Junna Ro, general counsel at Metromile. Courtesy photo
The pay-by-the-mile insurance startup Metromile announced the hiring of a new general counsel Thursday, just two weeks after completing a reverse merger to become a publicly traded company.
Junna Ro is based in the company's San Francisco headquarters and started her role as general counsel Feb. 22. She oversees a team of six employees in the company's legal department.
She was not a member of the team that participated in the reverse merger with INSU Acquisition Corp. II that put Metromile on the NASDAQ. The reverse merger was finalized Feb. 10. The combination with INSU was funded with $230 million cash-in-trust, and $170 million of proceeds from "previously announced private placement of INSU II's share," according to the announcement earlier this month.
Ro was not made available for an interview Friday. However, in a Q&A on the company's blog, Ro said she joined Metromile because the company is shaking up the insurance industry.
"The idea that Metromile is an insurance company that started as a technology company is also attractive because there's an opportunity to truly innovate in an industry that I believe has otherwise gone relatively unchanged for many decades," Ro said.
Ro comes to Metromile after spending the last 15 years as in-house counsel at CSAA Insurance Group, a AAA insurer. Most recently, she served as the chief ethics and compliance officer and associate general counsel at CSAA. She also worked as assistant general counsel, director of corporate compliance and senior counsel at the insurer.
In the Q&A, Ro said she learned the critical role that insurance plays in the economy while working at CSAA.
"You're protecting people's assets and personal interests. Insurance is important, as it gives people the opportunity to pursue their goals with peace of mind, knowing that they're protected," Ro said.
Ro has also worked as corporate counsel at Symantec. She graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law in 1997. She also has a certificate from the General Counsel Institute at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.
"Junna joins Metromile as we prepare to bring our personalized, digital insurance nationwide as a new public company. I believe Junna's leadership will help us make auto insurance fairer and more widely available so more people can benefit from an exceptional customer experience and greater control over what they pay," Metromile CEO Dan Preston said in the press release announcing her hiring.
Ro replaces Jason Altieri who served as the startup's top lawyer from October 2018 to June 2020. Altieri is now the general counsel and chief compliance officer of Tustin, California-based startup Happy Money.
Metromile is a technology startup company that offers pay-per-mile car insurance. Metromile also licenses its cloud-based software to insurance companies around the world.
Dan Clark
Dan covers cyber security, legal operations and intellectual property for Corporate Counsel. Follow him on Twitter @Danclarkalm.