Foreign 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 insuretech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.

So grab your headphones, get comfortable, and let's jump into beyond the Desk.

Pablo, welcome to the podcast.

How you doing?

Yeah, very well.

Thanks Mark.

Good stuff.

Thanks for having me on your podcast.

I've heard a few of them already.

Love them.

Good.

Love the concept.

Good.

At least someone does.

We're definitely going to go back to the kind of early days and go back through the career and get into.

In some.

Some stuff into some.

In some detail.

We've that we've obviously had a chat before and I think I've got some.

Some really good topics to, to.

To delve into.

But you want to start first off with kind of introducing yourself who you are and what you're all about.

Yeah, 100%.

So Pablo Boudica and I'm chief architect and recently been getting into a bit of a cto, which, depending on which way you define it, the way that I look at it, it's doing the architecture and the design and the delivery.

But I would say my career is probably split into three portions.

Enormous amount of time in university.

I did Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD.

Maybe we'll talk about that separately.

Definitely.

Yeah.

But then half of it in consulting and then half of it in insurance.

On the other side at the table, that's really working with all sorts of insurers.

I was very lucky to work with qbe Global insurer based in Australia and gave me a lot of exposure to personal loans, commercial loans, specialty lines, us, London market, the whole lot.

And then did an amazing stint in ey, where I was doing more or less the same but for other organizations, tech strategy, target operating models and secondments for chief architect.

Then more recently with Aspen setting up their architecture team, running that, which is an absolute pleasure.

And then also running their delivery function for Aspel.

Nice.

So let's go right back to the start and then we'll come back to that.

So I'm making the assumption I might be wrong, but that you were into technology at a young age, like most architect CTO type people tend to be.

But, but tell us a bit about your early story.

Yeah, I probably crested around about 11 years old.

I got an Apple II computer which probably dates me.

Right.

And it was really for the purpose of writing code on.

Right.

So wrote BASIC and assembler because, you know, some of my basic stuff was too slow and actually had a real passion for it.

I, I'd say by about 13, I'd probably move past that.

Yeah.

And got into other stuff.

I was really enjoying Latin, geography, biology, maths, chemistry, French.

I think at one point I was even doing theater studies.

Real variety.

Yeah.

And enjoyed that.

So when did that, when did it kind of evolve into you thinking that that technology was, was going to be what you did kind of longer term?

You touched about.

I didn't actually know you.

You did a PhD, but we can get, we can definitely get into that.

But did you, did you go to university with and study technology related stuff or did.

What did that look like?

Yeah, and I didn't finish my PhD, so we should talk about that.

Right.

But I wouldn't give this advice to other people.

But I was really conflicted because I loved all of those subjects.

And so while I was at that point of deciding where to step off into, it was really hard for me to say, oh, I'm going to specialize in engineering, I'm going to specialize in computer science or economics or you know, just pick up the classics and do Latin.

So I don't often give this advice, but I rolled the dice.

Yeah.

And it came up.

Yeah.

And it came up with what I think was a marvelous degree for me, which was basically electrical engineering, computer science, finance and Spanish.

Wow.

Yes.

So you literally rolled a dice.

I literally rolled the dice.

When you said roll the dice, I thought you.

And hypothetically speaking.

No, but.

No.

Okay.

So.

So sorry, remind me, what was it?

What was the.

The degree was.

So it was a, it was a new degree at the time.

It was, it was computer science, electronic engineering, finance and Spanish.

I took the Spanish just because I thought it'd be easy, but because I can speak Spanish, actually turned out to be one of the hardest subjects I took.

But it was really a great course and I'm not sure if they still run it now, but it was almost tailor made for someone who's going to get into architecture and wants to understand the nuts and bolts of technology at a fundamental level.

And then, you know, the stuff that I was doing with them as I was finishing was artificial life and neural networks and all that sort of stuff.

So just a really diverse degree.

And often people say, you know, when I did my degree I didn't really get a lot out of it.

I'm like, mate, I got a heap out of it because I could understand how a chip works and I programmed that a designed one and then the networks and then all the way up through to building a.

And neural network.

So, so I guess from coming out of that there were, there were, there's multiple different.

Like you mean, I mean nearly endless amount of different routes you could have taken from the languages to the finance stuff to kind of more hardware related things to kind of technology, software.

So what, what, at what point did you, did you kind of major in one in, in one route?

Yeah.

So, you know, it's interesting, I think this is a theme in my life, but actually it was a really bad time for the economy.

I was very fortunate to have picked up a master's after that.

And at that point I was getting really excited about AI and distributed computing.

And there was a course at my university I was at, it was at Imperial College.

Went from there, went back in the year after.

Yeah.

And, and, and, and did that for two more years and I had my head square that I was going to become an academic.

Really?

Yeah.

Interesting.

What as in like a lecturer or something like that?

Or like what?

Or someone who writing, writing papers or like.

Yeah, researcher.

Yeah, yeah.

Coming up with cool stuff.

And so I, I finished that and then moved into, I got, I got a PhD, got a scholarship at American University.

Tulane.

Right.

And was doing cognitive philosophy in the States.

In the States, yeah.

Which is where I realized actually I'm not that smart.

Okay.

It was an amazing experience and if anyone gets a chance to do it, it's just really good.

But yeah, you know, the amount of research and prep that I would have needed.

I kind of did the maths and I was like, mate, if I stick at this because it's going to take a while to come up with something special and new and different.

And what I was trying to do, my idea was doing genetic algorithms.

Yeah, your PhD.

Yeah, yeah.

Was probably five more years.

So it's going to be my 30s before I graduated and I was like man, I can't wait.

And I'm pretty poor right now, so, so I, yeah, I came back to the UK and started my career.

Yeah, it's interesting, I had that similar thing.

I went to university and to do a cricket like on a parts cricket schol and it went, I went there thinking I was amazing at cricket and I, I, I, after about six months I realized that the cricket career was, was, was probably not going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it was, it was good fun at the same time.

But so, so you came back to uk.

What was, what was the next step?

So I got picked up and it was a very lucky break.

You know you talk about lucky breaks that you get in your career and an amazing break with a company that hired almost exclusively from Imperial.

So it's just a, just a whole lot of people that kind of had a view of doing cool stuff with technology but that heads screwed on really well.

They're very patient with me.

I won't, I won't lie.

I actually failed my probation with them.

Really?

Yeah.

So I mean I was all about guys, why are we doing this old fashioned stuff, let's do neural networks and all the rest of the like.

And they were like, you know, realistically that doesn't pay the bills.

What I need you to do is this if then stuff.

And you know, but they were so patient with me and I had an amazing start to my career because if I've learned anything from them and I try to pass it on to my graduates as well is here's the bar.

Yeah.

And once you know where the bar is you can get over it.

But now you know that you're meeting people's expectations.

Yeah, they trained me really well and I did some very cool stuff.

I was working for the stock exchange.

I did some dot com stuff.

The world's first poultry e commerce site, probably the last one.

But it was an amazing time working on very diverse technologies.

Data warehousing.

And back in the day you did it all right.

Yeah.

So you cut some C code and then you go over and build a data warehouse and you, you'd learn how to do all those things from first principles.

So was your, was that role then?

Were you.

So you had kind of evolved into being a software, was it a software engineering position or was it kind of broader than that?

Yeah, so I started off as a developer.

So could you code coming out of university?

You were, you were.

I thought I could Yeah, I didn't.

Yeah.

I learned properly how to write commercial code.

Right.

At this organization.

Right, okay.

But yes, I mean, I, you know, I could code.

I was C coder and yeah, a real background in it.

But, you know, the sort of stuff that they were doing was a lot more advanced than what I'd learned at university.

So I think I progressed through the ranks.

We.

I was in the seed team to set up their New York operations.

So they moved me to New York.

Wow.

Which is just a marvelous experience.

Worked with some very cool companies there as well.

And then, you know, by the time I finished with them, a good five years with them, I was a project architect.

Right.

So the ability to deliver designs and deliver the software for that design.

So at that point you'd kind of.

Were you still pretty hands on at that point you're still kind of writing code or were you kind of pure play architect?

They're not kind of in the quite as much in the detail.

I guess I was more about delivery at that point.

I could still cut code.

But what was starting to happen was my passions were moving more towards delivery than they were keeping up to speed with coding frameworks.

I did because I was pretty junior in my career.

But I was now starting to think about how do I describe what needs to be built and how do I make sure it's the right thing to be built.

That's quite a quick evolution into architecture from, from engineering.

Lots of people take a bit longer.

So was that kind of just fairly organic or did you have a real.

It sounds like you had quite big ideas about what you wanted to do and obviously you pivoted to go into industry.

But did you know you wanted to move up that curve into the architecture and design space right away or did that just kind of gradually evolve like that?

No.

Do you know what?

It was another one of those roll the dice moments.

Right.

I need to see this, this dice.

I actually remember.

I remember seeing me do that.

I rolled it once, by the way, and that's it.

I stuck with that.

So then I started my next career in Australia and slightly different organizations are quite big.

Technology.

Australian technology consulting companies.

Yeah.

Again, multi sector.

So working a lot with New South Wales government and resources and gaming and, you know, just all these standard, usual banking Australian companies and I, I was really excited.

More about delivery and design.

Yeah.

And what I was finding is that I couldn't, you know, it's getting to a point I couldn't do both.

And so I realized that, you know, that that role doesn't really exist where you can do both.

So you're going to have to choose one.

And I thought I'll go for the architecture side.

And I guess I think the reason for that is I get a real kick out of being at the start of things.

You've got people who have an idea at the back of their head of what they want to do, but they don't know how to translate that onto a piece of paper so other people can understand that.

So okay, let's get that down on a piece of paper.

These are your business objectives, these are business goals.

I can work with this now because I can now figure out what the tech enablers are going to be because I got that delivery background.

I'm not going to stop there.

Let's figure out how much it's going to cost, what's the best way to deliver it, what the components should be, what those technologies should be, build a business case, get alignment from people and then let's float that boat in the water.

You've designed a program that you've avoided risk where you can, it's affordable and it's going to do the right thing for you.

Major decisions taken care of and you've brought people along the journey.

And I got more of a kick out of that.

Yeah.

Than being given that as a goal, as a delivery person to go deliver it.

Yeah.

It's interesting one there because kind of going back to your, your degree, I mean I think one of the, one of the age old things for technologists, architecture type people, CTOs, et cetera is it is the really great ones have got that ability to be able to do the technology piece but translate that into real life stroke kind of business objectives and have the business up front of mind rather than just the technology.

And you mean we've all kind of heard the stories of the purest technologist which there's obviously a place for in certain places.

But do you think your kind of breadth that you had in your studies?

Because obviously I'm making the assumption that the economics and the finance and the, and obviously the more, more kind of cultural language stuff taught you some stuff about that that wasn't just tech.

Do you think that and, and then going into consulting roles where actually delivering a business outcome and delivering financial benefits are absolutely paramount, otherwise the business doesn't exist.

Do you think that's held you in good stead to be able to see that, that breadth as you have you move through your career?

Yeah, I mean consulting certainly has given me the ability to see lots of different perspectives.

And at no point is failure ever a concept that enters anyone's mind.

Right, yeah.

Of course you're not going to make a loss, you are going to deliver.

And ideally you want your.

And you should, and you will make sure your customer's really happy so they do more business with you.

But I think it's.

The breadth is just.

I'm just curious.

I'm just like really interested in all sorts of things.

So, you know, there's one role where I was a portfolio manager for New South Wales government.

I was administering some like six $700 million budgets.

Well, I went, I read the book.

I met people in my organization who'd been doing this for ages and did a real deep dive so that I could then do that job to the best of my ability.

Yeah.

When I was doing investment planning, the same thing, you know, IT strategy or technology or even business strategy, same sort of thing.

I'd go in there, meet people and happy to spend the time saying, I don't know how to do this.

Can you please teach me?

Yeah.

And I've been lucky to have people who've been fortunate to have amazing skills in that area, but also their time and willingness to mentor.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So let's fast forward that then to the first time you ventured into the world of insurance.

When.

When was that and what did that look like?

That was an unbelievably scary role, actually.

I will not lie.

So I was an enterprise architect doing enterprise architecture type work and I'd done a little bit of work with some insurers, but not to any great level of detail.

And a travel insurer in Australia, digital Trial, basically a startup gave me a call and said, look, we think we need a new technology platform, right.

And we don't really know the right way of doing it, but we know that what we're doing is wrong and the way that we're going about it is wrong.

So we need a hand.

I was like, okay.

And it was.

I stepped out of my comfort zone.

So had a consulting, you know, all those great mentors, they weren't there.

All that training material, that's not there either.

I'm just on my own designing what the technology platform should be.

And the reason I got the role was because I kind of thought about it, not just from here's a tech, but here's how you can implement it.

Oh, got it.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's right.

Yeah.

We should think about both.

I did.

I wrote their IT strategy, I was reporting to the CEO and we worked really closely on this.

He was kind of new to insurance as well.

Which business was this world Nomads.

So it was a travel insurance company and they're privately owned and we got that across the line.

And it wasn't a huge amount of money that we asked for, but because it was privately owned, they were going to have to pay out of their pockets.

So the amount of trust in basically saying we're going to put in a new technology platform entirely was hairy for them.

New policy administration, new digital distribution, multi currency, multi jurisdiction, multilingual.

Because they traded all over the world with a new general ledger and data warehouse.

And I'd say almost 70% of these concepts are new to them.

Like general ledger.

You know, what they were doing was amazing.

But it was pretty much spreadsheets.

Right.

And data warehouse.

So we got that across the line and we're like high fiving.

Yeah, that's really good.

So now we're off to the delivery and I was like to the CEO, you do know that you're going to have to replace your entire delivery team because these guys haven't got the right experience or the approaches.

You haven't got BAs, you haven't got PMs.

You know, what served you well for now in your previous transition isn't going to work for this.

So he goes, mate, why don't you take it on?

Is that what he mean?

As in running the delivery team?

So I was their cio.

So I went from enterprise Arctic to cio.

Neither role that really, you know, they're kind of, you know, I was out of my comfort zone already.

It was hard work and we did it.

So we pulled it across the line.

Half of it was me hiring a whole bunch of guys that are new.

Yeah.

So custom built the policy administration system and all the rest of it and got a great team to put in the general ledger and you know, brought some more of my mates in to do the other bits and pieces.

But we got across the line in 18 months.

Wow.

With a new team, new way of working, all agile, you know, DevOps and all that sort of stuff.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So that was, that was the kind of, not, not just the first foray into insurance, but the, the kind of, first big kind of gig in which kind of two, two, two roles in one really.

But I mean I did that, did that kind of solidify that you wanted to do those kind of architectural leadership type type positions and, and, and interestingly you went into the CIO role.

Appreciate it's in a, maybe a smaller kind of.

Yeah.

More nimble business.

But did you not want to count?

Like, you mean, obviously you've, you've stayed in the chief architecture role for a period now.

Talk to a bit about the thinking of that and like what that.

Yeah.

So that was a contract role and I, when that contract ended, it was high fives, well done.

Yeah.

And I slept pretty much for a month.

I went fishing.

Yeah.

It was really, I was, I was pretty burnt out.

But I'd made so much growth in that time.

Yeah.

And the biggest growth, I guess was moving away from being a technologist to being someone who's really business focused.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And that was, I mean, you know, I, I don't know that I technically my skills moved on, but my perception moved enormously.

And it was, you know, just talking about what it meant for that organization, for those founders.

It meant that that organization, which they always wanted to do was to sell it because they were done.

And that organization got sold very successfully on the back of the amazing technology we put in and all the rest of it.

Yeah, amazing.

But in doing so, I worked with the claims team.

What does this mean for you?

The distribution team, the marketing team, you know, the underwriting teams, you know, what does this mean for you?

And they were like, oh, mate, if you put this in, make a biggest difference.

Right, let's do it.

Yeah.

You know, so your kind of interaction.

With the business and understanding how the business works and kind of that, all that kind of stuff just went on to a whole new level.

100%.

Yeah.

So what was the, what was the kind of.

If we bring that more up to the kind of here and now.

I mean, the, the.

I didn't actually ask you at the start of like the, the accent.

I'm sure you didn't get the accent from, from just visiting Australia.

So I'm making the assumption that you were in Australia originally and then you came to the uk.

Well, it's funny you say that.

So I was born in the uk.

Right.

But then I, I literally spent almost no time in the uk.

Moved to Malawi, moved to Papua New guinea, which is north of Australia.

Yeah.

Then came back after a really long time and in my secondary, unique.

And then I took off in the uk.

Were your parents Australia?

No, my mum's Spanish, my dad's Indian.

Where's it, where's the accent come from then?

I've been in Australia for a really long time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My wife is Australian, so my in laws are Australian and, and they just went to town on my accent until it got To a point where they were happy with it.

So, so, so you were in Australia then?

Did you, did you stay in Australia for a while then?

Did you then.

Yeah, I know you're at QBE for a long time, like was that, was that in Australia?

QBE.

So 20 odd years in Australia.

So the bulk of my, you know, the bulk of my training, my experiences is from there.

Yeah.

Started at QBE in Australia because the CIO at the time was interested in what I'd done for the travel insurance business and said, can you do the same?

Can you make my organization digital and lead this initiative?

Which I did loved.

And then bit by bit, you know, people become aware of what I was doing.

So IT strategy manager for Australia and then, you know, IT strategy manager for global investment planning Global and then, you know, run architecture and architecture ops globally as well.

So along the way doing some always big initiatives, but you know, the scope of what I was doing became a bit bigger.

So instead of running the claims program in Australia, the claims program for the globe.

So how did you, how did you transition back to the uk?

Was that with qbe?

Yeah, right.

Yeah.

So two, two reasons, both of which I'm really thankful for.

It wasn't long before they recognized I was gonna be a lot more valuable based in the UK in a global role than I would be in Australia.

Yep.

So I mean I was doing two weeks in Australia and two weeks globally.

Right.

I did that for about a year, which is a lot.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of travel, so that's, that's really effective.

And the other one was that I could also help with, you know, the other global team that were there as well.

So the global COO was there.

CTO is based in the US and you know, that meant that was more effective, had more overlap with them, more FaceTime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So one of the things I really wanted to get into is because I think this is when we first connected was when you were at ey, obviously before, you mean, you obviously started in consulting in the early days, went to industry for the travel insurance role and obviously a kind of seven, eight year stint at qbe.

And now obviously I guess you're in the uk.

Yeah.

What was the kind of catalyst behind the move to consulting?

And, and it'd be interesting to understand what you kind of found is that because that, I guess that was your first consulting role in what.

What you classes are kind of a big four type consulting business, but probably slightly different to the one you maybe started in.

Yeah.

In the early years.

Yeah, very much so.

So I was like.

I'd been a QBE for seven years by that point.

Yep.

And I learned an awful lot about different delivery models and different business sectors in insurance.

Still predominantly doing architecture type stuff in that.

In those jobs, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Architecture.

No, no program delivery stuff.

So I kind of got to a point where I was thinking, I know QBE really well and I know Australian insurance really well because I'd worked with a few of those in the, in the past.

But you know, we're in London, right.

It's the center of all things insurance.

Yeah.

I'd like to see different ways of doing insurance and different operating models, different cultures, different approaches.

Because your average person, insurance person, would have worked in the uk, would have gotten some of that already.

Right.

So two years, two amazing years with ey, working with some of the smartest people I've worked with who really very well networked, good perceptions on what the industry is doing and various other bits and pieces.

Had a really good time with them doing primarily, you know, chief arch.

I get seconded as a chief architect, technology strategy, a lot of target operating model with tech enablers and, you know, business cases and all that sort of stuff.

And I guess the biggest learning for me was, you know, most, most of most of my clients, because I was doing, I was the lead for technology consulting for specialty, was that you could walk up and down the road with all your different clients all trying to solve the same problem.

Right.

But the culture makes the biggest difference.

The culture for that organization or how, how much they really want to do it or what their legacy is or who, you know, how they're approaching a problem makes the biggest difference to, well, I get there or not.

Yeah.

So ultimately.

So what you're saying is, is that the problems are broadly the same, but their kind of attitude and acceptance of the fact that they need to change, etc, etc, is the big differentiator that you kind of the big learning, I guess, that you spotted between different businesses.

So it'd be one organization just really experimenting with AI for decisions on underwriting and then there's another one who wants to do that, but a bit nervous for that means, do you know what I mean?

So one will just play and put a bit of money aside and that's okay.

If it fails, it fails.

And the other one's like, well, I don't want to risk any of that.

Yeah, I'd rather put it somewhere else because that, you know, so that kind of, you know, that sort of decision Making makes a difference.

So, so you did a couple of years doing that.

Was it all into insurance at that point?

Yep, 100%.

Okay.

And then, and then you decided to go back for, for the most recent role.

So was that, was that always a kind of intention that I was, you're do this for a couple of years or so, get some, some breadth and, and then go back and use that experience and, and the knowledge that you've gained back into it, into industry or not?

Not really.

I mean, I was really enjoying the work I was doing with ey.

I was really enjoying the difference I was making as well also, you know, having worked in industry for so long, it was good to bring some of those perspectives into ey so, you know, you got, you got to a better alignment, better intimacy.

Yeah.

And you know, the consultants also, because you work with consultants at all, all grades.

Right.

You know, it's good to see them develop and share some of that knowledge.

But I think the thing that I missed the most was kind of like the, the washing machine of getting something across the line on the other side of the table.

So it's hard.

Running a target operating model is really hard.

Doing a target technology vision that meets that is hard.

Getting all those stakeholders aligned.

Yeah, it is way harder.

The convincing that you need to do the, the work that you need to do to get that up, to get the trust that you, you've got the right team in place to, to make sure that you're going to as it.

As in when you're on the consulting.

Side, when you're on the other side.

Right.

So that challenge of ownership and delivery was something I kind of missed while.

I was doing it.

Yeah, yeah, I can see what you mean because there's, I think sometimes when people go into consulting, there's that, yes, there's the breadth.

But then you, for someone like you, who obviously enjoys the delivery piece and likes the seeing the business benefits and stuff like that, you mean at some point you're cut off and they don't need you anymore.

Right.

And they carry on.

They go into the really interesting.

Seeing it through to completion is probably done by someone who works for, for the business.

Yeah.

So did you find that, did you find that hard to, as a, as a kind of a, was that a negative of being in consulting for you?

I wouldn't say it was a native.

It's just something I missed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

So you mean you've spoken a little bit about AI and stuff like that.

Like, I, I, I think I Think you, you are the first architect we've had on the, on the podcast, this, this, the new, the new one and the old one.

So what, what I'd like to do is just start to get your percept, your perspective on kind of where you see the kind of future insurance from a technology perspective.

And what you see is the kind of big challenges, hurdles, kind of the things that, how it will evolve, your kind of vision for it over the next few years or so.

Geez.

Big question.

Yeah.

We haven't got all day, but we can give a high level overview.

Sorry, Insurance is a, is a tricky space.

Right.

If you think about it broadly, there's personal lines.

Yep.

What those guys are doing with personal lines is really, you know, it's about digital, it's about automation through, straight through and all that sort of stuff.

And I think they're in a very different space to your commercial insurers talking to brokers or specialty insurers and all that sort of stuff.

And they do take slightly different trajectories.

So I think often you'll find your personal lines carriers are already there.

They're trying to automate, modernize, streamline.

They've had data warehouses in place because they've had more data say in a certain specific line or whatever that might be.

But if there's one thing that's consistent around all of them, it's just what do I do with my data?

How do I get the best out of my data?

My data can be pretty ordinary when you, when you think of it for specialty insurers, where they're going to get it in any old format.

Yeah.

Either on a spreadsheet or a piece of paper or an email PDF extract and then trying to align that so that very quickly you get a price back, you know, you get a, you know, are you within risk appetite?

All that sort of stuff.

And I think the ambition at the moment I've been hearing is can we do it while we've got the broker on the call?

So I kind of see that there's, you know, similar, you know, your commercial specialty insurers are kind of following that ambition which the personal lines carriers have been doing all, all along.

Right.

You know, it's not like you're going to wait two days for your home and motor quote.

Right.

You've got it instantaneously and you're going to compare and you're going to, and you're going to execute immediately.

So I think, I think that's kind of more where I see things going.

You know, and where does AI play in that?

It's going to help quite a bit in various different places, but, you know, also has not forget just the operational disciplines of companies to do the right thing with data.

You know, I'm going to help you with that.

Right.

You've got to get, you've got to have a data culture.

You've got to put that in place.

Data AI is definitely going to help you, you know, get, get more out of your data or align it or whatever it might be.

So, you know, I think, I think those are going to be some of the, some of the trends you might see on the commercial side, if that's not already happening.

Because it really is.

Yeah, I mean it's a, it's an interesting one, isn't it?

I mean, I think the AI piece is like, it's just everywhere now and I just don't think people have quite figured out how they, how it's going to be used.

There's lots of kind of difference of opinions, like lots of people are worried about it.

It's, it's always kind of, I mean, a fairly layman's way of looking at it, but it's always kind of blown my mind a little bit about how much data insurance businesses have and, and how they're not.

You mean, in theory you would, you would think that like that given that data and assessing that data for risk is, is the business you, you would think that insurance would be almost kind of the market leader from a, or close to it from a data perspective, but it doesn't seem like they necessarily are.

But is that because of the unstructured nature of how they, how a lot of that data comes in, do you think?

Yeah, well, again, look at, look at it two different ways.

Personal lines, they've got all the data formatted, structured because people, users are doing that themselves.

You fill out the form that they give you.

Yeah, yeah.

And even on a claims perspective, you're able to enrich and use various data.

You know, there's, there's a, there's an industry around that commercial lines or specialty lines, they may not have that much data in a line, maybe let's call it cyber, which is a relatively new, you know, maybe there's not enough history of data there.

Right.

To do, to use.

So, you know, they've got to think about things differently.

And then to your point, data is coming in any old format, so you've got to do something with that.

Yeah, I think, I think also the other thing as well is there's very few insurers that don't have legacy.

So you've got a lot of data locked away and look, there's an enormous amount of progress being made in that space now.

But it almost goes back to your diligence of your data culture when you've got an underwriter and you're going to think about what are the right attributes to capture and make sure that those are consistent.

Making sure that individual has as much passion in that as underwriting.

Well, that's, that's a tricky thing, right?

So.

But you've got to do that if you want to really get some of the best out of your data.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Now let's get back to today's episode and I guess if we turn that into kind of more of a kind of architecture specific question like it'd be interesting to see kind of what your because I mean even even the kind of 16, 17 years that I've kind of so I actually started my career doing recruitment into into purely architecture stuff and even then it's, it's, it's changed and evolved the job job tit expectations of what people are supposed to do certainly around the breadth of what people want from from an architect now has, has changed quite a bit.

So what's your view of the kind of the architecture team function of the of the future?

What do you think that looks like and what does what does kind of good look like from a from a kind of how to set up a really good architecture team to future proof for what insurance needs moving forward.

Forward.

Do you think Gee is another one of those.

Yeah, sorry, tough questions.

Throwing all the, all the, all the big, all the big broad questions at you.

Sorry.

Yeah, no, it's good.

Okay.

So what makes a good architecture team in my mind's eye, goes back to.

Look, everyone's got an opinion, so I'll give you mine.

Right?

Yeah, yeah.

So the best way of describing the value of architecture, I think a threefold one, is that you do designs and you do blueprints and do visions.

And as soon as you've got one of those, you figured out how you're going to get there because you got your current view and your target view and you're going to do your transition states and all the rest of it.

And you can cost that and you can make decisions around that.

So having that in place is unbelievably valuable.

And I've seen organizations that don't and they end up with a lot of legacy, more expensive IT operations.

And we've seen that before.

I think the other one is technology assurance.

So the technology actually does what you want it to do.

Is it secure, is it affordable, is it implementable?

You think about all those attributes of that.

And then I say the third leg of this stall is the processes to enable that, Right.

You have your governance so that you can make a decision.

So you can say a decision has been made that's quite useful because if you don't do that, then people are always going to undermine that decision or question it or whatever it might be, or that guy's opinion.

But you can also use that to build alignment.

So if you've got now that vision and the assurance and you've got people behind it, well, it's a way bigger chance it's going to get delivered because people are bought into it.

So for me, you know, there's a few, few attributes of what makes architecture valuable.

So I think the future is more about getting to that space where your teams are, you know, delivering value in all, all of those attributes.

I mean, I don't want to be mean to my colleagues.

Right.

But I've seen some of those practices in architecture in other areas, other sectors are more advanced than they are in insurance.

Right.

In what way?

So I think.

So when I was working for the government and New South Wales government, the emphasis on business architecture is really high and operating model was really high.

Right.

And then technology as an enabler came after that.

Yeah.

Whereas when I Started in insurance ages ago.

It was all about technology and only technology and not the business.

So making that shift to being able to draw a line to the technology that you're going to implement, but why and what it means for an organization is really important.

And I've seen that evolution in the time you know that I've been working with architects.

And it's good because there's more alignment around that.

So what do I see for the future for architect?

I'd say there's got to be an appreciation that architects actually quite expensive and it doesn't necessarily deliver tangible outcomes, although I think it does.

But others would say no.

It's making sure that You've got not 10 architects in a room and one subject matter expert.

You've got one architect in the room and two subject matter experts and that person is able to interpret all those requirements and bring their colleagues in as required.

And so there's this idea I think of an architect that really is able to have an element of business, bit of applications, bit of data, bit of this, you know, that broader, much broader experience base.

But that's not to say you don't, I don't need a security, I absolutely need a security architect.

But this person's listening out for that and going okay, fine.

And the way you get to that is really about, you know, bringing an architecture team that's multidisciplinary, that does have business architects in it with that culture of really wanting to deliver and be aligned to value and purpose of organization.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean one thing I'm again, I'm just kind of conscious of with insurance is there's definitely a bit more.

So if you've kind of rewind 10 years ago there was, there was lots of hell of a lot of outsourcing especially for the development piece and, and maybe less so for architecture.

But I think now there's, there definitely seems to be more of a willingness to kind of build in at least to extent some internal engineering capability, internal data engineering teams and stuff like that.

Bringing more of that in house.

Do you think that makes the job of an architect kind of.

Does that make it different or easier or hard?

I mean, I, I guess I'm just thinking kind of logically in the sense that you've got a, you've got an engineering team that's probably in the same building and, and therefore kind of turning those designs into, into actual tangible build is, is in theory should be easier.

But I don't know if that, I mean I think there's still a variety as well.

Not everybody builds in house team, but it definitely seems, from what I've seen over the last few years, seems to be more people looking at that.

Yeah, I mean I think that's actually an exciting shift.

Insurance does tend to be a package based delivery model for it.

Right.

And really to get competitive advantage or to do something different or to exploit something that's new, you should build, I mean going back to when we built our policy administration system, it's not for everyone.

You've got to have rural discipline, much greater discipline around requirements capture and engineering processes and you know, testing and all the rest of it, which if you have been a package shop, won't be in your DNA.

No.

So the role of the architect there is, is actually, you're right, it is different because you're not really only just looking at interfaces between systems and how you're going to customize something, but it's going to be more, more technical.

So you're probably going to end up with more business architects getting the framing for requirements.

Right.

And the processes to get those approved and you know, how to get your wireframes and various other bits and pieces up and running or whatever it might be and then a more technical set of solution architects that are again probably more broader in nature.

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting move.

I think it seems to, I think there's definitely more people thinking about that.

Kind of like you say, if everyone ends up with the same kind of core platform, then there's a limit to how much benefit you're going to get from that in comparison to the rest of the market.

But it's just the risk appetite I.

Suppose, is the there or differentiator.

Yeah, so.

So the early movers with AI, there's been a few I can think of that have got, you know, AI.

Is that in, in.

In their underwriting and their risk selection or even their pricing.

But they built those.

Yeah, right.

And then there's a whole bunch of other insurers looking to buy AI and they're both right.

Yeah.

Right.

But I mean where do you want to spend your money?

Right.

Yeah.

What sort of, what sort of competitive advantage advantage you're after?

Yeah, I guess everyone's got different kind of priorities, different budgets, etc.

Etc.

So, so one of the things I always like to get into is that you've obviously had a lot of variety, various different pivots in your career as well.

Which is, which is really interesting throughout that.

You mean if you, if you were to Pick kind of two or three really key bits of advice that you would give if there was someone else listening who was maybe, I mean, it could be anyone from the start of their career and, and at university or looking to get into, become a chief architect from being architect.

What, what are the, what are the kind of two or three bits of advice you would, you would, you would give to others looking to kind of follow the same type of path?

You can't say don't.

I think you should stay curious.

Yeah, always stay curious.

Technology moves and evolves.

If you're not curious, you will be out of a role.

So have the.

Probably have it quicker these days.

Yeah, enjoy it.

Enjoy the differences, enjoy the new technologies.

Get into it.

Book some time aside, make it part of your working period.

And organizations should allow you to do that.

They go to conferences, whatever it might be, stay curious.

And that would be understand the organization really well that you're working for or technology as well.

The other one I would say would be don't just look at it from your perspective.

Going back to my time at that travel insurer, it was only when I made the shift to see it from their perspective that I think it made a big difference in my career.

So understand what value are you putting this in?

Be able to draw a line to your technology, change to what the organization does, their purpose.

Get yourself educated in that and really, you know, draw that value so that you can always stay aligned.

You know, what does it mean for that individual personally if, if you're late with your design?

Well, you're probably going to put this person in a compromised position.

So don't, you know, keep them up to speed.

Keep them, you know, look at it from their perspective is two, two things.

I'd say, yeah, okay.

And then the kind of flip from that is again, I don't, I don't ever want to focus too much on negatives.

But what are some of the biggest lessons you've learned over, over the career from kind of adversity or things that have gone wrong or whatever?

Like what, what would you say the, the big landmark lessons you've learned?

Two.

One is be aware of who your stakeholders are, what their drivers are, what they want, and bring them along the journey.

Make sure that they see a little bit of themselves in whatever design that has been put together, whether it's a vision or an investment plan or whatever, there's going to be something because as soon as you've done that, they're vested.

Right.

It's going to make a big difference to the quality of the outcome.

Is there any content that.

Was there a scenario in which that.

Because I can imagine for someone who is very technology focused and probably just pure focused on the tech, they can avoid.

They can maybe overlook that human part and getting someone kind of really bought into it.

So did that happen to you or like.

Or have you just seen it happen to other people?

Like, what's the.

No, no, no.

That most certainly happened to me and it would happen maybe in consulting.

Why is this not progressing further?

What's going on here?

Right.

But realistically, it was more so in qbe, which is a enormous.

As had a global role.

Yeah, yeah.

Mentally matrix, lots of stakeholders.

And I'd get to a certain point and then I'd find out that there'd be a division or a region or something that goes, mate, that doesn't work for me.

And if I had known that in advance, I would have taken that into account.

It doesn't have to work for them, but at least I would have taken that into account and then it would have been easier to get that across the line.

Yeah.

And sometimes, you know, and it hasn't happened to me, but I've seen it happen before where initially just get nailed.

Yeah.

Just because someone didn't think it through around all the stakeholders and their interests and you know, make sure that's right.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Give you one more.

Go for it.

Don't overshoot the maturity of the organization.

Okay.

So there was a data warehouse that got put in back in the day when data warehouses were the thing to do.

Yeah.

It was in the cloud as well.

And we got in, we got in some consultants to build it and they, they built it.

Did an amazing job.

It was elegant, ready to go.

And the organization's like, what do I do with this?

Yeah, what do I do with this?

So the guys would like get a bit of data in, put it through and they get some metrics out and that would take six months or whatever and they'd be like, mate, this is what you could do with this.

They're like, okay, so now we're a year and a half on.

Right.

No one's using the platform.

So I learned, do you know what?

Don't overshoot.

That would be the right organization for someone who had data warehousing in their culture, in their DNA, and now wanted to cloud, enable it, all that sort of stuff.

But for an organization that really didn't understand data, it was too far a leap.

Right, so you went to step five before doing two, three, four.

Yeah, yeah.

I see what you mean.

So there was a claims initiative and I was like, mate, why don't you just put your spreadsheets in a database and start there?

And I was like, and then why don't you just have a.

Do a dashboard and that and just see how you go.

And it's like I came back and I was like, I was in the pub too, like a year and a half later.

And the bloke came to me, he goes, he was running that program.

I was like, you should see where we're at now.

And it was like the data warehouse the other dudes had invented.

Right.

So you know, let the organization grow into something.

Yeah, step by step.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really interesting one actually.

Sometimes the kind of leap people try to make is just way too, way too far.

And you kind of lose people on that journey.

You almost have to iterate it a little bit and get there gradually.

Well, look, we're coming towards the end now.

So I always do a quick fire round at the end which.

So I'll start with the first question if you're ready.

So the first question, which brand or company do you most admire and why?

All right, so hopefully not controversial because you never bring politics into things like this.

Right.

You can bring politics into it if you want to.

I won't, but I'd say New South Wales government.

Okay.

So I worked with them early in my career and, and they were really stayed.

And there's a few bits and pieces I worked on like, which I'm, you know, around shared services, you know, you say, oh mate, that's pretty dull.

Right.

But they are now one of the most digital governments in the world.

And you know, I was listening to a podcast in Spanish about how they were talking about how the Australians were right there leading the edge and so they've got this idea service New South Wales, which is a one stop shop omnichannel.

You can walk into one or you can do it all online or you can phone up and it's 52 rationalized, 52 websites, a whole bunch of servers, a whole bunch of agencies, one stop shop.

Go in and you can get your driver's license.

My driver's license is, I've got Australian and New South Australia.

It's on my phone.

Yeah, it's accepted and all the other services are attached to it.

So the vision and the sticking to the vision to make that happen over 20 odd years.

Unbelievably impressive when you think about how many different politicians have come along and how many changes?

So it could have easily got derailed.

Yeah.

So just sticking to that vision, delivering to that vision, improving on that vision.

I'm really impressed by that.

Sounds like a good one.

The one.

We've kind of touched on this a little bit.

But the one piece of advice you wish you were given at the start.

Of your career, the stay curious was always with me.

But look at it from their perspective.

Yeah.

Is probably a good one.

I think there's always the right time for some advice.

Yeah.

So if I'd been given that advice, as in my room, coding probably wasn't the best time, you know.

Yeah.

So I think everything's got their time, but that's probably one of the most valuable ones I've gotten.

Yeah.

Good.

If you could swap roles with one person for the day, who would it be and why?

Yeah.

So I actually did this on quite a big project.

I swapped roles with someone more junior in my team.

Wow.

Okay.

How was that?

So I remember this individual building casino management system from scratch.

It was hard, it was complicated.

Everyone had opinions and this one guy had the most opinions.

And it was again, when I lead the architecture and the delivery and I was like, mate, you know what?

You can have my job for a day.

Take it.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, I could do better than you.

It's like, fine.

He said it was one of the most stressful days of his life.

Yeah.

Because he was like, pablo, what should I do?

He was like, mate, it's your decision.

You go for it.

It's like, it's a really big decision.

I'm scared to make it.

I'm like, mate, it's all you.

He'll come to me for advice, like, go talk to that guy.

He's on for the day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I guess it could always be rectified day.

Right?

Yeah.

But he took it.

He took it.

And we're still friends, by the way.

Yeah.

He said to me that actually that difference in perspective or difference in responsibility set him up.

And I.

I didn't think anything of it.

The next day I just went back to it.

He was a lot quieter than he was before, but I thought, oh, yeah, mission accomplished.

There's more.

What.

What it made for him in his career.

Yeah.

So I do that now.

So I just assign a deputy in my team and it's like, mate, when I'm on holiday, you are running the shop, so make sure you're ready for it.

Yeah, that's really not heard that before, but I think it's, yeah, a bit Perspective and, and stuff like that.

It's always, it's always good and people.

Yeah, people can appreciate a little bit maybe what people have to put up with.

Best non fiction book or work related book that you've.

You've ever read.

It's Spain from the Source.

It's a cookbook.

Lonely Planet.

It's really old.

I don't even know if you can buy it anymore.

Maybe on ebay.

Yeah.

I was living in Australia so my mum's Spanish.

We used to, you know, we used to go to Spain every year.

I was getting a bit homesick so I got, I bought the book and I used to make all the recipes out of the book.

So I really treasure this book.

And then when we moved over here I'm like, all right, I know where I'm going to.

I'm gonna go to this place in Spain for this meal.

And this place, I just, it was a real treasure.

It kind of opened up Spain for me and you know, kind of a happy time you.

I listened to a podcast last week actually from the creator of Lonely Planet story about how he built the business and sold it stuff.

I'll send it to you.

But yeah, it's a really good listener and there's so many little stories like that which is like, kind of is like his, his, his why really?

Of why, why he did it.

Really.

Yes.

I'll send it to you.

The best career decision that you made.

Yeah.

So the best and scariest was.

Was that one at World Know Travel Insurance.

Oh my God.

That scared me.

Yeah, I was.

Even now I think that I'm a little bit nervous.

If I had to do that again, I'd still be nervous.

Sounds like a good.

Was like a big catalyst for the kind of the, the kind of big leap in your career to like took you to where you are now.

It's.

But do you think that's, that's a lesson though in, in there to like other people as well is that sometimes some.

An opportunity that's a little bit scary presents itself and kind of go for it basically?

Yeah.

You know, back yourself.

Yeah.

You know I, I think the whole time I was doing.

I had a little bit of imposter syndrome.

Yeah.

But I was doing it right.

Yeah.

And I wasn't going to let anything because I still had that consulting.

I'm not going to foul.

Yeah.

So I just, I just worked hard at it.

Yes.

Go for it.

You're not going to learn otherwise.

Yeah.

It's not for everyone though.

No.

Some people don't want to do that and that's okay.

No, yeah.

But jumping in, I think is.

Is key most of the times.

And then final one, if there was one person that you admire or is idol or anything like that, who would it be?

Probably not well known in this country.

I'm probably a bit of a controversial person.

In Australia there's Craig Bellamy.

Okay.

So he's the coach of the Melbourne.

Storm, which is not the Welsh footballer.

I don't know who that dude is.

Maybe he's more controversial.

Yeah, he's quite controversial.

Is he really?

Yeah.

So rugby league, enormous sport in Australia on the eastern seaboard.

Melbourne, less so.

Yeah.

Now he joined the organization 2003.

He had never been a head coach before.

Right.

Has had a team in the grand final or the finals every year.

Wow.

So when you think about the season, which can be about, you know, up to, you know, have 20, 20 or 30 odd games, I forget which number.

You know, that's not 30.

But then you enter the final series to have a team in the finals every year and a guy has never been a head coach before.

Unbelievably impressive.

Yeah, yeah.

Nine appearances in the grand final and then five grand finals that he's won.

Two of them scrubbed out.

We got disqualified.

He didn't get disqualified.

The team got disqualified because they went over the salary cap.

So that kind of helped a little bit.

But the point is, for someone who's done that consistently has dealt with adversity, so, you know, taking that team that had the grand final scrubbed and bringing them back in to play an entire season where they more or less weren't even allowed to score a point.

Right, right.

And then the next year, take it out.

It's an art in staying relevant, you know, innovative.

So when he came on, there had been two people in his coaching staff.

Now he's like 70 people in his coaching staff.

So you're doing more man and man management and putting in a culture in a team that is about delivery, standing up for each other and all the rest of it for 20 odd years.

Pretty impressive.

Very impressive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'll have to look him up.

The final question I ask everyone is what is it you love about working in insurance?

I think it's, it's the purpose of the industry.

Okay.

Money's involved and people make money and have amazing careers and all the rest of it.

But like if you or I.

Our houses burned down.

It's not the end of the world.

No, we're not bankrupt.

You know, I'm going to assume you got Insurance, right?

Yeah.

Can you imagine the world without insurance or like an oil spill that just doesn't get cleaned up or businesses goes out of business, you know, they're toast because their premises are burnt down and all those people are out of jobs.

Yeah.

I just think the purpose of the organization is what, you know, is what gets me out of bed for it.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Well, look, thank you so much for coming on.

We've been talking about this for a while, so thanks for making some time.

There will almost certainly be people that want to connect and stuff with you.

Off the back of it, are you, are you cool with kind of LinkedIn and stuff like that?

Is that the best, best route to reach out?

And you're happy for people to connect if they want a mentor or talk to you about.

Yeah.

New South Wales Government.

Melbourne Sports.

Yeah.

Melbourne Storm.

Is that, is that cool?

Yeah.

Yeah.

100.

Yeah.

Great.

Thanks again.

It's been brilliant.

Cheers.

Thank you very much, Mark.

I've enjoyed it.

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

I really hope you enjoyed hearing from today's guest and that you've taken away some valuable insights to fuel your own career journey.

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