Peter Hancock was named CEO of Chartis, the property and casualty unit of American International Group (AIG), in April of this year—part of a strategic restructuring which organized the P&C business into two major groups: a commercial-lines division and a consumer one.

Hancock joined AIG, Chartis' corporate parent, in early 2009, just a few months after the U.S. government created an $85 billion credit facility to "bail out" the company (later increased to a total of $182.5 billion). In his 14 months at AIG, Hancock designed the company's recapitalization plan; oversaw a reorganization of its enterprise-risk-management functions; and managed the unwinding of AIG's Financial Products unit, which dealt in the credit-default swaps that were at the center of the company's near collapse.

Hancock spoke with Bryant Rousseau, NU's editor-in-chief and group editorial director, in the conference room adjacent to his office in Chartis' headquarters near Wall Street in Lower Manhattan.