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ALKEME’s sludge-free blueprint for insurance growth
Curtis Barton likes to talk about sludge.
Not the market cycles or acquisition pipelines that dominate many brokerage conversations, but the low-value, high-friction work that clogs the desks of account managers and producers.
In his language, the job of leadership is to “get the sludge off the desk” so people can focus on work that matters to clients and to their own development. The phrase sounds tactical; in practice, it is the spine of how he builds ALKEME, shaping how people’s time and focus are directed.
That focus on clearing the path, rather than standing on a platform, runs through Barton’s career from his first years in insurance to his current role leading one of the US market’s most active consolidators.
Barton is also clear about his attitude to scale and exit. He has watched many platforms grow to a certain size and then sell. “I could have done that early on,” he acknowledges. “I could have done that, retired, and been done with this.” For him, that would have made his own effort feel misplaced. “Why would I put my blood, sweat, and tears into the business,” he asks, “if I wasn’t going to set it up to continue to build ALKEME to be best of breed, to continue to be a thought leader in the business, to continue to drive the business towards the future?”
Clearing space for better work and the next generation Inside the firm, Barton judges decisions by how they affect real work. On culture, he has little patience for leaders who separate their own interests from the organization’s. Over time, he argues, many “get in an ivory tower as they start making decisions that are what I’d call financial engineering decisions, as opposed to how do we unify everybody together and create profitability through that.”
His own rule is that “nothing is bigger than the company, not even me.” When he sees behavior that promotes an individual brand at the expense of ALKEME, he believes “you have to move on that person quick, and you can’t let that fester.” He treats producer compensation in the same way, describing aggressive resets as “culture killers” that “will kill your business” if handled only as a spreadsheet exercise.
Spotlight
ALKEME is a full-service insurance agency delivering a broad range of commercial and personal insurance, employee and executive benefits, retirement, and wealth management solutions. Founded in 2020, ALKEME has grown rapidly through more than 80 acquisitions and now serves clients from over 90 locations across 30 states. The firm is recognized by Insurance Journal as one of the 25 largest agencies in the US and ranked #3 fastest-growing broker by Insurance Business and Business Insurance. Built by industry owner/operators, ALKEME combines entrepreneurial autonomy with proven operational support, empowering partner agencies to scale, innovate, and succeed in a dynamic insurance marketplace.
Company Profile
394%
Revenue growth over last 3 years
#3
Fastest-growing- broker ranking in Business Insurance Top 100
80+
Agencies acquired since company founding
$2B+
Annual premiums written across platform
66% surge
M&A activity increase vs. market
Bio
Spotlight
Milestones
Media
Accolades
Company Profile
YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY
28+
Career progression
Started an agency with his father, purchased it, and later founded ALKEME, now a top-25 brokerage
Quick fact
Competed on his college ski team
Curtis Barton
Founder, ALKEME Insurance
Curtis Barton’s focus on clients, employees, and aligned ownership reshapes consolidation into a framework for sustainable, modern brokerage careers
Read on
“I’ve done everything in my insurance agency, literally from taking out the trash to being a lead producer to managing a team to growing a business”
Curtis Barton,
ALKEME
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Published May 27, 2026
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People
“Why would I put my blood, sweat, and tears into the business if I wasn’t going to set it up to continue to build ALKEME to be best of breed, to continue to be a thought leader in the business, to continue to drive the business towards the future?”
Curtis Barton,
ALKEME
Building a framework that’s earning its independence ALKEME came together in late 2020 with the merger of seven founding entities, including Venture Pacific, in the middle of the pandemic. Barton led that transaction and secured backing from GCP Capital in New York. Under his leadership, ALKEME has grown into a national brokerage with 1,500-plus employees, operations in 35 states, over 80 partner agencies, and more than $2 billion in revenue – while maintaining a focus on operational alignment, organic growth, and strategic acquisitions. While Barton no longer has to take out the trash or juggle multiple business functions, the structural choices behind that growth are intentionally plain. His head still does not turn by the flashy moves.
An early lesson in not chasing the flash The habit of ignoring the “flash in the pan” was set early. Coming out of college, Barton watched friends make money in the mortgage boom. Refinancing deals were everywhere, and the pull to abandon a slow build in insurance was strong. He went to his father, a seasoned agency owner, and said he was thinking about switching.
His father told him to ignore the noise. Stay where you are, he said, because the people rushing to the hot trade would one day be back, looking for a job in the business Barton was about to leave. He heeded his father’s advice, stayed in insurance, and kept up his methodical plan. Over time, he founded a regional brokerage in southern California and co-founded a digital lead-generation platform.
Barton learned not to chase cycles just because they were working for someone else – and by following his own path, he was exposed to every part of the work.
“I’ve done everything in my insurance agency,” he says, “literally from taking out the trash to being a lead producer to managing a team to growing a business.” While the catch was that he was constantly “stretched thin,” unable to sell because he was too busy doing HR, IT, or accounting, it did leave him with a lasting appreciation for every cog in the wheel.
Technology is where his concern for sludge becomes most concrete. ALKEME has moved about 85 percent of its operations onto a single system. Under head of AI Ryan Deeds, the firm has focused on internal builds. Deeds believes “AI is going to get better faster than we can conceptualize utilization” and that agencies can now “build software faster than we can buy, integrate, transform, and get adoption into it.” This has produced tools such as Producer Portal, which has quickly become “the primary tool that our producers use” for metrics, client acquisition, and carrier information.
For Barton, the measure is simple. He wants workflows to leave inboxes so people can do more of the work that originally drew them to the business. “It turns the work into a more fulfilling opportunity for them,” he says, “to engage with the client on a more person-to-person level.”
Looking ahead, Barton talks about “building the business to support the future” and often uses his own children as reference points. His son, who is 21 and interning at ALKEME, and his daughter, who is 19, show him how
their generation buys, communicates, and evaluates employers. He and his team then “try to build the business to feed them in the future, so we can actually bring youth into the business and solve problems instead of just talking about them.”
He believes if ALKEME gets the work itself right, careers will feel more grounded. “I think you’ll see people start to graduate back towards what we saw early on,” he says, “which was that people didn’t jump agency to agency, left and right. People stay. And that’s what we want.”
The story that links these choices is straightforward. Barton stayed with the difficult path when others chased easier money. He built a framework that forces him to earn independence through performance, not hope for a buyer. He measures culture and technology by whether they remove sludge and make work feel more worthwhile. The rest, in his account, has to follow from that.
1997
2020
2021
2022
2022–2025
2026
Founded and led Venture Pacific Insurance Services, specializing in niche insurance products nationwide
1997
Founded ALKEME
2020
ALKEME enters Insurance Journal's Top 100 P/C Agencies at #69
2021
ALKEME enters Business Insurance's
Top 100 US Insurance Brokers at #64
2022
Ranked as IBA Fast Brokerage (won 4 years in a row)
2022-2025
1,500+ employees, operations in 35 states, 80+ partner agencies, $2B+ in revenue, 21st-largest agency, and 3rd-fastest-growing brokerage
2026
Milestones