1, 2, 3, 4.

Hello, and welcome to beyond the Desk, the podcast where I take a deep dive into the careers of some of the most influential and inspiring leaders in the technology transformation and operations space within global insurance and insurtech.

I'm your host, Mark Thomas, and every week I'll be sitting down with industry trailblazers who are driving innovation and modernization within the insurance sector.

We'll explore their personal journeys, from their early backgrounds and the pivotal moments that shape their careers to the challenges they've had to overcome, the lessons they've learned along the way, and of course, the big wins that have defined their professional journey so far.

But it's not just about their successes.

It's about what you and I can take away from their experiences and the advice they have.

For anyone wanting to follow in similar footsteps.

Whether you're just starting out or looking to level up your career in the insurance or insurtech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.

So grab your headphones, get comfortable, and.

Let'S jump into beyond the Desk.

Reno.

Welcome to the podcast.

How are you doing?

Thank you.

Good, good.

Good stuff.

Right, so we'll, as always, I could give you an introduction, but I'm sure you'll do a much better job than I will, so it'd be good to just get a kind of an intro from you, current role, etc.

And then we'll go right back to the start and work our way from there.

Sure.

So, I mean, at the moment I'm at CNA Hardy and I'm CIO and head of Business Transformation.

I'm responsible for operations and for our strategic transformation journey.

My background is it was really an organizational change transformation.

I started 25 years ago in insurance, but in business roles.

So reorganizing operations, reorganizing claims underwriting.

And then over time, my roles have become more technology focused, as indeed the market has become more technology focused.

And my last few roles have been CIO in charge of technology, which is quite fascinating because it's not the normal.

The normal path that people would follow.

Yeah.

So let's go right back to the kind of start then.

So how did.

Because the first question I normally ask people is kind of how they got into technology, whether it was kind of when they were young or at university or something.

That obviously wasn't the, the, the.

The way it worked out for you.

So what did that look like kind of university and all that kind of sounded that, what, what were you into in the early years?

And then how did that evolve?

Well, I Mean, I think, you know, like a lot of people, when I was younger, my passion was travel and exploring the world.

And so in my 20s, I spent nine years working at American Airlines in a call center while I was doing my undergraduate degree and while I was doing my, my graduate degree, I thought I planned to go into law.

Yeah.

So my undergrad was in political science as a pre law course.

I, I did two years of law school and I absolutely hated it.

I like to be right.

So I found the, you know, the, the, the arguments sometimes to be frustrating and I probably would have wanted to, if I could have skipped and gone right into being a judge, I probably would have been very happy.

Yeah, yeah.

But, but the reality is, I think I just, I found the ambiguity a little bit less fulfilling.

And so I, I changed to do an mba.

Yep.

And I did an MBA in finance and, and then went into a, a leadership development program at Cigna, which is a U.S.

medical insurer.

Was, were you in the U.S.

for or when you were, when you were young?

I grew up, I grew up in Connecticut.

So I grew up in the US and it was quite fascinating.

You said, you know, kind of, how did you get into technology?

As I said, it's kind of evolved.

But I went into, I remember the interviews at cigna.

I mean, Connecticut itself has so many insurance companies and in the 1930s and 40s, I think used to be the insurance capital of the world.

And so most of the big US insurers still have some sort of offices in Connecticut.

And so I was interviewing with a number of them and this was a leadership development program at cigna.

And I remember one of the questions was, why do you want to work here?

You know, and I was really just looking for a job after my mba.

And so you can't say, well, because I want a job.

Didn't have a passion for insurance.

But I did say, I remember saying at the time, you know, it's not like I was riding around on my tricycle thinking I want to work in insurance.

But growing up in Connecticut, where insurance was so prevalent, you know, it just seemed like a logical choice.

Apparently I didn't say anything too bad since I did get the role and ended up in initially in their transformation program.

So CIGNA at the time was going through a transformation program where they were spending about 1 billion with a B US dollars over multi years to reorganize and transform their organization.

And as part of that, I worked on operational transformation, I worked on a claims transformation where we were digitizing and we were Outsourcing and automating the processes of our claims.

And, and I worked on some other operational things and that was kind of my beginning of the transformation journey.

There was a bit of tech involved in that, but then after that I kind of evolved into other operational type focused roles, but always leading the organization through change and then later becoming more technology focused.

Yeah.

So did you go into, did you rise up into kind of leadership type roles pretty quickly?

It sounds like you were kind of.

Whereas lots of people, if they went into change of transformation, would kind of do the typical route, the kind of business analyst, project manager, program manager type type thing, change manager, those, those types of role.

Sounds like you went into kind of more focused leadership roles pretty quickly.

So I went into, when I started at cigna, it was, you know, four years to director was the plan.

And so I did, I did kind of follow a project route initially, so more like a project manager.

Ultimately, I took over the responsibility for the claims organization and the transformation of the claims organization.

I think that was my first move into a director role, maybe three years in to my CIGNA career.

But before that it was more project management.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And did you always, you mean that four years to direct, did you always have the kind of foresight and the ambition that you wanted to move up into more senior roles kind of leadership type?

That was always the plan.

I mean, I don't know if it was like a fully thought out plan in the sense of it's not like I had mapped out my career, but I do think coming out of university with an mba, I think one of the things that they teach you or that they try to do is instill a level of confidence through the MBA program.

So you come out actually thinking that you're the most amazing person and you know so much more than everyone else.

And then reality kind of hits you in the face.

And so I think I expected that there would be some sort of move into leadership, but I think what I didn't realize is how much I didn't know because you come out of an education, especially in a program which is particularly around creating leaders, and you expect that you're the smartest person in the room.

Prior to that, prior to my mba, it was interesting because I started out at American Airlines just in the call center.

And partway through that journey, I became a manager of the call center.

And I've always, and you could argue now, Mark, maybe it's not true anymore, but I've always looked younger than my age.

And so at 26, managing you know, being a manager in a call center, I probably looked like I was 15.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so I, I felt like I needed to have all the answers.

I don't think it was a conscious thing, but I felt like I needed to have all the answers.

And so if someone came with a problem, I would give them the answer.

I didn't.

I wouldn't.

IGN acknowledged that I had any gaps in learning, any gaps in kind of knowledge that anyone was smarter.

And I think, you know, probably I was quite difficult to work for.

Yeah.

Coming out of my MBA now with this confidence that they try to instill through the educational program, I can imagine I was a horrid person to work for or work with sometimes.

And so I think there's been an evolution.

Did I have an expectation that I would be a leader?

Maybe, but I think maybe that was more of an expectation that was kind of developed over the course of my career.

Yeah.

I mean, I guess if you do an mba, there's a kind of a certain level of expectation of the type of role in business that you're going to go into.

I mean, obviously I've not done an mba, but is that the track that you're very much on there, that they are preparing you to go in to do some kind of executive role at some point in the.

Not too distinctive.

I think most of the people who graduated from their MBA courses with me either went into consulting or they went into investment banking or finance in some way or they started their own organizations.

Okay.

And so those are probably the three most common career paths from my graduating class.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

You mean we're kind of jumping ahead a little bit, but in regards to kind of advice, you mean, is it something you would advise people do?

Because I think there's.

I mean I've certainly looked at stuff like that post.

Like, I mean I finished university along 20 years ago now.

But the.

I've looked at stuff like that before and there's certainly kind of mixed reviews on certainly in the US in sense of more, I think more around the fact how expensive they are certainly now and whether or not you actually ever end up paying them back and.

But away from the expense.

Do you think it was a good experience?

Is it something you'd advise other people do?

I think for me it was a good experience because it kind of changed the direction of my career.

Okay.

So if you think about what I said earlier about being in charge of a call center or manager in a call center and then kind of doing this pre law a couple of years of law school.

Of course, everything takes longer in the US as well.

Right.

So law school takes longer.

An MBA is a two year program versus what is generally one in the uk.

It pivoted my career in a different direction.

So I don't think it would have been as easily for me to make a transition into insurance or finance or as I mentioned, other people going into consulting or investment banking or starting their own company.

So from that perspective, it opened up doors.

It also gives you a framework of how to think about things more strategically.

Could you get that without the training or education?

Of course you could.

And some people naturally will think about things in a more strategic way and some people naturally will think about things in a more detailed way.

It's not the be all and end all.

But I do think what it does is it opens up doors.

Once the door is open, you have to be able to take advantage of that and leverage that.

And I think it will only open up doors for you for a certain period of time.

Right.

Does an MBA help me now?

I'm not sure that it would open any more doors if I had or did not have an MBA in my CV at this point.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

It's kind of a bit like any kind of education.

It almost helps you in the early years.

It gets you in a few doors.

But do I think back to my business degree now?

Probably not.

And does anyone say, do you have a business degree?

Yeah, yeah.

No.

Yeah.

Once you get past the first kind of five, six, seven years of career, it's kind of, kind of becomes trapped by the, the experience, isn't it?

So, so obviously you spent pretty much all your career from then in insurance.

So when did you, when did you take the, the plunge and come into the uk?

When did what, what did that, when did that look like?

I mean, it's great, it's, it's interesting.

Right.

I left Cigna and I went to work in Japan for a few years and I went to work for Hartford Insurance organization in their life company.

We're doing annuities and investments in Japan.

You could argue that history is cyclical.

I know that's been said before, but Japan had been through a banking crisis and so people in Japan were not trusting the banks at the time.

And here comes the Hartford as 150-year-old institution with guaranteed returns on investment.

And they had massive success in the early years in Japan where the stock markets were returning 10, 12% increase in value and they were guaranteeing their customers kind of 3, 4% in value.

And they were taking all that money and they were investing it in the background and making massive, massive returns on their investments as an organization.

And so in Japan, they were doubling in size every six months.

They didn't really have a strategy around their operating model, how they were going to operate.

And so I went to Japan for a couple of years to help build out the strategy.

And I worked on a couple of initiatives over there around operating model and kind of technology.

That's when technology, I think, started to become a bigger component of my background.

So relatively early on, then it was kind of like not right at the start, but still in the kind of Fairly first.

First 8, 10 years of your career.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And then I left that role to go to work at alliance, that Fireman's Fund in California.

And there I was more working on operational transformation, so rolling out consistent operating models.

We were centralizing some of the underwriting, commercial business operations into central centers.

Underwriting centers.

And so that was more.

Probably more operationally focused.

Yeah.

And then.

So it was the uk and then.

I came to the uk.

Yeah.

And so what did that look.

What was the first role?

You did that.

So I actually, for personal reasons, I ended up with the right to.

To come to the uk And I thought, okay, well, I've not really worked in Europe, so let's take advantage of that.

Yeah.

And I.

And I came to the UK initially in a more remote capacity.

And.

And I ended up moving to.

To Zurich here.

A bit of a step down, initially in Zurich, in London, responsible for their European.

Sorry, their UK transformation.

Within six or eight months, they'd asked me to take a more global role, so.

To be accountable for global transformation, for their global corporate business.

Yeah.

So you say that was a remote role to start with, was it?

Well, my California role at Fireman's Fund, I didn't want to leave the organization.

I don't think they wanted me to leave.

And so they were open to travel when and as needed to San Francisco for that.

And so I ended up working remotely probably for about a year, some of that time in London while I was kind of still supporting the Fireman's Fund brand in San Francisco.

And then ultimately, once I decided to make London my home, I thought, I really need to find a local role.

Yeah, yeah, it's not really sustainable.

And.

And Allianz had acquired Fireman's Fund at that point.

So Allianz is an option here in the uk, as we know, but they were going through a restructure they were downsizing and they were, they were eliminating roles in the uk, which is how I ended up at Zurich.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then, and then.

So if we kind of jump ahead, like what, what did the next, the next few years look like in regards to kind of get.

And then, and then I guess I'm trying to get under the COVID of the, the journey to the first kind of C suite role and how that kind of materialized.

Yeah, I mean, I think my career in a way has been just a kind of progression on operational or technology roles while they're being changed or while they're being transformed in some way.

And so if I think about Zurich, I moved on to a couple of other roles which are technology focused.

And then I landed at AmTrust.

Prior to my current role, AmTrust had been on a journey themselves of acquisitions and organization that over the 25 years of their existence has almost non stop been in acquisition mode and has grown from a very small organization to a multi billion dollar global organization.

I joined their European business to consolidate their acquisitions initially and so consolidate them from a tech perspective, consolidate them from an operations perspective and then look at how we build a proper group organization.

And I initially joined that in more of a contractor role.

But about a year in our group CIO asked if I would take the CIO role, which is how I ended up in the first CIO role.

So again, it's a little bit of a different journey because it's not coming from a tech background as much as it is coming from a transformation or an operation background.

Yeah.

So that's it.

I'm always, I'm always quite intrigued as how to.

Because, because I think getting that first CIO COO role is always the.

Seems to be the most difficult one get to really taking that jump.

But for you it was a case of you went in actually doing the transformation piece, did a really good job on that and then they kind of evolved into taking on a bigger piece rather than you move into a company to get it, which I think is fairly common.

Common.

So what were the challenges there in kind of.

Because obviously lots of the stuff you did early in your career was operationally focused transformation ops model, design, strategy based stuff.

I guess then you started to take on more responsibility for the run of IT operations as well as a transformation.

What did that kind of, what was that like?

Is it an easy transition?

I mean, if I think back on the operational roles I've had, it's always been during a period of change, during a period of transformation, during a period of Kind of the need or the desire of the organization to improve or become more efficient.

And to be fair, I don't think you could find any organization that wouldn't look for that in a leader.

It's not just about we're going to maintain our bau, we're going to make sure everything's working okay.

It's also about how do we take the organization to the next level, how do we get better, how do we do better than our peers, how do we outperform, how do we provide some sort of differentiator that's going to help the business in some way?

And so from that perspective, it wasn't that different.

The getting closer, you know, to infrastructure and servers and databases and, you know, access rights and all of these things is.

Was a learning curve.

And I think in a lot of ways it's rounded out my knowledge.

So if you think about it from an insurance perspective, now, I've worked across multiple types of insurance.

I've worked across life insurance, I've worked across property and casualty specialty, Lloyd's, all of the different insurance areas that, that in the kind of core, in the kind of core kind of insurance organizations that there are.

And the part that I think that that added was more of a technical understanding.

So I've worked in claims, I've worked in underwriting, I've worked in operations, but now I've got the tech component as well.

And if I think about my current role, where I'm responsible for operations, I'm responsible for facilities, for data and data and analytics, and I'm responsible for.

But I'm also responsible for our organizational transformation, which is not just the IT transformation, but how are we going to operate in the future.

It kind of brings together all of my history and all of my background, but in a way that I think adds value and makes me better at my job because I can understand when other parts of the organization are having challenges, because I've had those challenges in my prior roles myself.

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

I mean, the.

I want to talk about a little bit more about that role now.

So it's sounds like obviously you went from the kind of transformation piece, took on the technology piece at AmTrust.

Now you've gone into this kind of much broader role, which has still got the encompasses, the parts that you had before, but then you've got kind of a much broader remit.

Is that again, was that something that you, once you started to get into kind of those C suite positions, is that something that you kind of had ambitions to do, to kind of broaden that out and take on more responsibility.

Was that kind of a.

I guess it was that an educated kind of planned move to go.

I mean, I wouldn't say I was actively looking in the market.

Right.

I think like most people from a day to day perspective, I was quite happy.

I think AmTrust is a great organization.

I think all of the organizations I've worked for are really good organizations.

But I, but I think what this role provided me was the opportunity to bring it all back together.

Yeah.

And to kind of come full circle and be able to, you know, focus on the overall organization and how do we make the overall organization operate more efficiently.

And my role is really about how do we make that happen.

So let's get into that a little bit more then.

So what's the, what's the kind of the.

You spoke a little bit there about the kind of motivations as to what you, why you wanted to join there.

But what does that, what's big on the kind of agenda for you right now?

I mean, we've got a number of things happening at the moment.

We're modernizing all of our technology over the next three to five years.

We're modernizing our operating model.

I mentioned facilities.

We've got a dozen offices across the continent and here in the UK and we're in the process of revamping all of those.

And so we've done.

Our UK offices have just been modernized over the last two or three years.

If you walk around, they feel fresh, they feel new.

And I think that really sets the tone for where the organization is trying to get to.

And my role really is around how do we enable that growth to continue and provide scalability and provide the capabilities that we need for that growth to continue.

Yeah, yeah.

So for me that's all really very exciting.

And I think, you know, CNA Hardy is it's poised to make a step change in terms of growth and where they are in the market.

And my role is critical to that success.

So for me that's super exciting.

Yeah.

So where do you see, I mean taking that more broadly out now to kind of the general insurance kind of landscape.

There's obviously lots of, lots of change with technology and stuff like that.

It's kind of, it feels like we're at this kind of pivotal point where things are gonna, going to change quite drastically.

You mean not just, not just in insurance, actually running technology in the world with AI etc, that seems they're kind of, we're at a tipping point.

What, what do you see as the, as the kind of next next few years is the kind of big ticket stuff on the agenda of, of people in your space?

I mean, I think it's.

Look, the thing on everybody's mind is around AI and how do we leverage AI?

How do we get the best value out of AI?

How does it become a differentiator for us?

How do we become more efficient?

How do we become faster?

We've got a number of pilots that we're doing in that space and we've done some things that have added value already.

We're rolling out Microsoft Copilot within our organization, but we're looking at other opportunities for how we leverage it as well.

I think from a technology and the broader market perspective that's going to be the focus.

How do we get leverage out of that?

Insurance is ripe for technology modernization in a number of different areas.

AI is one.

There are things around low code and faster deployment of technology.

There's things around robotics and how we leverage some of the robotics capabilities that already exist in the market.

A lot of insurance companies have dabbled in it, but I think no one has really.

I wouldn't say no one.

Very few have made the step change to actually taking full advantage of what they can.

And so I think that is where you're going to see the market go.

The other thing that's going to happen is if you think about in the UK for example, when we get our homeowners insurance or we get our property insurance, we're not talking to anyone, we're doing all of that online.

We're going to aggregate our websites, we're going to compare the market.

We're going to Money Supermarket and the kind of aggregators and we're, you know, we're putting in all our details and we're getting back a number of different quotes.

Right.

And we're probably, if we don't recognize the first one, but we recognize the second one, we may pick the second one in terms of cheapness, but we're not going to pick the one that's third, fourth, fifth, sixth on the list.

Right.

And so in that space it's definitely become commoditized.

Yeah.

And it's become automated and it's become, you know, price driven and not a lot of kind of manual processes going on in that space.

And I think what you're seeing in the market is although it started in the personal line space, it's starting to move up the value chain.

And so you're seeing that sort of thing happen with some of the small commercial stuff, you're seeing some, that sort of happen with some of the kind of higher volume, lower value policies in the specialty space.

And I think that's what you're going to see over the next several years in the insurance space.

You're going to see that slowly move up the value chain.

In fact, it's probably not hugely dissimilar to when I started my career when we were having the same conversations, but we weren't having it about AI and we weren't having it about kind of robotics or automation.

We were having it about outsourcing and we were saying let's take the low value kind of repetitive processes and let's outsource them.

Now we're saying let's take the kind of repetitive processes, let's take the knowledge, let's build tooling, let's build technology that's going to help us to drive that in a more efficient and more cost effective manner so that we can become scalable as an organization and we can become more cost effective to our customers.

Yeah, I think that interesting what you say about the commoditization of it because I completely agree.

I don't think anyone goes past about the.

So it's a bit like the Google searches, right?

You know, nobody ever goes to the second page of a Google search.

I mean arguably if you're not in the first half of the first page you're probably relevant.

But because I think in an interesting example I was talking to some about actually the other day is there's a bit of a divide in that space because you've obviously got the really commoditized stuff like house insurance, home insurance, car insurance.

Certainly like it's in that space.

Some providers are trying to push that back the other way and trying to add kind of value add type stuff so that actually you have an association to the brand.

And I personally have experienced that firsthand.

My old position, I had my health insurance through Vitality and they're brilliant at that stuff though I've got the kind of free Apple watch they do a number of steps and all the kind of the perks, cinema vouchers and stuff like that for kids.

It's great.

So when I actually moved and therefore we were looking at health insurance again, there is absolutely no doubt that if Vitality was in and around the right price, that's where we were going.

Because all three of the, myself and my two business partners, both of us had, we all had it with Vitality.

We all liked the experience.

So therefore we stuck with it.

So you mean, I guess in the kind of London market space.

I don't know it quite so well, but I certainly don't know the buying experience.

But that seems like it could be that, that might be an angle.

Do you see, do you think there's much going to be more of a move to that, like using data to understand customers more to be able to add value in different ways so that actually there is some brand loyalty?

Because you mean I don't think I can get less which I've got my car insurance with, as long as it's cheap.

But yeah, no, I mean, I think you're right and I think part of the challenge when you think about transformation and I think about my roles in the last two or three organizations I've worked in has been how do we drive efficiency in the operating model but also leverage the knowledge and the specialization specialization of our, of our staff to provide a differentiated service?

You know, if the operating model itself is working efficiently and you've driven that to the most effective way of doing it to provide the scalability that we talked about, then you can redirect your resources to providing a better experience overall because you've taken away all of the admin, you've taken away the pain points, you've taken away a lot of the processing work and now you're able to focus on how do we actually differentiate ourselves.

So I would imagine, and I don't know, but I would imagine that Vitality probably has quite a good operating model, quite an efficient way of operating and they're able to use not only data and analytics to drive some of the things that you've talked about, but also they're able to dedicate their resources to do that because they're not focused on day to day processing activities.

And that's kind of the benefit of transformation.

You're transforming an organization to make it very efficient so that you can then apply the added capacity to things that are going to add value to your customers in a different way.

It's not necessarily about driving out costs or becoming the smallest organization that you can.

It is about making the operating model efficient, giving added information, added data, added analytics to the internal people and leveraging that data to give a better customer experience.

I would also say, and I talked a lot about AI, right?

And AI will help us provide that data or help us give us insights into that data.

And that's one of the things that I think will become valuable over the next few years.

The other thing is we capture insurance companies, capture enormous amounts of data and being able to understand how to use that data and how to use it in a meaningful way to drive better performance for the organization but also better performance for customers I think is critical.

And it's a differentiator if we can do that better than our peers.

And so that's also.

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Now let's get back to today's episode.

I mean it's always kind of blown my mind how really in comparison to the rest of the world how badly insurance do data and given how much of it they have kind of willingly given to them.

But from an AI perspective because, because it's an interesting one, isn't it?

There's, there's the ongoing debate of kind of losing loads of jobs through, through the use of AI and stuff like that.

But that take that you said there about actually it, it will not necessarily people lose their job.

It will just mean that they can redeploy those people into more high value stuff and therefore get a much better customer experience and, and focus those people on on stuff that's going to push more out of the funnel at the end.

Do you see that?

Certainly in the short to medium term, do you think that's where it's going?

I think definitely in the short to medium term what we're going to see is AI being used to supplement and to aid kind of organizations to do better and to provide better service and better skills.

Now I guess I would say it also depends on the organization.

Right.

I mean, I'm in the specialty insurance business right now.

We're doing Lloyd's, we're doing commercial business, we're doing specialty insurance.

And for us the differentiation is important and the customer experience is important.

And so we're not and we want to grow.

And so to the extent that we can differentiate ourselves and we can be that much better than our peers, that's going to help us achieve the outcomes we want.

And we're not unique, I think, in our desire to do that in other organizations.

We talked about the online aggregators and what you and I do for our homeowners insurance or our car insurance and I think it may be a different discussion there.

But as you explained with your experience with vitality, even there, they can differentiate to drive additional, additional customers to them or to drive more loyalty.

And they're going to want to do some of that.

Yeah.

You mean, I think certainly the car insurance and space needs to be able to cut cost out of it to make prices cheaper.

I mean, that's their big issue, isn't it?

It's too expensive and none of them seem to be able to make any real proper money out of it.

So I guess there's the efficiency benefits for them at that level is more a case of actually how can we save money so we can push that, those, those savings on to customers and actually make more, more profit, which they did.

But it is, it is different.

Right.

If you look at the insurance costs in the UK from a personal lines perspective, in my experience, right.

I, I, I've had property in the US and I've had property here in the UK and the homeowner's insurance in the UK is much, much less expensive than it is in the US Much, much less.

And car insurance as well is much, much less expensive here.

So but in the US the, the model has been different historically.

So they don't do aggregator websites in the US like they do in the uk.

You wouldn't naturally go online and look for a website to do comparison shopping in the US And I think that has helped from a competitiveness perspective in the uk.

Yep.

And it's definitely driven our behavior because like you said and like we talked about earlier, I'll pick the first, the cheapest one.

If I recognize the brand, I'll pick the cheapest one.

Travel insurance is another good example.

And you know, if I don't recognize the brand, I might go to the second or third if it's a little bit more.

But if it's significantly more, I Probably pick the cheapest one anyway.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you don't use it.

The vast majority.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's there as a guarantee in case something goes wrong.

Yeah.

You know, insurance companies, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thing because any insurance company is only really as good as our talent.

Yeah.

And I spend a lot of time transforming and building new operating models and you know, implementing new technology.

But if you think about what insurance is, it's really a people business and our people make us a good company and their knowledge make us a good company or they don't.

And so investing in people, investing in the operating model, making it easier for people, giving them the information to be able to provide a better service to our customers.

To me, that's kind of my role.

That's what I see my role at CNA Hardy doing and I think that's going to.

And ultimately that will enable our growth.

And it's pretty exciting.

It's a pretty exciting role.

Yeah.

I mean it's interesting because the other kind of question I wanted to kind of pose really as well is that obviously there's lots of people talking about AI, which is kind of super modern technology, really evolving at a rapid pace.

It's kind of the modernization journey of insurance companies.

There's always the kind of the, the age old stories of kind of how far behind the insurance space is and stuff like that.

Do you think in regards to the rest of the tech estate generally in insurance and certainly the places that you've been that they're kind of ready to kind of jump to where it seems like maybe only two or three years ago we're still talking about kind of big mainframe systems and lots of old PAAS systems and all this kind of stuff that needs to be modernized.

And now we've kind of just almost jumped ahead 20 years or something like that.

I mean, new technology comes with benefits, but we also have to understand it.

And so are we able to jump?

Yeah, I think in some cases we can.

We absolutely should and we should be embracing it.

And I think, you know, we are in what we're doing.

I also think like most organizations there is like some legacy stuff that needs to be addressed and cleaned up and we're addressing that as well.

So I wouldn't say it's a.

Everything's going to switch tomorrow 100%.

It's an evolution.

And I think every insurance company is on the revolution to kind of get everything modernized.

But I don't think we're as far away sometimes as we believe we are, and sometimes it's about the internal messaging.

I think every organization I've worked at has thought they're worse than all of their competitors.

And I think there's value, you know, I think in turn to an organization, there is a value for them to think that they're behind because it's going to make them want to work harder to progress and get ahead.

But it's not only about bringing parity.

Ultimately, you want to do better.

You want to be better than your peers.

And so there needs to be that push.

There needs to be that drive to do better.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That ambition thing, I think is.

That's a really interesting one.

So.

So I guess I wanted to move a little bit onto.

I'm always really keen to get to understand from people what they're the kind of two or three big ticket things that went really well in their career, like kind of pivotal moments like projects or whatever that went really well, where you learned the most and, and equally the one or two, not to focus too much on the negatives, but the.

The one or two ones that didn't go well and because there's normally some great learnings from them as well.

So why don't we start with the ones that did go well?

But like, what.

What are your thoughts?

Any particular ones that stand out?

To be honest, I think they're.

I wouldn't separate them.

Okay.

I think for me, the things that have been most challenging are probably the things that I've learned the most from.

Yep.

And so we've talked about my career.

I've worked in various places around the globe and in cultures, you know, all different kinds of cultures, and each area, each location, each culture is a little bit different.

I'm in the change business.

Right.

I want organizations to change.

I want people to do things differently.

I want them to do, you know, I want them to be better.

And I work really hard to try and get people, you know, to.

On the journey with me so that we can deliver better organizations.

And the way that you do that in different cultures, the way that you can affect change is different.

And sometimes those have been the most challenging parts of my career, and other times they.

But at the same time, I would say they've been the most rewarding.

And so Japan is a perfect example we had.

When I was in Japan, first, I don't speak Japanese.

And part of the remit that we had was to develop Japanese staff so that we could all go home.

You know, I'd sit in leadership Meetings with a headset on where we had simultaneous translation into English and Japanese from someone who sat in the corner with their headset on.

And we're trying to.

In my particular role, trying to get people to embrace the change and help me drive the change and help me figure out what the best way is to get the organization where they need to go and in some cases, help me define what the organization needed to look like.

And there were a lot of barriers there that I needed to overcome in order to get that done.

And that was sometimes very challenging, but at the same time, I would say it was very rewarding and we did accomplish things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting.

I was going to ask you actually, about the.

So obviously, I mean, the.

The barriers and the challenges you had in regards to going to Japan back in the U.S.

the differences between the U.S.

and the U.K.

i mean, obviously there's not.

Not a language barrier, but.

But I'm sure there's some kind of cultural differences.

What, what of the.

Is there.

Were there any kind of particular things that.

Stories that.

That kind of spring to mind on that front?

I mean, my very first British boss in the uk, when I would go through my plans with him, would say to me, have you thought about this?

Have you thought about doing it this way?

And I would say, I thought about it, but I don't think it's the right thing to do.

So I'm not going to do.

Was probably only a year after I finished working for him that I realized that wasn't a suggestion.

That's what he wanted me to do.

And, you know, sometimes, especially if you're working in a new culture and you're not as familiar with it, sometimes you make those mistakes.

Right?

And, you know, I hope, and I hope that I've learned from that, but I also think working across different cultures has given me a different perspective and helped me to become maybe a bit more intuitive when someone is feeling that something isn't right.

And if I go back to my early career, when I probably felt like I needed to have all the answers, if there's one thing I would say that's been a big accomplishment over my career is it's being comfortable with saying, I don't know the answer, I don't know how to do this, and relying on people who do.

And that's also part of leadership development, I think, and something that doesn't naturally come to someone when you're 26 and you look like you're 12 and you're working in a call center in Charge and you feel like you need to have all the answers?

Yeah, it is something that I think comes with time.

Do you think that variety has been a kind of a key because.

Because you've obviously done a variety.

I know it's all been in the kind of financial services space, but there's been differences there in kind of general insurance in the uk, like, I mean, life and pensions, annuities, stuff that you mentioned.

London market, us, uk, Japan.

There's quite a lot of variety within the.

The kind of same sphere as it.

As it were.

But is.

Is.

Do you think that.

Would you put that down as a really big kind of factor is that that's allowed you to kind of move and progress into.

Into kind of C.

And would you advise other people do the same?

I mean, has it been a factor?

Maybe it probably has because it has given me the ability to look across different types of insurance and take what works and bring that into other areas.

Is it necessary?

I'm not sure if it's necessary, but I do think it's given me a differentiator and it's given me a different view and I've been able to deliver successful outcomes in different organizations.

We've automated.

In some of the roles that I've worked in in the past, we've automated.

I mentioned when I was at cigna, the digitization of all the claims, going paperless and outsourcing, all of that and being able to automate the claims payment now, you know, medical claims in the us massive, massive volume.

I think at the time we were processing something like 400,000 medical claims a month.

Wow.

And so being able to deliver that sort of outcome, not the same.

Not the same as where I am now.

You know, we're not processing anywhere near 400,000 claims a month.

But having a view on how that works, it helps me when I'm looking at other insurance types of insurance and I'm looking at, okay, what is the art of the possible?

And it opens up maybe potential solutions that wouldn't necessarily come to mind if I had just grown up in that sort of insurance environment.

In that one sort of insurance type of environment.

What's the kind of.

If you were to look.

I mean, I'm always quite keen to get advice.

Like lots of people listen to a podcast are people that probably want to get to a CIO role who may be in transformation roles like you were before.

So if there were kind of two or three kind of bits of advice you would give to people, your younger self or someone in a Similar spot, what would they be?

I mean, I would say for my younger self, my advice would be, it's okay to admit that you don't know something.

Yeah.

I think the maturity that comes with time and with different roles and with different organizations, I think is.

Is something that I would probably want to advise myself, my younger self, on.

The other thing is, it's okay to fail.

I, you know, there have been projects.

Fortunately, I've been lucky in that most of the things that I've implemented have been successful.

But there have been sometimes in my career when I felt like, gosh, this is not working the way I've wanted, or I've had challenging times and I've wondered if it's going to work out.

And it's worked out, thankfully, touch wood.

But I would say it's okay to make mistakes.

It's okay to fail.

And I think when you're younger, when you're new, when you're out of your MBA and they're trying to tell you that you know more than everyone else, then failure can sometimes seem like a massive setback.

But I also think it's how we learn.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely.

And, you know, trial and error sometimes is the best way to learn.

And then, you know, for advice for others, I would say look at, you know, look at the area.

Look, I don't, I don't.

I didn't take this role because of the title.

I didn't take this role because I wanted to be CIO or coo.

So it's more for me about, am I going to be excited by the challenge?

Am I going to be able to deliver?

Am I going to learn something?

Can I add value?

Can I help the organization?

And is it going to do something meaningful?

I try to avoid thinking about, okay, is it C?

Is it not a C level title?

And so my advice would be focus on doing what you love, focus on doing what you like, and the titles will come.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What, what.

So what's.

What is the kind of ambition for you over the next kind of 5, 10 years or so, then if you.

Have you.

Have you got kind of an idea or a plan of what that.

What you want that to look like?

I mean, I guess I'm just going to repeat a little bit of what I just said, which is I tend not to look at specific roles.

So I wouldn't say, oh, I want to be CEO or I want to be, you know, CIO in a bigger organization, or I want to be CEO in a bigger organization.

Organization.

For me, it's about what is the challenge and is it exciting?

Is it growth?

Is it somewhere where I can add value?

The things that I mentioned, I think right now where I am, there's massive opportunity for me to add value.

We've got a very exciting agenda ahead of us over the next three or four years and where that leads to, we'll see.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so we're coming towards the end.

I.

I'm gonna fire some quick fire questions at you.

So the first one is, what's the brand or company you most admire and why?

So I read, you know, I.

You gave me a preview of some of these questions and I told you I didn't prepare anything.

I didn't have any time to think about it.

I think I read it before I walked over here earlier.

So I think different, I admire different brands for different reasons.

Right.

Yeah.

I think if you think about some of the kind of iconic brands in the tech space, you think about Apple, you think about Google, you think about Facebook.

At different points, they've all been very admirable.

And at different points, you could argue maybe they've been less admirable.

Yeah.

And so for me, I tend not to be very brand focused, but I tend to think about what can I take away from the organizations, from the times when I have, you know, thought, that's great, that's a great organization.

Right.

Or, or, you know, that's exciting.

And what, what I would take away is really about the, the desire to do better, the desire to help, the desire to, you know, change the world.

I know it's a bit trite.

Right.

Maybe that's a very American.

Like I, I have been accused of being cheesy American at times.

So maybe that's a good example of where that's cheesy American.

But I do think, you know, all of that is admirable.

And in my own way, I suppose I try to do that by transforming organizations, by making them better, by making them more customer focused, more efficient.

But also, if you think about the insurance business itself, it's a plug for insurance for you.

Insurance as.

And we don't talk about this a lot.

Right.

But insurance, it does a number of things.

It makes people whole when the worst happens.

Yeah, right.

Your house gets destroyed and an insurance company will come in and put you, make you whole.

It will give you back a home.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, that's an admirable thing.

And we all complain, oh, our homeowners insurance is too much.

Our car insurance is too much.

You know, how does it get cheaper?

We talk, we spend a long time talking about, you know, the race for cost savings in the insurance space.

But if you think about the fundamental reason why insurance companies exist is to make people, organizations, you know, industries whole when the worst happens and provide protection and a level of security and a level of confidence.

And I'm reminded of, you know, the, the.

All of the things that have happened recently in the US you look at the fires happening in California recently.

Right.

And I do have friends, actually who've lost their homes in Palisades in California recently.

And, you know, an insurance company will step in and we'll make them whole.

Now, it's not going to fully make them whole.

Right.

Because they've lost.

One of my friends and I were chatting and, you know, they, they had the cookbook that their mom had written that they've lost in the fire.

Yeah.

An insurance company can never replace everything.

Yeah, of course.

But.

But it will come in and build them a new home.

Yeah.

Means they're not homeless.

Yeah.

And it will come in and, you know, replace the.

Make them financially whole, if not emotionally whole.

Yeah.

And.

And that's an admirable thing.

Yeah.

And, you know, for me, organizations that focus on how to better service our customers, how to better help people, how to better, you know, provide a.

Provide a better world, I think, in different ways can be, you know, can be Apple when the iPhone came out, can be Google when, you know, search first consolidated into Google.

But I think those are all admirable things.

So I wouldn't say it's a specific brand.

I know you said this is rapid fire.

I'm taking away your rapid fire worry about that.

I mean, they're never really that quick.

But yeah, I think, I mean, it's interesting, actually.

I was listening to a podcast the other day.

It's Simon Squibb, who's that kind of.

He's been like a.

Kind of.

He's an entrepreneur, I think.

But he was saying that he thinks the future in the world is kind of not for profits.

A lot of the time they don't really work that well.

And actually he was saying that he thinks that the future is for profit businesses, but the ones that just do good for the world.

And I think that's.

And when he was saying it, I was thinking insurance is kind of.

You're totally right.

I think the insurance do a terrible job of promoting.

Promoting that.

They don't.

They don't.

For some reason, they don't really ever focus on that.

But you're right.

I mean, lots of people complain about insurance, but they wouldn't be complaining when the house burns down and they come around and rebuild it.

Do it.

It's like then, then your, your kind of semi expensive policy seems kind of relatively insignificant.

So I think it's.

Yeah, I mean, and it's a massive, you know, it's a massive security that insurance companies provide and the times, and heaven forbid, God forbid, you know, if you believe that it's ever needed.

But the fact is, insurance companies, what we do, it's meaningful.

And sometimes I think we forget that.

Often I think we forget that.

Yeah, definitely.

The next one is.

What's the.

It's actually the one piece of advice you wish you would give when you first start out.

I'm going to change that because you kind of answered last time, what's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

You know, I've been asked a similar question before and I don't think I would point to any particular one piece of advice that I've been given.

But I do think, and it's fascinating, you know, growing up, the influences that you have around you.

And you know, my grandfather is 98 years old now, and I look back to growing up and I look back at some of the lessons that I learned from him in terms of work ethic and in terms of, you know, finishing what you start and in terms of making a difference.

And I think, you know, there are things that I would look back and say that I've learned from him.

I can look back to my grandmother who's no longer with us, and the way that she was caring and thought about everyone else, in some cases beyond herself.

And I think that has kind of been maybe not direct advice, but that's been something that filters through in the way I think about things.

And I look back at the people in my career who've helped or guided me or given me opportunities, and I think, you know, I wouldn't say it's a specific piece of advice, but it's more been coaching and mentoring and development along the way that's helped me to get to where I am and to think about things the way I do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great.

If you could swap jobs for anyone, with anyone for a day, who would it be?

That's a hard question because there's a lot of change going on in the world right now and it's just for a day.

Yeah, just for a day.

I mean, look, the.

The US is in the midst of a new administration.

Yeah.

I think it Would be interesting to, to spend a day, you know, either as President of the US or as Prime Minister of the UK and see what that, what is that really like on the ground.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that'd be the one for me.

I'd love to be Trump for a day.

Just, just, just to see, I mean, I'm not sure, not necessarily be him, but just, just to be the President would be, would be quite cool.

So the best kind of business related book or non fiction book you've ever, you've ever read?

Are you a big reader?

I mean, you know, you know this, I have two small children, so I mean sleep at the moment is a priority probably beyond reading.

Look, I, I, I, I haven't spent loads of time reading books.

Yeah.

But I would say one of the, one of the, it's an odd choice, right.

But probably one of the books that I always reflect on or I always think about when I get asked similar questions is about the Old man in the Sea.

Okay.

I've not heard of it.

And it's a very, it's a kind of classic book about, you know, a man who's out on a boat and gets lost and kind of, you know, tries to reel in this massive fish and ends up getting the fish but coming back on shore in the morning with the skeleton because it ends up getting kind of eaten along the way.

And it's really about perseverance and it's about conquering kind of what is perceived as the unconquerable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And for me, I think, you know, it's what I try to live my life by.

Right.

Anything that I'm afraid of.

It's interesting, I have, I have this conversation with a friend of mine quite regularly who's afraid of flying.

And you can't get her on a plane, you just can't.

And anytime I have a fear of something, I actually do the opposite.

Right.

I had a fear of heights, skydiving, you know, how do I persevere?

How do I conquer this?

How do I not let it hold me back?

We ask about a piece of advice and it's interesting, maybe it's a little bit grim, but my grandmother towards the end of her life was suffering from heart failure and she spent probably the last 15 years of her life afraid to kind of take risks or take chances.

And during this period of decline she was very depressed because I think she was coming to grips with the fact that she was not going to be able to do the things that she had anticipated and the reality is that she made a decision not to do, not to take the risks, and she was having quite a lot of regrets about that.

And so if there's one thing I suppose that I would say, as we've talked through this, that I would take away, it's that I've learned not to do that.

I don't want to end my life with regrets.

I want to make sure that if I am thinking that I should do something, I just do it.

Take a risk and go for it.

And don't have the fear.

Great bit of advice.

The best career decision you've ever made.

I think it's yet to be made.

Yeah.

Okay.

But I mean, I'm happy with all of my career decisions.

I think I've worked for some really great organizations.

I think I've made an impact in a lot of different ways.

Every new challenge has been great.

Yeah.

It seemed to me that probably the best decision you ever made was before you had the career in law, to not go into law, going to the shore.

So that's worked out pretty well for you.

The penultimate one is the person role model, or one person you admire the most.

You know, having two children now on my own, I look back at my mom, who was quite young as a mom, and my parents got divorced quite young, and she raised two children on her own.

Now I have a lot of support.

You know, they say it takes a village, and I've got a village.

And she didn't.

And now I just.

I wonder how she managed.

And so from a role model perspective, I think that combined with, you know, some of the other things that I've talked about with my family from a work ethic perspective and from a values perspective, I think, you know, that's got to be it.

That's the top of my list.

Yeah.

I have utmost respect for anyone who's a single parent.

I must be this.

I mean, I struggle and I've got.

There's two of us, so.

And then final question, you kind of answered it maybe a bit earlier, so.

But what's the best thing about working in insurance?

I mean, I think, you know, every day we're making a difference.

We're making a difference to people's lives every day.

And I think we.

We often forget that, but it's meaningful, and it's meaningful in a way that.

That changes lives for the better.

Yeah.

Amazing.

What a great way to finish.

So.

Well, look, thank you so much for making the time to have a chat to us.

Loved having that conversation.

And I've been trying to do it for a while as well.

The I'm sure there'll be some people that want to connect to you.

Are you okay with people reaching out LinkedIn and we'll obviously tag you in order all the episodes and stuff.

Well look, that's brings us to the end.

We've got plenty more episodes coming like subscribe, comment, etc nice stuff please.

But yeah, that's the we'll catch you all next time.

Cheers Trina Thanks.

And that's it for today's episode of beyond the Desk.

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