The engine of your brokerage lies in the people who power it
As they watched fellow mid-market brokerages get gobbled up in the maw of huge multi-national insurance companies, the owners of CMB in Edmonton knew they had to do something different if they wanted to survive. Turns out, one of their not-so-secret weapons is a killer HR program.
Michael Kroll has a recurring dream. “I have this nightmare where everyone is quitting, and I am calling them and calling them trying to find out why and to stop them going,” he says. It’s hardly the stuff of your classic horror film, but it speaks volumes about how Kroll, executive sales leader with CMB Insurance Brokers in Edmonton, approaches the work of hiring, mentoring and supporting producers in his office. “They are my partners,” he says. “They are my team. We succeed together.”
That sentiment is at the root of why CMB Edmonton, founded in 1986, is one of very few independent mid-market brokerages still standing when so many of its peers fell, and continue to fall, to mergers and acquisitions. In an industry that increasingly treats producers as interchangeable cogs in some giant machine, CMB Edmonton stands as a tangible example of why investing in people properly and intentionally is the surest route to growth and success.
That may feel touchy-feely to some, but hard numbers belie that sentiment. Since its beginning in 1986, CMB has successfully navigated a complete change in leadership, expanded from one office to multiple offices across Alberta and Ontario, and grown from a few employees to over 150 staff, all while retaining its status as an independent brokerage. It even launched a sister company, Insurance Growth Network (IGN), to help other mid-market brokerages do the same thing – grow organically to avoid being bought out.
It’s not easy, says Brett Kanuka, president of CMB Edmonton. But it’s not rocket science, either.
Brett Kanuka, President, CMB Insurance Brokers Edmonton
A changing of the guard: succession is the first test
It helps to start with a little history. CMB Edmonton was founded on the belief that insurance could be done better. And by “better” the three founders meant building a great company by investing in great people who, in turn, would accomplish remarkable things. What’s noticeable in that statement is the complete absence of corporate hubris – there’s nothing in this foundational principle about being the biggest or the best or the leader of anything. It’s a statement of affirmation that success is achievable through investing in people – people like Brett Kanuka.
Kanuka came to CMB in the mid-2000s as a complete greenhorn. “CMB was the first insurance job I had,” he says. He started out part-time during his university years doing things like data entry and lead generation. But then, business degree in hand, Kanuka came to work at CMB Edmonton full-time in carrier relations, becoming president in 2023. “My passion was always business,” he says. “That’s what I like about commercial insurance – you get to work with a lot of businesses and see how they tick.”
In 2018, Kanuka and Ben McDonald, then president of CMB Edmonton and son of founder Mark McDonald, were suddenly faced with a big decision. As Kanuka explains, Mark had remained an owner in retirement and continued to act as mentor, as well. “But he passed away and that was the real decision time,” he says. “Do we buy and take on all that debt or do we sell? It was an opportunity, but it was also a risk – Ben and I had only been in insurance for 10 years.”
Not wanting to sell and believing they could grow the company by maintaining the principle of investing in the people, Kanuka and McDonald became the new owners of CMB Edmonton. “Not much changed from a client perspective,” says Kanuka. “But the pressure was on us. There was a drive for us to grow because the only way you’re going to get a return on that kind of investment is to grow.”
The pressure was real. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity had a big head of steam by 2018 and small to medium sized brokerages were rapidly disappearing under that hammer. Kanuka and McDonald knew what they had to do.
“We made an effort to have a young group here,” he says. “We wanted to give people the opportunity to build something, we needed people with energy, eager to take on the challenge.” So, they hired, they trained, they mentored, and yes – they grew. “We did it one policy at a time, one renewal at a time, focusing on the customer.”
Kanuka says it’s about empowering CMB producers to deliver an excellent customer experience tailored to a client’s specific wants and needs rather than some corporate playbook. This, he says, was critical to the firm’s growth. “If you provide a better customer experience, people will want to buy from you. Our competitive advantage was to provide that service and that experience.”
Michael Kroll, Executive Sales Leader, CMB Insurance Brokers Edmonton
What if talent IS the growth strategy?
Michael Kroll is a people person through and through. He’s also got mad business and sales development skills. It’s like he was purpose-built for CMB Edmonton.
Kroll joined the firm in 2022. He’d started his insurance career at Lloyd Sadd in 2006, left to set up a business development company, closed that and opened a new firm to help companies improve their sales effectiveness (it’s still running) and, because he thought working two jobs at the same time was a good idea, he rejoined Lloyd Sadd.
But things had changed there. It had become part of a bigger organization and Kroll felt it had become too corporate and lost its entrepreneurial spirit. “Being an entrepreneur is what I love, and CMB had that for me,” he says. “What attracted me was its explosive growth, its energy. Make no mistake, I am typically one of the more energetic people in a room, but in this company, I am not.”
By 2022, CMB Edmonton had also changed under the leadership of Kanuka and McDonald. Business had expanded rapidly, and the IGN side of the firm had already helped a few individual producers launch their own independent brokerages. The office had also become something of a living lab to test out new ideas, such as CMB’s “Street to Broker” program, where people with no background in commercial insurance get the support and training they need to launch a new career. And all of it was being fueled by the proven principle that investing in people, or rather over investing in people, was the driver of success.
“What attracts people here is what attracted me,” he says. “You don’t have to feel like you’re just part of a machine. If you’re asking yourself ‘am I appreciated, am I making a difference, do I matter, do my clients matter?’ Here, the answer is yes – it all matters.”
Kroll was enthralled and eager to get in and start building things. “We want to grow CMB Edmonton by double, triple, quadruple! We are here to build and grow, not buy and acquire,” he says. “We want to be the premier place for sales executives to want to be, to grow our team. That’s why I wanted to be here – and I’m not daunted by the task.”
As Kroll says, brokerages can have the most ambitious growth and sales targets all neatly laid out in a spreadsheet, but if their producers don’t share that vision, if they don’t see a meaningful place for themselves in the effort to reach those goals, then the chances of achieving them is diminished. Put simply, to be at their most productive, people need to feel valued, that their contributions matter, that they have a clear career path forward. And that takes investment.
“For me, over investing in people doesn’t just mean the pay because in commercial insurance, even if you’re average you’ll do well – that’s just table stakes in this industry,” says Kroll. “No, for me, over investing in people means actively investing in top talent and doing what it takes to support them. You need to have a deep understanding of someone’s career, their trajectory and their goals.
“In a lot of sales cultures, there’s not a lot of excitement,” he says. “Here, we acknowledge people internally, we are active in promoting their success but also in supporting them when times are tough. When someone has a slump, we’re not, ‘well go figure it out, Tom.’ That’s not helpful to anyone.”
Among other things, CMB producers receive an annual education allowance, have their licences paid for, receive what Kroll calls one of the most lucrative commission structures in the business, not to mention bonuses, share purchase opportunities and, perhaps most important, tailored mentorship and support. “We help producers learn how to connect with people, lead and inspire,” says Kroll.
“What attracts people here is what attracted me,” he says. “You don’t have to feel like you’re just part of a machine. If you’re asking yourself ‘am I appreciated, am I making a difference, do I matter, do my clients matter?’ Here, the answer is yes – it all matters.”
The effect of this focus on developing and supporting producers can be seen on the bottom line. “We had our best year in 2023,” says Kroll. “And Q1 in 2025 has been the best quarter in the company’s history.”
Taking it outward: IGN
Kroll and Kanuka have had enough years in the business to see how tough it is for the independent broker. Staying independent isn’t easy. As CMB Edmonton became more successful at achieving growth organically from within, other brokerages and individual producers started calling with a simple question: how can I do that?
That’s where the Insurance Growth Network (IGN) comes in. It started when CMB began to help some of those early callers set up their own brokerages, and help existing firms overcome barriers to growth and stave off M&A threats. By 2023, this work was formalized as a new brand, IGN.
At its core, says Kroll, IGN recognizes the power of strategic partnerships to preserve mid-market brokerages. “The barriers to entry are so much higher now,” he says, adding that it’s particularly difficult for mid-market companies without a good succession plan to survive in today’s market without some help. “That’s IGN’s mission – to build, not to buy.”
Kanuka has a good analogy for how IGN works. “Say you want to build a house, and you want four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big patio and so on. IGN gives you the blueprints and the lumber, but you’ve got to build it.” And, of course, you need engaged, empowered people to do that construction.
As Kroll says, if you want to build that house, work hard at developing your own brand, then IGN will support you. And if you don’t want to build your own house but want to work hard and be valued for the work you do, then CMB is for you. In the end, the secret to success remains the same: invest in great people who, in turn, accomplish remarkable things.
“There’s something in the water here,” says Kroll. “If you want to do the best work you can, be recognized and build something, you can do it here.”