American International Group, Inc. (AIG)

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Liddy is “a brilliant financial strategist,” Robert Pike, a retired chief administrative officer told Bloomberg News. “He’s able to take an extraordinary amount of data and synthesize it, probably better than anybody I ever met.”

He is also single-minded about achieving his goals, said Pike, who reported to Liddy at Allstate.

Shortly before Liddy took over as CEO of Allstate, he told 200 managers that some of them would be gone in a year, according to a May 2005 Crain’s Chicago Business story which Pike confirmed to Bloomberg. Among those he axed were the finance chief and investment officers.

“Ed looked around and picked those people he felt would add value and complement their culture, and I think he did pretty damn well,” Pike said.

Liddy also has experience in mortgage insurance, a business that lost money for AIG for the last four quarters. He served as chairman of PMI Group Inc., the No. 2 U.S. mortgage insurer, in the 1990s. Mortgage insurers reimburse lenders when borrowers fail to pay their debts.