 Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) Award.
Barbour holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola College of Maryland and a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Baltimore (with induction into Sigma Iota Epsilon, the University’s honorary management fraternity). In 2010, she earned certification as an Associate in Fidelity and Surety Bonding (ASFB) from the American Institute for Chartered Maryland Property Casualty Underwriters.
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