Ingrid Merriwether, CIC
President & CEO / Client Advisor
San Francisco, CA

President and Chief Executive Officer Ingrid Merriwether has over 25 years of insurance brokerage experience. Under Ingrid’s leadership, in addition to offering traditional property and casualty insurance, surety and risk management services, the firm has developed a unique “aligned risk management” practice; this area of specialty includes contractor development, bonding and contract financing program consulting and administration on behalf of public entity clients seeking greater public contracting inclusion for small, minority, women and veteran-owned firms. Most notably, Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) has administered successful contractor development programs for the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Metro, County of Los Angeles, Alameda County, and the City and County of San Francisco – the latter for over two decades. These programs have facilitated in excess of $1 billion in bonding for small local contractors and have delivered over $22 million in contract savings to their public entity sponsors as a result of program participant low bids.

Ingrid has also spearheaded the firm’s contracting inclusivity consulting for public agencies seeking to change the paradigm to better engage small, minority, women and veteran-owned businesses. Agencies such as Los Angeles World Airports, the City of Los Angeles’ Public Works Department, and the Port of San Francisco have ushered in impactful new practices to increase participation of these targeted groups through innovative contracting strategies. The public entity sponsors of MWIS’ contractor development and bonding programs have enabled our firm to offer surety bond guarantees for contractors enrolled in the programs, allowing many of them to secure bonding for which they would not otherwise qualify.

With a track record of having less than a 1% surety bond guarantee default rate for program-enrolled contractors, Ingrid envisioned being able to also facilitate access to contract funding for these contractors once they had been successful in winning contracts with the program’s public agency sponsors. Launched in 2019, MWIS’ Contract-Based Financing Program (CFP) is essential to mitigating the structural and financial barriers that have historically prevented small local and diverse contractors from participating in public works contracting,

Ingrid’s expertise and achievements in insurance and bonding, risk management and supplier diversity, equity and inclusion have earned her numerous awards and honors, including Top 100 Women Entrepreneurs (S.F. Business Times), Fastest Growing Businesses in the U.S. (ICIC), Minority Advocate of the Year, Minority Business of the Year. She is an eloquent speaker, teaches insurance and bonding courses for entrepreneurs, and frequently lectures at nationwide conferences, seminars, and events focused on strategies for greater diversity, equity and inclusion in public contracting. She was born and raised in California and is passionate about supporting and serving the diverse communities which contribute to making the state unique, successful, and forward thinking.

Bernida Reagan, Esq.
Senior Advisor, former Senior Vice President, Director of Community & Client Relations
Oakland, CA

Having partially retired, Bernida Reagan now works with Merriwether & Williams on an advisory basis. As our former Senior Vice President and Director of Community and Client Relations, Bernida Reagan oversaw all of the company’s Contractor Development and Bonding Programs and directed the small business policy consulting and technical assistance programs, which expand business and employment opportunities for small and minority businesses and local residents. Prior to joining Merriwether & Williams, she served as Director of Social Responsibility for the Port of Oakland. A long-time advocate for maximizing the inclusion of local businesses and disadvantaged workers, she has helped develop environmentally and socially-responsible policies and business, employment and environmental programs for a number of major agencies, including the Port of Oakland, Los Angeles World Airports, the City of Richmond, San Francisco International Airport, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

A licensed attorney, Bernida was the founding Executive Director of the East Bay Community Law Center, which has become the largest provider of free legal services for low-income communities in the San Francisco East Bay. She participates in numerous task forces and policy groups to review, evaluate and design economic development strategies. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Cypress Mandela Training Center, the East Oakland Youth Development Foundation and Emerald Cities Oakland. She has taught Community Economic Development courses at Boalt Hall and Hastings Law Schools, frequently lectured on issues of civil rights, economic justice and business development, and received the State Bar of California’s highest award for Legal Services—the Loren Miller Award—and recognition from numerous community groups and civic organizations for her community service and leadership.

Lakeisha R. Bearden, M.S. Leadership & Management, LEED AP
Director of Program Development
Los Angeles, CA

Lakeisha Bearden plays a key role in the development, implementation, and expansion of MWIS’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. She helps identify opportunities in new jurisdictions to address challenges to diversity, equity and inclusion for small minority-owned businesses. The equity-building programs that she has helped develop have supported public agencies in creating opportunities for minority-owned businesses within multi-billion-dollar capital improvement projects.

Lakeisha joined Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services in May 2014, as the Field Support Program Manager. Her ability to move people to a shared vision played a vital role in the overall success of the company’s Los Angeles area Contractor Development and Bonding Program (CDABP). Lakeisha designed and led the CDABP initiative from conception to implementation, providing enhanced risk mitigation, quality control and assurance, establishing Key Performance Indicators, as well as developing and enhancing program processes and procedures. Since CDABP’s launch in 2014, the program has achieved an average annual contractor enrollment growth rate of about 33%. An integral component of CDABP is the training and development of small minority contractors. Lakeisha is the creator of the Construction Training Academy (CTA) which offers two 6-week immersion trainings each year, focused on Bidding and Estimating and Contract Award and Management. To date, the CTA has nearly 363 small business graduates, accounting for 132 contract awards totaling $51,400,000.

Lakeisha holds a Master of Science degree in Leadership and Management with a concentration in non-profit management from the University of La Verne and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology with a minor in marketing from California State University Long Beach. She brings over 17 years of experience in the construction industry and 14 years of nonprofit experience. She currently sits on the board for the National Association of Minority Contractors Southern California (NAMCSC), and Pathway From Boys To Men Inc.

Amie V. Villao, CISC, CRIS
Assistant V.P. & Marketing Manager, Insurance Department Manager
San Francisco, CA

Amie Villao has been with Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) since 1999, and altogether has over twenty years of insurance industry experience in the San Francisco Bay Area. As MWIS’ Insurance Department Manager, Amie works with our clients to develop and implement property and casualty strategies, including identifying potential markets, assisting with gathering and organizing exposure and loss data, creating coverage specifications, and negotiating terms with the insurance markets. She helps our clients, particularly larger accounts, to design policies and programs that address their specific needs and budgets. Amie also develops and presents insurance proposals, creates and manages service agreements, reviews policies for accuracy and requests corrections, creates coverage summaries, sets up invoicing and creates coverage summaries.

Prior to joining MWIS, Amie gained extensive technical experience in managing property and liability insurance for large commercial accounts, providing the marketing, underwriting, and ongoing account servicing. She has served in the underwriting departments and as account manager at several brokerage firms.

Amie has a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines, has completed numerous advanced IEA and CPCU courses, and holds the Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist (CRIS) designation.

Navid Barkhordar
V.P., Director of Client and Program Management
Los Angeles, CA

Navid Barkhordar provides leadership and direction for Merriwether & Williams’ Southern California Contractor Development and Bonding programs, handles day-to-day client service and quality account management, and provides oversight for program planning and evaluation. Having joined Merriwether & Williams in 2008, he was instrumental as part of Los Angeles Unified School District’s Contractor BondWorks program, providing bonding assessments, technical assistance and individual counseling to contractors to help them obtain adequate bonding and financing capacity to maximize their contracting potential.

With a decade of experience in the industry, he is a champion of small business development and excels at building collaborative relationships, and offering organizational enhancement and municipal relationship management to help contractors eliminate barriers to bonding and access to capital. He frequently lectures on bonding, financing and public works construction. Navid holds a B.B.A. degree from Baruch College, with a concentration in Finance and Investments, and has won numerous awards in recognition of his endeavors on behalf of local contractors.

John D. Miller
Project Manager, Contract-Based Finance (CBF)
San Francisco, CA

With 46 years of experience in construction insurance and surety bonding, John is currently responsible for the design, development, and deployment of our Contract-Based Finance (CBF) programs in the localities we serve. CBF provides qualified small, minority and women construction businesses (SBE’s) with working capital loans on construction projects. The loans are designed to cover the contractor’s costs in performing the contract, in advance of receiving contract progress payments. The program mitigates a key barrier to entry for SBE’s in the competitive public works contracting arena, by providing a working capital facility that is not generally available to them in the commercial lending marketplace.

John spent his early years in construction insurance and surety working with small business enterprises, then went on to run various practices for several of the industry’s largest brokers to the construction industry. This experience includes acting as National Director for Construction Insurance and Surety, National Director of Subcontractor Default Risk Insurance and National Head of Construction Contingent Risk practices. John has specific experience in working with Lenders, Investors and the Rating agencies in construction risk identification and management, from pre-construction through post-construction operations. He has served in the past as member and board member to several construction industry associations, including:

• Member and President of the Surety Association of Oregon
• Member of the Surety Associations of Texas, New York and New Jersey
• Past member and Chairman of the Associate Members Council, Oregon-Columbia Chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC)
• Member of the National AGC Associate Members Council Board of Directors
• Member of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers (NASBP)
• Member of the Construction Financial Management Association (CFMA)

John has been a featured speaker at Surety Association, AGC, NASBP, and CFMA functions over his career.