Insight Capital Solutions names Allan Umans president of Harbor Capital and Insight Material Handling

Insight Capital Solutions promoted Allan Umans to president of Harbor Capital and Insight Material Handling, the company said Sept. 30, placing both units under a leader who reports to Scott Sullivan, the chief revenue officer. He steps down as general counsel of the Irvine, California, parent as part of the transition.

The duties Insight attaches to the job are commercial: accelerating growth, expanding market opportunities, and strengthening relationships with customers, vendors and financial partners. The company describes the appointment as formalizing a leadership role Umans had increasingly assumed as Harbor Capital and Insight Material Handling grew and expanded.

Chris Czaja, Insight's president and chief executive, said Umans had been instrumental in establishing the material handling business and played a strategic role in its growth and direction as it became an important operating unit, and that he knows the market, the business and where to take it. Czaja pointed to what he called tremendous opportunity ahead in the next chapter. Umans said he looked forward to building on what the team had accomplished and delivering more value to customers and partners.

Material handling carries the only operating figure in the announcement. Insight says it formally entered that market in 2021, that the segment now represents more than a quarter of the company's business, and that Umans helped identify it as a natural extension of the equipment finance platform, working on its strategy, operations and growth while still general counsel.

Both unit presidencies sit under the chief revenue officer rather than the chief executive, the structure the release states, and the growth language around the appointment points the same way. The announcement does not address how the two units will be run day to day or how Insight will report the segment's results.

Umans joined Insight in 2019 and has more than 25 years of equipment finance experience, described in the release as including deep expertise in the material handling sector and a background in legal, financial and operational leadership. Before Insight he was vice president and general counsel at Pacific Rim Capital, Inc.

The release names no successor in the general counsel seat, and it attaches no targets, budget or financial figures to either unit. The number that already exists is the one to watch: a segment entered in 2021 that Insight says accounts for more than a quarter of the business, now led by the executive who helped build it.