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 Desktop.

Welcome to the podcast.

How you doing?

I'm very well, Mark.

Thanks for having me.

Pleasure.

Right, so we will go right back to the start of your career in a sec, but always like to get a bit of an intro first.

So do you want to introduce yourself, current role, etc.

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

Sure.

I'm Hassani.

Jess.

I'm the group CTO at Eventum Group Insurance Specialty Reinsurance, headquartered right over there at the Monument, right by the Monument building.

I've been at Eventum just under two years now, really leading a.

What we believe to be a significant business transformation.

Some of the most exciting stuff I've done in my career.

I guess we'll get into a bit of that later on.

Yeah, been in technology my whole life, but we'll get into that as well.

Yeah.

And, yeah, really glad to be sharing a bit of that with you today.

Yeah, well, I'm looking forward to hearing it.

So let's go right back to the start.

I'm always like, one of the things I'm really intrigued by is how people first kind of got into technology.

And there's.

There's always, like, different stories.

But for you, was it.

Was it kind of something you're into when you were young as a kid, like kind of university, that kind of stuff, or was it something that you.

You grew into a bit later?

Absolutely.

So actually my.

My technology career, as it were, started off when I was about 10.

Right.

So actually before then.

So my mum was a teacher.

Yeah.

And she used to teach typing.

Okay.

And so when I was about 8 or 8, 7 or 8, she bought me a typewriter.

Yeah.

And it was one of the old school clunky ones.

The, the metal, the metal heads.

And I loved it.

And so when I got that typewriter, I thought, well, what do you do with a typewriter?

You become a journalist.

Yeah.

And so in those early days, I wanted to become a journalist.

I got an electric typewriter.

My mum then moved on from typing to word processing.

But.

And so she brought home a computer to.

So she could learn the old word processing packages.

Yeah.

And so we had this computer in our living room and that's when I fell in love with the computer because I thought, oh my goodness, this is, this is phenomenal.

It's interesting.

I don't know if you've read the book by Malcolm Gladwell, the Outliers.

No.

And the whole premise of the premises of that book is famous by the 10,000 hours.

You probably heard that.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard that.

I was going to say I've heard of Malcolm Gladwell.

Yeah, yeah.

But one of the premises in that book is about all the things that we achieve are normally built on either a coincidence or somebody else has done something.

Right.

So for me, getting into technology was the coincidence of.

My mom teaches typing.

Yeah.

Typing then turn into word processing.

And then she got to bring home a computer so she could learn word processing, so she could teach it.

Yeah.

So no one else in my state had a computer.

I was just fortunate to have be exposed to one.

And that was the beginning of my, my career in advertising, commerce, in computing.

And I kind of grew up in that.

In the, in the 90s where things kind of evolved into.

Oh, you started building computers.

Yeah, Then I became the tech guy in the family.

Anyone whose Windows crashed the recording aside, can you come and fix it?

Yeah, worked in the, in the college helping the IT manager run the cables and stuff like that.

So got into, into that.

I was on Oxford street in the, the computer shops selling computers because.

Okay.

Got knowledgeable about what while you were.

When you were like 16, 17, something like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I was there just learning how to sell computers because.

Yeah, because I was building them.

I knew more than the people in the shops of.

Yeah.

What would be best for the different person and all that stuff.

And then went to university and studied computer science and electronic electronic engineering, which was a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be the computer science part.

I really, really enjoyed the engineering part.

Wow.

This is.

There's a lot of very, very clever people out there.

Yeah.

For the rest of us, it's a lot of hard work to get through that.

But yeah.

So then I moved through university.

I went to Aston University in Birmingham.

Yeah.

And where were you living near Birmingham?

I was living in.

Right.

In Birmingham City Center.

Okay.

Aston's university is based bang.

In central City Center.

Yeah.

And whilst I was there, the degree I was on was a sandwich course.

Yeah.

So it's four years with one year in industry.

Yeah.

So my one year in industry was 99 and going into 2000.

So the 2000 bug.

Yeah.

And I was stationed at Nortel Networks in Harlow.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So I was there for a year at.

A fantastic year there.

And so at that time, North Hall Networks were kind of vying for leadership position with Cisco.

Yeah.

And Cisco one.

Yeah.

Total Networks is not, not much of a business anymore.

But at that time they were really vying for position with Nautor Networks and I was on the support team supporting all these engineers through the Y2K period.

Yeah.

Which was huge.

Which was the huge.

Everything's going to crash, everything's going to go wrong.

Contractors getting paid crazy money to sort it out and all that.

Well, I was a student.

Yeah.

A few years.

I mean, it's weird I didn't get into my recruitment career a few years later than that, but there was always these kind of stories of kind of people making kind of crazy money because they were paying, paying network engineers crazy day rates and all this kind of stuff.

And nothing really happened in the end.

Well, I think part of nothing happened because we put in a lot.

Because they sort it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

A lot of work in.

Right.

And so after graduating from, from Aston, I was really, really fortunate to get a job at BTC Integra.

Yeah.

And at that time that was their consulting arm that they'd created to.

To compete with the likes of Accenture and KPMG and.

Okay.

IBM and others.

I was there for four years and my, my career was in engineering.

So I was writing code.

Right.

Software engineering.

The love of my life.

Absolute loved the engineering activity.

Find it really creative.

Yeah.

Really stimulates the mind.

Absolutely loved it.

And then after I worked on a number of projects at bet, and I would say anybody who gets to the opportunity to work at consulting, I think they are just some of the most phenomenal learning grounds you can have in your early career.

In your early career.

And Even later on, definitely in the early part of your career, because you're going to be exposed to so many problems.

Yeah.

You're going to be exposed to so many solutions, so many experts who've got different opinions.

Yeah.

Different problems.

It just really accelerates your learning.

It really accelerates the exposure that you have to the technology solutions out there.

Off the shelf.

Custom.

Yeah.

The dynamics of a customer and internal.

Stuff, all that jazz and I guess the variety as well, of like not working on one product or one system all the time or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

And part of the graduate scheme that I was on, I think they probably do similar, similar stuff today.

The aim was for the graduates to be on a project for six months before moving on to.

So you got exposed to a number of things.

Yeah, A lot of my intake actually didn't do that.

They ended up staying on the same project for a long, long time.

Right.

I was really fortunate.

I actually ended up with about five projects, some in the military, some in government, some private businesses.

And like I said, it was just such a.

A learning accelerant for me.

Then I left after four years, I left BT and went to IBM.

Yeah.

And at the time IBM were like the IT company.

Yeah.

So this is before Google was the big cheese or Facebook or any of these fang companies.

Today IBM was the big cheese.

And I remember going to IBM when they said yes, they wanted me to go and join.

Join them.

I thought, how is this possible?

You've made it.

How am I going to work at IBM?

This is like the biggest tech company in the world.

They're just full of clever people and boffins.

How have they let me in?

Yeah.

And it was another big learning for me when I joined IBM after a couple weeks I realized, oh, they're just people like me.

Yeah, yeah, Right.

Just like the rest of us.

There's some really, really clever people.

Yeah.

And there's really some really normal people.

Yeah.

And everything in between.

So, yeah, IBM was a.

A really wonderful time as well.

But I was only there for a short time.

I think they're two and a bit years.

Still doing engineering.

I'll still do primarily doing engineering.

And then I got married and my wife said, yeah, I didn't get married to stay at home by myself.

So I had to stop consulting.

Yeah.

And get.

All right.

So I guess you're away a lot then.

I was away because that was in the days where consulting was like kind of away.

Three, four nights a week.

Absolutely, yeah.

Not leave on a Monday, back on a Thursday Night, if you're lucky.

Yeah.

In some places you're back on a Friday night.

Yeah.

Especially if you were going internationally, you would be back on a weekend or maybe even not back in a weekend.

Come back, work from home wasn't really.

An option, but it wasn't a thing.

Yeah, yeah.

All I could work from home back then just wasn't, wasn't a thing at all.

Yeah.

In fact, even back the laptops wasn't even a thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can, Yeah.

I was talking to someone like that the other day actually about how like first probably seven or eight years of my career, like nobody had laptops.

Like you just checked your emails and you got in the next morning.

Yeah, exactly, exactly that.

And so for those of us who are a little bit more advanced, you'd be like, oh yeah, I've managed to get my account working at home.

Yeah.

On my computer at home.

But so when I left IBM I got a stable job in banking at Morgan Stanley.

Right.

And Morgan Stanley, I will just always have them in the highest esteem.

Really.

Their technology there was, there was a kind of, I don't know if it was a slur or joke, but they used to be this comment that Morgan Stanley was an IT function with a bank attached to it.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

Because their technology was far superior to anything I'd worked at previous in my career.

Interesting.

It was so well architected and well structured.

So I don't know who had done that or how long it had been that way.

But they effectively had cloud like capabilities.

But it was all internal.

Yeah.

And it was just, they, they had a phenomenal setup and a lot of the concepts that I learned there, a lot of the training that I went through that even resonates with me today.

Yeah, I've taken that along, along the ride with me today.

And when I was there I got exposed to a new technology called Business Rules technology, which was another IBM technology.

And I kind of took a slight deviation, still doing a lot of engineering, but became like an expert in called Business Rules IBM Business Rules.

And that was just, it was really exposed me to another, another angle in my career.

After I left Morgan Stanley I then went to Visa because they were using this technology on a big re platform.

Right.

So at this point you've kind of gone from kind of more generalist engineer to kind of really going super narrow.

Almost like, I mean it sounds like you were still perm, but, but like bit like a contractor would be and, and, and just working on.

So actually this project actually when I Went to Visa.

I did go as a contractor.

Right, makes sense.

Yeah.

So I did kind of pivot from being a permit at Morgan Stanley and I became a contractor at Visa.

Did a couple of years there.

Then I went to UBS using the same technology they were doing an accounting.

Right.

The same thing there.

And.

And then I had the opportunity to get what I say was a pivotal change for me to get a real job.

And when I say a real job, it was the first job that I had where the customers, I knew them and that's.

I moved to United Health.

United Health uk.

And United Health UK was a tiny business that was an offshoot of a mega Corp in the US.

So UnitedHealth in the US they're the company that had their CEO horrendously murdered the other day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was gonna say.

I feel like I've heard them recently.

I don't know.

Yeah, I think they're the biggest health insurer in.

In the U.S.

absolutely.

So it's the first role in insurance as well then and.

Correct.

But they were, they would.

I would say I was in healthcare rather than insurance.

Okay.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah.

At that time and UnitedHealth UK was really about healthcare.

Yeah.

It's not health insurance in, in the uk.

And so for me it was like this is my first job in adverted commas.

Because I know patients.

Yeah.

I know doctors.

Oh, I see what I mean.

So when you say you knew the customers as in like it was kind of, kind of Joe Public.

Like it could be anyone walking down the street rather than.

Yeah.

Kind of Morgan Stanley IBM transaction.

I guess a lot of.

That's B2B as well, isn't it?

Like you.

You'Re doing really important work at a bank or these kind of investment institutions, but your customer will be.

You're increasing the trade, the cost of a fund, you're doing the profitability.

Yeah.

Etc.

Etc.

And unless you're working in a pension company where you're managing the pension of people.

Yeah.

Or you're being like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A bit to that.

So when United Health UK was the first time I, I was now back with real customers in the.

And that was also where I stepped up into leadership, into senior leadership.

Yeah.

So I went there as a contractor, the CTO there, he was just an amazing guy and he was my first cto.

So the first exec that I worked for directly.

Yeah.

And he exposed me to loads of opportunities.

It was a small company, so we were grandfast.

He.

He was a Super ambitious guy, Dr.

John, and he wanted to really do something amazing across the United Health Group.

Not just the small, uh, UK piece.

He wanted to do something really significant group using that business rules.

Technology.

Okay.

That was going to be my question, really.

So, so you, you just.

To touch on that.

So you, you've gone from doing the kind of contracting, being a real SME and business rules.

You, you went to UnitedHealth as, as that still.

But then was it that you kind of turned into what, like an engineering manager or something like that and like leading a team of other business rules people.

Correct.

And the platform that John wanted to build was leveraging these business rules to impact the healthcare industry.

That's what he wanted to do.

Okay.

And so he.

But he wasn't technical, he was a doctor.

Yeah.

So he unders.

He could say, oh, Hassan, you're a technical guy.

You're making these things happen.

But you're a contractor.

I can't invest in you.

Yeah.

As a contractor because you're just going to leave at a job of a house.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Would you join me and build this function for me?

Yeah.

Which is what I didn't.

That.

That change in my career, which for me was the best decision ever made.

Yeah.

And I became his director of application development, AKA engineering manager in today's parlance.

And we built out the, the technology function there.

There was a number of acquisitions that happened in that four years.

And then we got to a stage where I could see, unless I went to the U.S.

we'd kind of plateaued.

And actually, Dr.

John, he actually did kind of go to the U.S.

yeah.

To continue his, his career.

And I wasn't going to do that.

I was a family man, so travel.

Going to the US wasn't going to be a thing for me.

Yeah.

And then I left UnitedHealth UK to join Harrods.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So now I've gone from healthcare into retail.

Right.

And Harrods was Harrods for just under two years.

And there was a number of changes there.

And Harrods, again, was just a phenomenal experience for me.

I would say it felt like being on a TV drama every day because you're in luxury retail and you've got all these characters that you would recognize from tv because this is fashion.

And even though I'm not into fashion.

As in customers coming in or just the people around you.

People around you are just like characters.

Yeah.

Who are so colorful.

Yeah.

And.

And flamboyant.

Because it's just fashion.

Right.

So the technology function.

We're like the outliers.

Yeah.

Everybody else is like, it's fashion all the way, luxury all the way.

And then you've got the techies is like, yeah, we're kind of associated with this but we're just not the same.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The, the gap in personality and what people are into stuff must have been pretty big.

It's stock.

So in a lot of businesses you'll people say, oh, technologists are a bit different to everyone else.

Yeah, yeah.

But definitely there.

It was definitely a them and us.

And it's also the only business I've worked to where technology was not the thing.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Because the fashion and the luxury brand thing is like you're definitely a secondary second there.

It was just about the customer experience.

The store a little bit on the website at the time that I think that's changed quite a lot since then.

But it was about the store, the customer experience that was prime.

Yeah.

Do.

Do as much as they needed to on the technology to make sure that was okay.

But it was clearly the customer experience was, was, was king.

But also what I learned there was the operating at pace.

Interesting.

It was working in the retail for me is people who work in retail work at a completely different pace to everyone else.

Right.

As in far.

Much faster.

Much faster.

Because they're reacting to stimuli all the time.

Yeah.

Changes in passion, etc.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If you miss a season, it's missed.

Yeah.

Like you don't get to always.

Yeah.

If you miss a trend or something like that.

I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that's where the egos and the characters come in.

Because places like Harrods, they're just used to getting it right.

Yeah, yeah.

They used to set in the trends.

They're used to saying this is what's going to happen, this is what we're going to do.

But anyway, from a, from a technology perspective, I was managing all the payment systems, the customer platforms and it was clearly these things are really, really important.

Yeah.

And making sure that everything was running all the time was new for me.

Yeah.

Because I'd always been in change.

I'd never been in run.

Yeah.

So the first time I was actually in run as well as in change.

Even when United Health uk, the, the, the run wasn't as fast paced.

Yeah.

As it was Harrods.

And I guess if it goes down, I mean it's a bit like.

I mean I've spent most of my time working in the insurance space, but I've done bits and pieces for Weirdly did a couple of senior roles not so long ago for, for Network Rail and, and like you start to realize that actually if, if the, if the till system or the payment system or in that case the, the kind of board that tell to get on goes down.

Seems quite basic on the whole grand scale of things.

But like it's kind of stuff, it's on the news.

Right.

Like if that happens, it's like it's a big deal so.

And immediately the customers that you recognize and know are impacted.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the store could be.

Oh, if the payments are system, someone's going to get embarrassed.

Yeah.

It's a high profile brand as well, is it?

Super high profile in the uk And.

I can imagine somebody working in transport or banking or whatever like that.

They'll, they'll empathize with that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

You go down for 10 minutes and it feels like the world's coming to an end.

Yeah.

Points aren't working or something like that.

They're kind of the number one thing on BBC News or something.

And it's exactly.

Until the next disaster.

Yeah, yeah, but it feels that way.

But yeah, the pace that, that, that, that I got to learn to operate at at Harrods was just a shift from where I'd been before.

Where else strategy could go on and on and on.

Right.

Harrods.

We did have a long term strategy as well but there was a lot of short term requirements that just needed to happen on a regular basis.

So anyway, so that was really, really fun for a couple years.

See my CTO changed a couple times and then I ended up at tui.

So I've gone from healthcare to retail and now TUI and travel.

Yeah, the biggest travel company in, in Europe and they were, it was again just a complete shift to Harrods.

Based in Luton.

Yeah.

North of London.

I was gonna say.

Are you, are you living.

I guess you're not living in Birmingham at this point.

Oh no, no, I'm a London.

You've come down to London?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

So I'm a Londoner through and through.

Yeah.

So Birmingham for the three years and with Harrod Harlow in between.

That was as a young man.

Yeah, during student life.

Yeah.

But yeah, after that.

Outside of that I'm a Londoner.

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, I was working in Luton at tui.

A fantastic organization, really nice down to earth people.

Culture was brilliant.

I had a fantastic two years there looking after their data team, their integration platforms and at the time when I joined the, the head of Engineering, he had just been put into place and he said, okay, I'm building out this function.

Would you come and help me build out this function?

And yeah, why not?

I'll do this for a while.

And so I joined him, built it out for a couple of years, did another customer transformation there.

And then I was like, okay, now I need to step forward in my career.

I've done this kind of head off thing for a couple free roles now.

So give me an idea of the scale there as well then.

So like what kind of size of it?

And I guess it's not just business rules now, it's more.

Oh yes, that.

And what size of kind of engineering team are we kind of looking at those businesses?

Because I guess two is predominantly.

Was that predominantly E commerce based then?

Interesting.

No.

So okay, now it is.

Yeah, no, it definitely.

And now when I joined there, it was kind of on the cusp.

So when I was.

When I was at UnitedHealth UK, my team grew to around about 20 people.

Yeah.

Across three different businesses.

Then it went to Harrods and it was around the 30ish, 35.

40 people.

Yeah.

And then at.

And all of this was to all onshore.

Had a little bit of offshore when I was at UnitedHealth and then TUI was the first time I was responsible for offshore.

Yeah.

So I had a team of about 100 plus across a number of different teams.

Majority of those people offshore in India and Speak.

I had a mentor at the time and we were going through a different conversation about what I'm going to do next and how do I move forward in my career.

As much as I loved all the things I was doing, I was like, I want to be the guy.

You know, I've done the head of role three times in a row now.

You don't want to get stuck at that level.

Be that guy forever.

Yeah.

Cast in that kind of image of, oh yeah, that's your level.

Yeah.

And I remember actually when I was at Harrods, I spoke to my CTR and said, yeah, I wanted to get a mentor.

And he.

But I said, I don't want it to be you.

I want to get a mentor, but I want somebody else.

You're seeing you go by with somebody else.

And he set me up with one of his CTO friends and we had a number of sessions and he was like, oh yeah, you know, by the time you're 40, you've probably hit your level.

So, you know, just, you need to be a bit more deliberate with all the moves you're making and stuff like that.

And so when I was.

When I spoke to.

I thought I was 36.

You say, I'm 39 now.

I hope I was a bit more in the tank there.

Well, you're right.

You are the guy.

Oh yeah.

Not quite yet.

It's early days, but.

Yeah, but.

And he said, but if you go and look at other people.

I was like.

When he said, I was like, yeah, I don't believe that.

Cuz all the bosses I see are really gray and old.

Yeah.

He said, well, if you go and research these people, you'll.

What you will actually see is they got to that level before they were 40.

Right.

And they might have got that level at a smaller company, but they were chief operating officer or CFO or whatever it may be in their 30s.

Yeah.

And they've just kind of grown.

Grown through that.

So after I thought, I don't believe what he's saying.

But afterwards I did what he said.

Why is.

He did the research.

Did a bit research.

Yeah.

I was a bit horrified, to be honest, because he was.

He was spot on.

Yeah.

As I was looking around, I thought, no, he's right.

All the, all these people, they were kind of there or they were lifers.

Right.

So they'd been in one business for like 40, 50 years and they'd grown up through that business.

And even though they might not have had the title, they were European something or other VP or something or other in the US So anyway, it kind of reprogrammed my mind of, okay, I need to be a bit more deliberate with my steps.

I've got four years.

Yeah, yeah.

To get to the CTO role.

But anyway, so.

But I was also enjoying the work that I was doing and things that were really, really good fun.

And I've learned a load.

And personally, I felt as long as I'm learning, you know, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna be okay.

And then.

But I was a bit more deliberate about what I was looking for then.

Yeah.

So I wasn't like, I could.

I'm not going to be just leaving Tui just to get another head overall somewhere else.

Yeah.

Because I felt if I do it four times in a row, this is not going to be good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

And then I got the opportunity of opportunities to work as CTO at Simply Business.

Yeah.

And that again was an amazing shift for me.

And I learned bucket loads at Simply Business.

Phenomenal business there for just under five years.

Had a fantastic time.

And when I joined there, they just Been through a number of acquisitions.

Yep.

And they've just been bought by travelers in the US now in insurance.

Yeah, now people in insurance.

I guess.

When you joined them, did you.

Did it feel like you.

Because you mean they're a very tech enabled insurance business, not kind of traditional insurance like a carrier or someone broke or like kind of traditional insurance broker in that sense.

So did it feel like you were.

Because I mean obviously I think we spoke when you were.

You were there the first time and it certainly did fit.

Like I think they probably evolved now into being probably a bit more insurance than.

Than.

But it certainly felt like they were kind of a bit like what you said, kind of with Morgan Stanley, a tech business.

That's an insurance company rather than.

Rather an insurance company.

I've got tech that kind of.

So yeah, for us at sb, it was definitely not a slur.

Yeah.

To be.

Yeah, yeah.

Tech first, insurance second.

Yeah.

The CEO at the time, Jason Stwood, he used that because I think that kind of phrase got quite popular with a number of companies saying oh yeah, we're tech first.

And whatever the thing, whether it was a reality very retail or insurance or banking or whatever, it came kind of a slogan for a number of places.

But yeah, for Jason Stockwood that was, it was like we're tech first.

Yeah.

And techno enabled insurance and customer experience.

And that was.

The whole culture was based around Silicon Valley tech.

Yeah.

And for me it.

It just culturally we were so aligned with the ways of working, with the ambition, with the progressive nature of tech delivery and innovation and all the wonderful stuff.

So I was there for five years and actually travelers their goal was to grow in the US that was their goal.

So they bought.

Okay, we've got this gem in the UK and we want to accelerate growth in US and so I joined as part of that mission to help grow in.

In the US and yeah, but to grew massively in the US they continue to grow massively in the UK When I was there we grew massively.

They continue to grow massively today.

Yeah.

But anyway, so I don't know a fantastic time at SB.

And then my team was around 150ish people.

Yeah.

Across the globe we did predominantly there were UK people.

And then as we went through our growth journey, I opened up offshore in Poland and Ukraine.

So this was before the war, war in Ukraine.

So opened up centers there and we opened up centers in the US as well.

So we grew quite aggressively in.

In the US and that was just a fantastic time growing as an executive.

So being part of an executive team running a business.

It was everything that I kind of, I had in mind that I wanted to.

So I had a wonderful time.

Time there and then that fast forwards up to where we are today.

Joined eventum, just like I said, just under two years ago.

And they wanted at the time, for, before I joined, they were looking at doing a transformation.

So that the transformation was always in the CEO David Bearman's mind and they were exploring lots of technology solutions of how they could do that transformation.

And.

But they didn't have a cto.

They didn't have a technology expert.

Yeah.

In house.

But they had an advisor who had worked with me previously.

Right.

So he recommended me to come and do a bit of strategy work.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can you come and we want to do this technology investment and to really push the business forward.

Would you come and help with a bit of strategy work?

So I went and worked with them for a couple months.

Halfway through, David is a very progressive guy.

So he's.

He moves at the speed of light and he was like, okay, so I can see what you're doing.

This is looking really, really good.

Yeah.

Are you going to join us?

I was like, david, just let me finish the work.

Relax.

Yeah, finish the work.

Because, you know, at the end of it, you might say, I don't like this.

Yeah, yeah, he's going to give you the job for that point.

But then when we delivered it to him and the board, they were like, okay, this is, this looks really good.

Will you deliver it?

I thought, well, if this is the journey we're on, absolutely.

So that's when I did the, the opportunity to join the team.

Yeah.

Two summers ago.

And yeah, we've been on a tear ever since.

And it's, it's just been a wonderful, wonderful ride so far.

Building up a brand new technology function.

Yeah.

So now we are around 120, 130 plus.

Again, we started off from basically nothing.

There's a few people around, a few contractors.

Yeah.

Actually we had quite a few contractors, to be fair, but there was no technology function.

Yeah.

Now we've created one.

I think I mentioned on another.

Another podcast, my ambition that I shared with, with David was I've joined a really successful specialty insurance company and I want to turn us into a really successful specialty insurance insuretech company.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think, Yeah, I think we're on our ways to doing that.

I think we've really started to make an impact internally on the culture, which was always good.

But adding technology to that mix and.

Yeah, the transformation is taking pace, building up pace and building up momentum.

And yeah, so that's brings us all the way up today.

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

So I've got, I've got so many questions about that journey.

So like I definitely want to get in to talk about event and what's going on there like right now.

But the, the, the first one I wanted to just go back a little bit on that is that, so that first role at United's Health.

Yeah, the when.

So obviously you went in as a contractor and then you became manager.

I think that that's like a pivotal point for lots of people.

Right.

Like, I mean and certainly in my line of work I talk to a lot of people who, who, who probably actually get more senior than that.

Like as in they go kind of architect, chief architect or something like that, but maybe even close to cto.

But they, but they, they, they, they still are kind of largely a technologist at heart and, and they've got kind of ambitions of moving into a CTO role which obviously means lots of different things that different people could, could, could quite conceivably still be quite technical.

But, but I mean I think it's so common that lots of people either think they want to do that and don't know how to do it and don't know what or more more likely don't know what it's going to be like when they do do it and and actually I think it's just as common for, for me in my line of work to speak to people that have made that jump and, and kind of wish they didn't like.

Because, because they, I mean you said right at the start you love the technology, right?

Like you.

The.

I had.

Weirdly, it's out today where this probably won't come out for a couple of, A couple of.

A couple of weeks.

But Al Hadfield, who's the CTO in Ice and Shoretech, he, he, when I interviewed him, he said like, he, one of the things he grapples with most days is the fact that like, he still loves doing technology.

Right.

But like now his job is kind of running a team of like quite, quite a lot of people in a, in an insuretech product business.

So.

So therefore he's probably not like doing tech stuff day to day.

I think he plays around a bit.

A bit at home.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So.

So, I mean, I guess that probably.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that probably was a slightly smaller stepping stone because it was a smaller business.

So it was probably a gradual change there.

But how did you find that?

And did you think that was always the plan to go from engineer into more management leadership, that type of thing?

Yeah, 100%.

So I totally agree.

I think that transition from IC or individual contributor into leadership or management is a shift and I don't think it's for everyone.

I think some people, it's good for them.

And I think one of the things that's been really good in the technology industry over the last decade or so is for those people who want to remain ICs.

Yeah.

The ability for them to get really senior has got much more available.

There's more available availability and respect for those people outside of just being a professor.

Architects and engineers can get a lot of kudos at different companies.

But for me, I always knew leadership is what I wanted, right?

I was that arrogant, naive person who thought, oh, as a graduate, why couldn't I run, run a business?

Why couldn't I run a team?

And the answer was, because you haven't got a clue what it means to run a business.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, leadership was always something that I, I aspired to do.

And so as soon as I got that opportunity with United Health uk, I grabbed it with both hands and I loved it.

I love working with people and even though I, I think when I was at, when I was at, in the back in banking, I think that's where the shift started to happen for me in terms of I loved what I did every day.

I love coding, I love solving problems and stuff like that.

But I had stopped playing with tech.

Right, right.

So I had stopped.

I had become much more focused on the outcome rather than just.

Just playing around.

Right, right.

So before then.

Yeah.

A new framework comes up.

I'm at home downloading a new framework and playing around.

Yeah.

Or how do I use this new website building SDK?

How this, this new service.

Okay.

Let me start playing around with it.

And when I went into bank, that had started to subside.

I guess I'd started to mature.

Yeah.

And I was much more focused.

So if I'm going to learn something, I'm going to learn something that's going to help me at work.

Yeah.

So the playing around and just doing stuff for the sake of it, I'd kind of subsided a little bit.

And for me, the leadership was my new playground.

In fact, you're learning a completely different skill set, which is people.

And the challenges of hiring people, of having to fire people, growing people, encouraging people, building a team, relying on your team, you know, relying on other people.

That I think for a lot of ics, I think that is the crux of when definitely that moment where you realize, I know I'm relying on other people.

Yeah.

It's not me, it's not my brain, it's not my fingers that's going to solve this problem.

Yeah.

I need to rely on these other people's brains and fingers to solve their problem.

And can you cope with that?

Yeah.

Can you delegate and allow people to grow, Allow people to make mistakes and to recover, Allow other people to succeed?

And I.

I love that.

So for me, it wasn't.

For me, I felt that was.

I was built for that.

I know there's always that question of, do you think leaders are born or nurtured?

I think we're definitely born.

Yeah.

But everyone else.

I think we're definitely born.

Yeah.

And.

But I do think there's a lot of nurturing that happens as well.

And I'm fortunate.

I had a lot of good leaders that nurtured me and showed me good examples that I could learn from and then use as I grew up in, in my leadership.

But, yeah, that transition at United Health uk, I grabbed with both hands.

I loved it.

Yeah.

I mean, it sounds like for you it was a very natural progression, which.

Which I think actually is.

Is almost the answer to the question if, like, it does feel quite natural like that.

I'm not saying you can't.

You can't.

I think there's some people that force themselves to do it and, and therefore, and, and it can work out.

Okay.

But it sounds like to you that it was just a kind of an organic thing that just evolved and, and you became interested in other things, interested in managing people, et cetera, et cetera.

And then therefore that just evolved and snowballed to that.

So it didn't really feel like it was a.

You were kind of pushing yourself to do it.

No.

And, but I also think.

Do think that's one.

One of the things for.

From a diversity perspective.

Yeah.

People in minorities tend not to.

Right.

Okay.

And you'll see the same thing with women any other time of minority people in minors tend not to push themselves forward because of lack of confidence or uncertainty.

Yeah.

Or a lack of awareness that that is what other people are doing.

Is that just because like from, is it because the lack of seeing other people doing the same thing?

That I don't know.

Yeah.

So for me it was just almost.

Like you created a group glassy then for yourself.

Yeah.

That was.

And until that mentor said to me, well, this is what other people are doing by your age and Sony, other people are doing xyz, it just wasn't even a thing to me.

Yeah.

So even when I transitioned into leadership at UnitedHealth UK, it wasn't a thing to me that, oh, you should have been pushing for this type of thing.

Yeah.

It was just like, okay, you're just.

Kind of meandering along just doing what you're doing.

Yeah, I'm enjoying what I'm doing and yada, yada, yada, and one day this thing will happen.

And for me, fortunately it did.

But the.

To your point on people who push for it, I don't think that's necessarily bad.

It's just for me, I didn't even know that was a thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it was never going to happen that way.

It was always good.

But it sounded like then further along like kind of post the.

The 2e role.

That's when you started to get more deliberate about it because that's when you had the conversation with the mentor which I think is a really interesting point we could cover in a sec about actually like, I think lots of people don't get that, that guidance and I know like just speaking from personal experience in the last couple of years when I've had a few people around been like that, that you can actually bounce off ideas.

It's, it's, it's a It's a real game, so I'm quite lucky.

Like, my, my, my, my dad had his own business and stuff like that, so I grew up around that kind of thing.

But, but I do, I do think that suddenly makes you focus the mind to become a little bit more deliberate about how you going to achieve something.

And that's probably an age thing as well.

Right.

But it sounded like you got to that point and then, and then kind of had a real idea, maybe not completely narrow about what you wanted to do, but, but certainly a kind of a much narrower focus on what that next role would be.

And then the, the SB role came up.

Question on that one.

What, what does, what was that like?

Because that, that again is, is.

I always, I always say to people, when people ask me for, I'd like how.

How do I get CIO role?

I mean I probably get asked, but it's.

And I always say like, there's kind of two or three ways really that they generally tend to happen there.

Either people get promoted internally, do a really great job and then get moved up, or they go into it.

I think getting promoted internally is probably a lot easier than.

Because you may have done everything that a CTO had done in your last role, but you've not been a cto, although that shouldn't be a barrier.

There's an element of comfort in the fact that someone that you hire, someone who's done the role before.

So what, what was that like?

I mean, how did you find going from being the kind of number two or something like that in, in reporting into someone like that to suddenly being the man and.

Yeah, and, and, and you mean it's, it's quite a leap of faith from, from SB to, to take someone on who like it's, I mean, obviously you're more than capable of doing the role and they, they obviously assessed you well, but, but, but it would be quite easy for them to just take a CTO from another kind of insuretech or something like that, wouldn't it?

Yeah.

And I think that there was a cultural aspect to it and that they had a profile in mind of the type of person that they wanted.

So they wanted somewhere very technical, which I am.

Yeah.

And.

But was also a leader.

Yeah.

Right.

And that is not in our space always to set the right same combination.

You might get really great leaders who are not very technical.

Yeah.

Right.

Also, when I, when I went for, for that role, they, the, the role I went for was not cto.

Okay.

So when I was being my mentor.

Okay.

Similar to what you said, you've got to, you can get a CTO role or you can get promoted into a cto.

So I was very deliberate that.

Okay, if I'm going to go somewhere else ahead of level, it has to be, I'm going to go there and grow into the cto.

Yeah, yeah.

That is what I'm going to do.

It has to be possible.

Yeah, yeah.

Because, yeah, getting the opportunity as a CTO off the bat is going to be really hard when there's loads of great ctos out there all vying for these.

Of course.

So anyway, so I went to, to SB for VP of Engineering.

Right.

Role, which again is a very US startup centric type of role because it was a tech company.

Yeah.

And engineering was the predominant part of that function.

Yeah.

Anyway, so when I, when I went to, to, to to interview for that, I had a number of rounds of interviews, so interviews with the principal engineers and the architects, stuff like on a technical side.

And they were like, okay, this guy knows what he's talking about.

It's not just, it's not just fluff.

And then we have the executives, because it's a tech first company.

They were like, okay, all the executives need to interview to make sure that you're going to be a good fit.

And after, I think it was interview number seven.

Oh, wow.

They asked, okay, can you come back for another interview?

And I thought, okay, this is, this is either really, really good or this is getting ridiculous.

And after a number of interviews, they said, oh yeah, we'd like you to, to join, but as our cto.

And that's why there were so many other rounds of interviews because they kind of switched.

Yeah, yeah.

And they kind of said, oh, actually this, he could be our guy to be the cto.

So they knew they needed a cto, but that they were probably going to hire this VP of engineering and then hire a separate cto.

But they found it kind of.

Yeah.

So it's kind of perfect scenario.

And so it was just serendipity and a wonderful, wonderful opportunity for me.

And yeah, it was just a dream come true really, joining, joining that business.

But yet in terms of asking that question for people, how do you do it?

I've now I've been in the executive role.

I went to a conference a number of years ago.

It was actually a women's conference.

Yeah, Women in tech conference.

So I was supporting some of the women in my team and one of the speakers, she, one of the audience asked her, when you've got your role and she was a CIO of HMRC at the time.

I think you got your role.

How did you feel?

Did you feel like you were a token?

Right.

Do you feel you just got that role?

Yeah.

Because you're a woman and that you're kind of a token person in that role.

And she said, I've never got a role that I wasn't over qualified for.

Right.

And when she said I was like, yeah, that is, that's so true in my, my experience too, that I, I've had these roles and I've stepped into them.

Yeah.

I'm in my career, I've not had a role where I've got it.

I'm going, oh my God, I'm sweating.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

This is, this is.

So.

Yeah, I mean, I was, I was thinking when.

So when she said she was overqualified for she's got the role, but she's always felt comfortable going into it.

Not that.

Yeah, yeah.

It wasn't a stretch for her.

No.

Whereas for some of us, we're not going to row and be like, okay, this is a step up.

Like when I went to IBM.

Yeah.

It's like, oh my God, yeah, yeah, see your pants.

I'm going to IBM over the big boys now.

Yeah.

And she was saying, no, she felt I've been overqualified for every role that I've got.

So she was basically saying, I got the road late.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I was, I was.

My assumption was that actually.

Was she kind of going down the angle of that?

Actually she felt like she, because, because of that she was a woman, she had to be overqualified.

So it was always like, I could have done this role two years ago.

Exactly.

But, but, but now they're like, super sure I can do it.

And, and the, but.

And therefore, whereas the barrier, if it would have been a male or whatever, that might have been lower.

Yeah.

And that would, that was her message when she said, I thought that really resonated with me and the other people that are around me.

So I'm always pushing.

People say, you don't need to wait until you're super certain.

Yeah.

You, it's a slam dunk.

Yeah, yeah.

You can push the boat out a little bit and take a little bit.

It's also a matter, you know, I don't know if you found this, but like, I, I mean, obviously I, it's kind of not about what I do, but that, but I speak to a lot of people who are going to do that kind of thing and, and are trying to take the step up.

And it's amazing how many people like you mean, dare I say even people that come on this, this podcast who are, who are on the, the vast majority of them have kind of made it in the tech in certainly in the tech space and lots of people have got ambitions to do other stuff.

Right.

But it's amazing how many people are like quite nervous to do like do a podcast or do something like that when actually like my perception of them is, is like you.

You mean you're, you're, you're like doing an amazing like in the top 5% probably.

So do you, do you think that, that, that do you see in the people that you've hired before that that's a fairly common thing that people underestimate what they're, what they can potentially do when it is certainly when tech people going into leadership roles.

100.

Yeah.

And I'm not sure if it's just tech people.

I think that it might be people in general.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We underestimate ourselves because it's risk and most of us are risk averse and the ones who are not risk averse, we look at them and say that you're crazy.

That's going doing stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Elon Musk of the world.

Exactly.

Taking these bets and it's, it's working out for you.

But I've never do something like that.

Yeah.

And I think just accepting that growth is part of the journey is, is part of that.

But putting that into putting that to like that doesn't get you a C suite job.

Right.

Just because you want to learn, you want to take.

Take a step out doesn't get a C suite job.

I do believe to get into get a C suite job or even for people in C suite jobs, for them to get another one is not easy.

No.

Yeah.

You see lots of do one and then move back.

Right.

It's not easy because there's only a few of them and at any particular company there's only going to be one C suite role.

So there's only going to be one real CTO.

I know in Mega Corps they may have many CTOs, but there's only one real CTO.

Yeah.

At any one business and then you'll have many technology leaders.

So to to be get an executive role.

I think timing comes up a lot.

You know, were you at the right place at the right time?

I was very fortunate.

I was at the right place at the right time with the right skill set to take make that transition at Simply Business.

If I'd gone for that role a year before, they might have said, I'm not quite sure.

Yeah, if you've got the.

The skills that.

That we need or the experience that we need.

So I think timing is always a big.

A big part of that.

And fortune, I mean, I think it just comes down to fortune as well.

Yeah.

I don't think there is a playbook or I haven't discovered it yet what that playbook is for.

Just do ABC equals.

Yeah, I don't think that's that and I think that's where lots of people get that wrong.

I mean there's not a straight line.

I mean what I was.

I was actually putting together a kind of piece of marketing stuff for the podcast the other day and actually trying to take some common themes and actually one of the most common themes in the first kind of 15 episodes of this I've done is, is actually the vast majority of people have taken kind of sideways moves or the.

Or.

Or actually a bit like what you did with the engineering manager.

They've really become mastered their.

Their skill rather than trying to jump too far ahead too quickly.

And it's amazing.

I mean your career has been quite.

Been quite linear in that sense.

But lots of people take sideways moves and do something that really isn't kind of what they necessarily would think they would be the next related thing.

But actually it's there for giving them much more rounded experience, all that kind of stuff and build them out.

And even with your early career, do you believe.

Do you think that that kind of.

Because you got that variety quite early, lots of different businesses different.

So you might have had a kind of a straight line in regards to engineer, head of engineering, cto.

But in that kind of first half of the career there were lots of different industries, lots of different environments, lots of.

Do you think that variety is important?

So I joke with my team.

I've basically had every role in it.

Avid and security.

Security wasn't that big a thing when I was kind of coming up the ranks.

I've been a tester, I've been a project manager, a delivery manager, been an engineer.

Engineer, been an architect, been a network engineer, been done all the hard.

The service desk.

So I've done all these different roles.

But I think for someone like myself, I also benefited from the shift that happened in technology around 15 years ago with the Facebooks and the Googles.

Yeah.

Where engineering became.

Yeah.

A executive skill.

Yeah.

Because before then CTOs weren't really a thing.

CIOs was more the thing.

So you came up the project delivery route.

Yeah.

Or maybe still quite a lot in insurance right now.

Or you either came up project delivery or IT infrastructure.

You manage a service data center.

And so you were the IT director or whatever it may be.

Yeah.

Engineering wasn't the route to senior leadership.

Yeah.

And that kind of shifted with the whole Silicon Valley shift.

Yeah.

In.

In the.

In the noughties.

And I benefit from that.

So that's why an SB wanted someone like me.

Yeah.

Because they wanted somebody who's a leader but was very engineering technical.

Yeah.

Whereas in 10 years before, it might have been like, oh, we want somebody like Hasani, but who's been managing a data center.

Yeah.

Hasani's never managed the data center.

He's not the right fit for us.

Yeah.

Do more the running stuff.

Yeah, I get it.

And also I was part of that shift also where I know there was a period, I remember growing up in, where there was a lot of talk that you don't need to be technical at all to run it.

You can just be anybody, Just need to be a good leader with some good soft skills, good manager, and you can run it.

And there was a period that.

That was quite, quite popular.

I think we've.

We've moved on from.

From that, but I came after that, that period.

And so that was.

That kind of opened up the doors for me.

So I think that that's the timing piece, the skill set piece, and those different skills from time to time, they shift from.

From place to place.

So I would agree with you, Mark, that the.

Getting promoted into a role is probably the.

The more.

Sure bet.

Yeah.

As it were.

And if that role comes available where you are and you're the head of.

Head of whatever it is, the CTO role comes.

Comes about, or you're the finance director, the CFO role comes about and you don't get it then that you kind of know, this is not a place that I'm gonna get it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you mean.

I.

I always think of that because I just think it gives you a bit of a grace period as well, because people, you'll be.

You'll be a known entity.

They know you're good, you've got some skin in the game and some goodwill and all that kind of stuff.

Like, the.

The way you did it in some ways is great because you can.

You can create your own identity.

Like, you can.

You can.

Like if.

If how you've been before is not how you Necessarily want to be.

You can, you can start afresh, but at the same time, like, they're, they're expecting results pretty quickly and you don't have any goodwill, you've got to get the people on side, etc.

Etc.

And, and so there's challenges either way, aren't they?

I mean, the other way is, is they.

They kind of almost see you as the engineering manager and then therefore stepping up is hard, hard to get out of that mold.

So there's, there's, there's, there's challenges both ways, but you're right.

Yeah.

I certainly think getting that first role, it seems to be easier probably to get promoted kind of in.

Yeah.

And I think for me, when I each one of the different roles, I've been brought in by either the CTO or the, the CEO for a reason.

Yeah.

Right.

So they are, they're not just doing it to take a bet.

Yeah.

They're saying, okay, this person we believe has got the profile to change things, to take us on the next step, to move.

Move us on.

So they're the risks for them because you're a bit unknown, but that's where they're looking at your track record.

And I think for, for those of us who've got that straight line, it's easier to make sense of.

Okay.

I think I've got.

I can just look at Hasani cv, I can look at his track record and it makes sense.

So I can make certain assumptions about him.

Yeah, right.

That is going to be like this yada, yada, yada, where if you've got a few zigzags, then you've just got more explaining to do.

Yeah.

Oh.

So can you help me understand, you know, why you took a left turn there to do a completely different career?

Oh, you did that.

You learned all these other things.

Great.

Yeah.

But you've just got.

It's just got a bit of explaining to do.

Yeah.

Which could be a really good thing as well.

Exactly.

Often it is if there's.

There's often reasons behind it.

So let's talk a little bit about.

I want to talk a little bit about Eventum now and the transformation you're on.

Like, tell.

Tell me a little bit about what that looks like.

And, and I'd love to get into a kind of what the.

What the kind of stuff that keeps you up at night right now are the problems and all that kind of stuff as well.

So.

No.

So here, here at Eventum we've been on the transformation that David has kind of triggered is is based around that, a third and a few assumptions around specialty insurance.

Yeah.

And I love how that revolves around the word specialty.

It's.

Each line of business is special.

Yeah.

And so if I'm in aviation, I don't think I've got anything to do with those people in, in the marine or those people in property.

Yeah.

Totally different.

I'm a completely different business and to a lot of degree they are completely different business.

Different businesses.

But as a group we want to, to grow aggressively across multiple lines of business.

But we want to do it in a efficient way that we do it as a group.

So it's not just, oh, we've just got a collection of stuff.

We want to grow as, as a group so that we all benefit from that complexity and that scale as, as we continue to grow.

Our naven's been growing aggressively for a number of years and it's.

That curve is just growing.

And David's belief was technology is going to be the key.

I don't exactly know how, but technology is going to be the key to this aggressive growth that, that we are, we are planning to do.

And I clearly biased.

I think he's absolutely right.

Technology is that key to our growth and that's what we've been doing over the last couple of years is growing aggressively.

You see the announcements on LinkedIn constantly.

A new line of business, a new line of business.

A new set of underwriters is joining the crew and they need to be plugged into our tech and for it to scale, scale along with them.

And the transformer, what many specialty insurance businesses will do, they will be using what many of us would understand as best of breed, which that was our strategy too, using the best platforms out there.

And we've got some of those, many of those in our portfolio today using the best platforms that we can across the market.

And we've been very, very successful with those.

The challenge that you get with the, the best of breed approach, however, is as you scale the, the integrations get more and more expensive.

Right.

They get more and more clunky.

The specialisms start to cause you more challenges.

Right.

Because, oh, I know this worked really, really well for Mark Hassan.

He's rocked up and he wants something a little bit different.

But that solution, as in someone running a different line of business.

Exactly.

Different line of business.

I want it, I want, I want what Mark's got.

I want it to be a bit different for me.

And then Tim comes along and Ade comes along and all of a sudden you've got A bit of spaghetti now of oh, this is really.

It's getting really complicated.

Yeah.

And for me to manage all of you, it's becoming more and more onerous and more and more expensive and slower.

Yeah.

And you're now getting a bit dissatisfied because you're like, yeah, I get it.

Five years ago, Sonny, this was really, really good.

But now, yeah, you're really slow.

Yeah.

I want some changes and it's taking a long time and that is where we, that's to help us to be.

That acceleration, that growth that is what our transformation was, is based around is a bit leveraging the right technologies that's going to enable us to grow at pace, accepting the complexity.

And that's one of the key things that I've learned of my career is rather than just trying to avoid the complexity and say, okay, everything's simple, everyone's going to be the same, is okay, how do I flip that?

How do I accept it's going to be complicated?

Complicated and build technology that enables that complexity to, to thrive and to become a superpower and building a team that would enable that to happen.

So I've got an amazing architect, I've got an amazing head of data that I had to recruit to get them in.

They were not from the industry because I don't actually need the insurance expertise, I need the technology expertise.

Yeah.

I've got a whole business with insurance expertise.

They can help us with that bit.

What I need are people who are going to take on that complexity and help build the right technology solutions that are going to make that thrive.

And that's what we've been building over the last year.

And a bit the first phase of that transformation we're kind of 60% way through.

So that will be concluding at the end of the year.

One of the things I've learned over my, my career is I'm an agilist and over my last six or seven years I've moved into product agilist.

So we are a product based tech functioning.

Yeah.

So we're building products, not just running projects which again, that's a big cultural shift for a business and even for our business that is really entrepreneurial.

That's a shift of, oh, we're used to just buying these big platforms and having an integration project and then hacking it to bits afterwards.

And now we've done this agile thing that's really hard.

Product delivery, that's even harder.

Yeah.

And that's been some of the cultural changes that we've been maneuvering the business over the last Year I picked up a lot of those skills whilst at Harrods.

And that sp of, okay, how do you help move a culture on, how do you leverage the assets that you have to really maximize what you can do?

And so, anyway, so we've been on that.

That journey, building amazing technology.

One of the things that I'm really proud of, we've got our own head of innovation.

He's part of my, my leadership team.

And we've got our first white paper that we're about to publish in the next month or so.

And I use that as an example because that was that.

That for me, that's a great example of the shift that we've made as a business.

Yeah.

From.

Okay, we've got an idea to.

You're publishing a white paper on AI.

Yeah.

That is just a complete 180.

Yeah.

As, as a business, the frustration bit when that white paper comes out, it's.

The frustration is it's been in the works for about six months now.

It's got to be out of date.

Yeah.

Two weeks later now.

Things have moved so fast, but still my head of innovation, I thought we need to get out there because now you know how to publish a white paper.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it starts in the next time.

It will take three months and then so on and so forth.

Exactly.

And that is the shift that we've been able to make of the business on.

In terms of.

Once I had the buying from RCO and the board, we're now able to real.

Make real technology change at pace that I know many of my peers are.

They'd love to be able to do.

But.

Yeah, it's a challenge if you don't have the right culture to enable that to happen.

Yeah.

So what are the.

What are the kind of two or three things that, that keep you up at night at the moment?

What are the.

What are the main challenges for kind of an insurance CTO on a transformation at the moment?

Some of the, the things that keep.

So actually, I rest quite easily because I've got so many.

I get so many things outside of work that consume all my, all my energy.

But when I, When I think about the transformation that we're on, it's mainly, it's more around excitement rather than trepidation.

Yeah.

Because fortunately, like I said, I've been able to build what I think is.

Right.

So from tech people, all that kind of stuff, you can give me autonomy to do that.

Right, exactly.

So.

And it's.

I, I understand it's not a privilege that many People get to have, including myself in, in the past, to be able to say, yeah, you'll build from scratch.

Not just solutions, but your leadership team and the culture that you want to create around that to make that happen.

And you've got a business aligned to make it happen.

Yeah, these things are things that really come together.

So I think one of the things that, you know, that's always a risk is, oh, once we deliver, is it going to be as good as what's in my mind?

Yeah, yeah.

So I've got this vision.

This is what it's going to be like.

Yeah, it's going to be like this.

It's going to be amazing.

Everyone's on board and there's always a risk of, oh, is it?

Yeah, because of what you're visiting.

And so that is one.

That is one, one, one piece.

And then people is this main one.

Right.

Is people always are the, the main, main concern.

I've got an amazing team.

I want to keep that team as long as I possibly can.

They are phenomenal.

Anyone who wants to find them, they could see them on LinkedIn anyway and see who these phenomenal people are.

We're up for awards, they're up for awards.

And that for me is okay.

I want to keep an amazing team as.

As long as I, as I possibly can.

Again, I've been fortunate in my career.

I've not had many leaders leave, leave my teams.

Yeah, I've been.

I've been very fortunate on that, that I've not had any.

Anybody leaving.

But there's always a first time, right?

Yeah.

Well, you mean good people get attracted by other.

Other things and you mean, I guess the biggest, the biggest kind of plaudit you can have as a CTO is that someone else in the team goes on to kind of be you and go on a cto.

Cto.

That I'm sure will happen at some point.

Indeed.

So when you say people, it's more the kind of managing, motivating, keeping those people happy, keeping them kind of exhilarated at work, all that kind of stuff, and infused so they don't look elsewhere.

And for my business colleagues as well.

Yeah, right.

They.

They're going through the transformation with us.

Yeah.

And making sure that they are supported and aligned and getting what they need at the same time as we're trans.

Transforming their life.

Right.

So we're taking people's roles and twisting it into something different.

And you need, you need to respect that.

And it's, it's hard for people as, as willing as people May be to want to go for a transformation.

I learned that actually over a few years ago that I love change.

I love making change.

As long as I'm the one making the change.

Yeah.

I was not forced on you by someone else.

As long as I'm driving the change and changing everybody else's life, I love it.

This is great.

Yeah.

You try to change my life, you try to change what I'm doing, I might not be so, so amenable.

So I get it.

Yeah.

I, I get that.

You know, we're changing people's lives, we're changing people's work, we're changing.

And I believe it's for the better.

But for some people, it takes time to realize this is for the better, or I don't agree that it's.

It's for the better for me.

And that's, that's something that, you know, again, does keep myself and the other leaders awake every now and again to say, no, we want.

We believe this is going to be good for our people.

Yeah.

How do we make sure that we materialize that promise?

Yeah.

And then.

And, and so like the kind of.

We're kind of coming towards the end, but I like, it'd be wrong of us.

Not you, but you mentioned about the white paper on AI.

Like, what's the, what's the kind of eventum's kind of take on, on utilizing AI?

Kind of.

It's obviously it's the hot topic for everyone from kind of people playing around with it on their phone to kind of big corporations trying to use it and figure it all out.

Really, I think is where everyone's at.

But, but where is it?

Where does the kind of future for Eventum stroke insurance from a AI perspective?

How does that look in, in your mind?

Yeah, I think AI, all the things and I think that most, most people will recognize.

Yeah.

AI is going to play a significant role in everything that we do, including within insurance.

I think it was another podcast where we're talking about machine learning, which most of us have been using for a long time.

Yeah.

In insurance, AI is just taking it to another level, but in a different way.

Right.

Whereas machine learning was really around risk and the analysis part of it, AI is now helping us on workflow and the creative or the manual work.

Yeah.

Generating policies, reviewing policies, answering questions, all these type of things.

AI is really starting to speed up.

Yeah.

And enable us to, to operate with unstructured information in a way that was really, really clunky, really really difficult previously.

So I think that is going to shift things significantly.

But I think the biggest part on insurance is not just on the AI, it's on the collaboration.

B2B it's going to be in the collaboration.

How do we all connect together in a digital way?

And I'll.

In the, in the market, that's been a promise for a long time, transformation after transformation.

I'm not going to name them to enable digital connectivity.

And there's a number of players out there who are bringing up innovations to help that connectivity happen.

And I think AI will help accelerate some of that connective tissue.

Yeah.

Between, between organizations as well.

And I know that's something where you're using AI for significant.

Significantly is to accelerate.

Okay.

How can we communicate with each other in, in digital ways, even if you're not a digitally savvy organization.

Yeah.

And that's something that I can see accelerating quite, quite a long way in the coming years.

Is, is the, is, is AI something that as like a cto?

Is it?

I heard someone the other day say that like the, the biggest challenge with all this kind of stuff as a technologist right now is just like the headache is keeping up with it.

Like, just keeping, keeping up with like, you mean as a, as a tech technology leader, you've, you've obviously had to read a lot of stuff just forever.

Right.

Like you're always kind of keeping up to date with stuff.

That's, that's the role.

But at the same time, like, are you.

Is it.

Is it like the pace of change, is that, is that because you mean I'm running a business that we are investing quite a lot in AI as a differentiator for our, for our business.

But like even I'm not a techie, but like keeping an eye.

I completely resonate with the whole, like it sounds really great in my head.

Would it work in reality?

Who knows?

But, but, but for, for a tech leader in a business that could be made or broken by, by how you utilize technology over the next few years or so, it seems like quite a pivotal moment.

So is that, is that like a headache or is that actually for someone like you, is that exciting, like the, the possibilities of it?

I'll give a alternate view because for me it's just a continuation.

Yeah.

Okay.

So because, and I think this is because of my heritage.

Yeah.

In terms of software engineering.

Yeah.

So if quantum computing.

I don't know what that means.

Yeah.

Right.

Because that's hardware, that's physics, that's a completely different realm to me.

So if quantum computer came in and said Hasani Quantum computing is here.

It's going to change everything.

I wouldn't really be able to relate to what.

I don't know what that means.

I mean, it's going to make things faster.

I don't know.

Whereas AI has come after machine learning, has come after big data, has come after scale and cloud systems and stuff like that.

And as a software engineer, that's just been a natural evolution for my whole career.

So these are just new tools that have come available for people like me to leverage.

And I think that's also where I benefit from.

Oh, AI has come through.

I can imagine, okay, how we can use this in our different solutions in the different.

It opens up new opportunities for us.

So for me it's just another step and stepping stone to solving problems and to the solutions that we can now execute against.

Whether I can understand, for some people who are not from that direction, it's a noob set of buzzwords, it's a new set of things or hype.

Yeah.

That they've, they're kind of trying to understand where's the, where, where's the hype curve on this?

Are we at the, the height of hysteria or the, the plateau of disillusion?

That where.

What does this all mean?

And whereas for me and my team, because we're technologists, we can look at it and say, oh, this is, this is great for this type of problem.

Yeah, it's great for this type of problem.

A few years ago, blockchain was.

There were so many companies who were like, oh, just put blockchain into your name and it's going to shift your share price.

And I remember them.

I don't see a use for blockchain.

It's not going to do anything for us.

Yeah, there's a few niche areas where it's going to be really powerful, but for us, I don't see the biggest, big, big gain.

Where for AI is that.

Yes, you can see lots of opportunities for those solutions and especially in the retail space, there's tons of opportunity.

In the enterprise space, there's opportunities there.

I don't think it's as significant right now as people think it may be because a lot of enterprise solutions are quite digital already.

But we're already moving into agentic.

Yeah.

So the agentic stuff where you've got different agents, AI agents communicating together and then that's going to shift things along again to say, oh, new solutions are going to come available.

And, and just on that, I did regularly in our department, I do what is called a Thought of the day.

I'll just send in a video clip of some random musings.

Yeah, and me and my head of innovation, we were at the Microsoft AI Tool conference back in.

Was it February?

Back in February or March and there's a lot of exciting stuff that was announced there and we were discussing and we were talking about Agentix and we've got a number of experiments and things that we're doing with Agent Ki.

And he said yeah, but the thing is, you know, to really make it work you need APIs and this any other.

And we were just discussing how to bring it to life and the conclusion of it.

And then my thought of the day video to the department, the conclusion of it was it all comes down to APIs, Events and Data.

Do you have really good APIs?

Do you have really good events architecture?

Do you have really good data?

And the agentic AI is going to leverage that and do amazing things.

And so you always come back to those fundamentals.

Which takes me all the way back to when I started my career and what will be focused on APIs, events and data.

So that for me is that continuation from the beginning of my career to now and probably till forevermore that I joke.

It's always if statements for loops.

That's what software engineering is all about.

And different variants of that come and go and we get better and better at it.

But it all comes down to the solution, right?

We're coming towards the end, we could go on forever.

Times flying by.

So I'm going to throw some quick fire questions.

So the first one is which brand or company do you most admire and why?

I'm going to be stereotypical Apple.

Yeah, it's definitely Apple.

I love their style, I love their simplicity, I love their opinionated choices.

Yeah, nice.

Next one is what's the one piece of advice someone you wish someone had given you when you were first starting out?

What would be advice?

Enjoy the ride.

Yeah.

And I have done and yeah, just enjoy the ride and make choices that align with your values.

And chasing money isn't always that choice.

Yeah, great.

Third one, sorry is if you could swap the jobs with one person for.

A day, who would it be I would swap with?

He doesn't work there anymore.

Jurgen Klopp, he was a little.

The Liverpool manager.

Yeah.

You live before.

I am a Liverpool fan.

Yeah, he was.

He's my hero.

See how I would swap the, swap the jobs with him for a day.

That might change this in the next couple of weeks.

Right.

It's a new hero on The.

On the.

On the.

On the scene.

I think Jurgen set it up nicely for.

In mind.

Best business book you've ever read.

You mentioned one earlier, didn't you?

So, yeah, I did mention amount, but my.

My go to is the 5 dysfunction of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.

Yeah, he.

I am a Lencioni fanboy.

He's got a whole list of leadership books.

Yeah.

And the Five Dysfunctions is like his seminal book.

They are fables.

So it's not like a traditional leadership manual.

And.

But yeah, I.

I picked it up about seven, eight years ago and I'll read it every year.

I shared with my leadership team.

I'd recommend it to anyone.

I'd love to have a read.

Yeah.

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about insurance, what would it be?

The amazing ability that we have to use different words for the same thing.

Yeah.

It's phenomenal how we can talk about the same concept with three, four, ten different words.

Yeah.

And everyone knows and they all make sense in a different context.

Yeah.

So we could say the same thing and disagree with each other.

We can say completely different things that are saying the same thing and not realize by saying the same thing.

So.

Yeah.

The variety of terminology we have for the same thing, that be my change.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've never thought about that.

So second, last one, the one person, the kind of person you most admire.

Oh, I'm gonna be really soppy.

That'll be my mummy.

Yeah, yeah.

She's.

I.

I admire so much.

She was a single mom, raised me and my brothers and my little sister.

How many brothers and sisters?

So I've got three brothers and a sister, so there's five of us.

Wow.

I'm now a father of four, so.

And I followed in those footsteps.

Yeah, yeah.

But yes.

And she was, like I said, she introduced me into technology and she's always been a big supporter of me and.

And my.

My career and my choices.

Yeah.

It'd be mummy.

Did the siblings go into tech and stuff as well?

No, they didn't.

Just.

Just me.

So, yeah, my.

My little brother, he's.

One of them, is in music, one of them is in social care, one of them traveling the world.

So all different things.

Yeah, yeah.

And then final question.

What is the best thing about working in insurance?

The best thing about work?

So I think that one of the best things.

I think insurance is one of the most innovative and fun places I've worked.

And I know that's not its reputation.

No, I know for some reason it's all people always apologizing for working in.

Insurance and I think terrible job.

It's really, really.

And even though a lot of the systems are clunking, people might say, what do you mean by innovators?

I don't always mean technically innovative, but it's just full of entrepreneurs.

Yeah, yeah.

It's full of large businesses, small businesses, everything in between.

Everyone's ducking and diving, trying to make things work, bringing deals together even though they're doing, jumping through a million hurdles to do so.

So I think the variety and the dynamism within the insurance industry I think is really, really cool.

Really interesting.

Yeah.

And yeah, I'm not apologetic for enjoying it at all.

Yeah, no, I'm totally with you.

Well, look, thank you so much for giving me some time.

I know we've been trying to get it in for a while and it's been an absolute pleasure coming on.

There's so much we didn't cover.

I'd have to get you on another time again, go through some other stuff.

But look, I'm sure there'll be some people that want to reach out and stuff LinkedIn cool for people to reach out and connect and all that good stuff.

So LinkedIn is the place to be.

I'm not on any of the other socials, so yeah, if you want to hit me up, it's on LinkedIn.

Well, if you want to do that, connect with me.

Sani, you know where to do it and like, comment, subscribe, all the usual stuff and we will catch you again next time.

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

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