Paul Washington
Executive Vice President | IMA Financial Group
Paul Washington is a highly respected business and civic leader with over 30 years of experience in senior operating roles for both commercial and public sector entities. Paul brings deep expertise in business strategy and execution; managing a P&L; finance; M&A; law; economic development; and corporate governance.
Paul currently serves as the Executive Vice President for IMA Financial Group, the fifth largest, independently held, commercial insurance brokerage company in the U.S. He oversees IMA’s governance, administration, integration of acquired companies, investments in Insurtech companies by the company’s venture fund, and real estate strategy. He also has direct oversight over the communications and diversity, equity and inclusion departments.
Prior to joining IMA, Paul was Market Director for JLL, an international Fortune 500 commercial real estate services firm with over 90,000 employees worldwide. He was responsible for developing and executing business strategy, and managing a team of more than 300 professionals, with full responsibility for an $80M P&L for all business units in Colorado, Utah and Idaho. While at JLL, Paul enjoyed 17% average annual revenue growth; developed annual and long-term business strategies; grew to #1 market share in key growth submarkets; recruited a top-performing multi-family brokerage and finance team; oversaw the buildout of JLL’s 30K sf regional headquarters into an award winning office space; and improved diversity by recruiting more women brokers (as a percentage of total employees) than any other region at JLL.
Prior to his role at JLL, he served as the Executive Director of Economic Development for the City of Denver, a Mayoral-appointed, cabinet-level position. Paul managed a $60M annual budget and a staff of 290 employees where he developed and oversaw the execution of the economic development strategy of the City and County of Denver. Notable accomplishment while in this role include the reduction of the default rate on the City’s $140M small business loan portfolio from 18% to 5%; successfully recruiting a dozen corporate and divisional headquarters to Denver; and developing and executing the 2012-2016 JumpStart economic development strategies, which directly influenced the creation and retention of more than 30,000 jobs and leveraged $818M in private capital investment.
Paul also enjoyed a 10-year career in investment banking. He was the founder and president of LJS Holdings, an international investment banking firm, where, among other accomplishments, he represented GHCL Ltd., a large conglomerate based in India, on its acquisition of Dan River, Inc., the 2nd largest textile company in the U.S. He began his career as a corporate attorney, focused on mergers and acquisitions of public companies, for the international law firm of Hogan Lovells.
Paul is considered one of the most influential business and civic leaders in the State of Colorado. In 2019, he was recognized as the Most Admired CEO by the Denver Business Journal. He also serves on numerous boards including Independent Bank, Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka, Catamount Constructors, Colorado Concern, Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and the Downtown Denver Partnership. He was also the former chairman of Colorado Housing Finance Authority board of directors and former vice-chairman of the University of Northern Colorado board of trustees.
Paul earned both his law degree and his degree in business from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was graduate student body president. He also has a master’s degree in tax from the University of Denver.
