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 insuretech.

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.

Sandra, welcome to the podcast.

How you doing?

Good.

Very excited.

This is nice space.

So, yeah, my first time having a fellow podcaster on.

So you're a pro, so you shouldn't be anywhere near as nervous as some of my guests do.

You know, it's funny because, like, I feel like there's less pressure when you're asking questions rather than when you're answering.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's a little bit different.

Yeah, it's easy for me.

So what I like to do is go all the way back to some of the start of someone's career, but as a kind of.

Do you want to do a quick intro first?

So for those who don't know, my name is Sandra Lewin.

Some people may know me still by my maiden name, which is Zhukovska, which gives away that I'm Polish.

Yeah, I've been in the market for a number of years.

I've moved around quite a lot, which we're going to go into in various roles.

But currently I kind of live two lives, so I have my consulting live, which is in change and operations.

And I also have a podcast, as you mentioned, 100 women in insurance, which has grown into also a community.

So yeah, I'll pause here because we'll go into stuff like this.

Definitely 100.

So let's go right back to the start.

I mean, I know, I know you're not a kind of a techie type person, but transformation.

So.

So talk to me about your kind of early career, like what you Mean, I guess you were in Poland back when you were kind of kid, university, etc.

So what did talk to me about what that looked like and what the plan was in the early days and then how that evolved.

Sure.

So.

So I moved here when I was 16, turning 17.

So yeah, I've actually now been in the UK longer than I have been in Poland, which I only realized recently.

So.

And really the goal was to come here for.

So my where my I fit into the kind of a traditional insurance talent is that my stepdad was actually a broker in Poland who used to place business into Lloyd's Market.

Oh, okay.

So I've always known about Lloyd's Market and even as a little person I was to come up to London and go into the Lloyds building, go around city.

So, you know, but I did not wanted to go to insurance, so I rebelled.

But he was always kind of like, you know, England and, and you know, education, learning English, all that kind of stuff.

So I actually went to boarding school.

The goal was to go to boarding school and come back to Poland, go to uni in Poland and then take over his broken business.

Was the boarding school in the UK then?

Yeah, on the Isle of Man.

All right.

Wow.

You know.

Yeah, not quite the same.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That really is boarding school.

It is a proper boarding school.

You know, the theory was at that time, so.

So this is the time just before Poland joins eu.

So the idea is because I'm going back, so to Poland.

So the idea is that I will go to a school that has what they call international baccalaureate.

So that means that I can go back.

But at that time there were only four schools in the UK that were offering it, which sounds ridiculous because now most of them do.

And it was two in London, one somewhere up north that was girls only boarding school.

And then the Isle of Man.

Like my parents were like, well, we're not sending her 16 to London, so that's not happening.

I was like, I'm not going to girls only school.

So I love man, it is.

My parents are like, well remote enough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What's the worst that can happen there?

Exactly.

So then I finish and actually what, what happens is it turns out that because Poland just joins the EU around that time, in order for me to go to university in Poland, I then have to go to Poland, take another year of a high school, pass Polish and then get into uni.

Okay.

So I make a decision to stay in the uk.

I have that great opportunity to be able to do that.

So I decided to stay in the UK to go to university here.

I moved down south to Sur.

So the funny thing is, so I'm one of those people that picks up on accents and actually when I moved down to Surrey, I have such a strong Manx accent, which is basically Scottish Liverpool, that I'm able to communicate with people from Liverpool in a way that people from south can't understand me.

Right.

Obviously that has moved on since and it's the most confusing accent in the world right now.

But anyway, I move south, go to uni here again.

The goal is still to go back to Poland.

Yeah.

I do masters.

The reason why I do masters is in Poland.

It's kind of like if you do undergraduate, why did you even bother going to university?

So you do masters.

You know, it kind of trajectory.

And then I rebel against insurance.

Yeah.

And I go, no, I live in the UK now.

I'm going to go on a grad scheme and I'm going to work in hospitality.

I like hotels and like traveling, so that's what I'm going to do.

That only lasts a few months.

I then do recruitment, very briefly and a brief encounter with recruitment.

I studied marketing.

So then I work as a marketing.

Marketing person.

Yeah.

And then I'm like, you know what?

Fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let me give it a go in this insurance thing.

So I'm privileged enough that I'm being put into through connections.

I work in a broking house and I become a broker because in my stepdad's view, you know, that's the only.

You can be a broken underwriter.

There is no other career path for you.

Right.

So your parents in the UK at this point, they're still in Poland, so.

They used to place business into.

So it was.

Right.

Very exciting stuff.

Coal mining, not very popular stuff.

Energy plans, all that kind of stuff in Poland.

Or check reinsured back to.

Right.

Lloyds market.

Makes sense.

So I joined a broker and that's kind of where my insurance journey begins.

Yeah, yeah.

So towards it, you mean, how long did you do the broker role for?

So I was broker for just under four years.

So quite a while.

That was it.

Like you kind of transformed out of being a broker.

And so I know we spoke about this before when we were talking is the.

The kind of.

The transition that sometimes people take into transformation.

Lots of people get into tech transformation, etc straight from school, do a kind of MBA or whatever it might be and move into it.

Whereas yours was a little bit more indirect.

It was very.

And that's where kind of my career journey is what driven my current passion and is only on reflection.

So I was a broker.

I was doing heavy industry, so, you know, quite intense stuff.

As one underwriter once I came to a box with something in Asia and he was like.

And it was really difficult.

Coal mine as well.

Very difficult placement.

He's like, they really don't like you there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a joke in a sense of.

You only get, like, really heavy stuff to place.

I actually, during the Breaking, when I was a broker, I've decided to finally move back to Poland.

So I make an attempt to leave the Lloyds markets and I moved back to Poland and we set up a first cover hole.

Not first cup, but a cover holder first Lloyd's broker in Poland.

I work with my stepdad and I'm like, okay, this is my life.

I last four months, right.

And I come back to UK and I'm faced with a.

A decision to either join another big broker or join Lloyds.

Yeah.

And it's actually through my network.

So when a lot of underwriters and brokers found out that I'm moving back to home, they were like, well, why?

Like, you know, it'll be so good if you stay in a market.

And then they start introducing me to so many people and they're like, look, this is the job.

This the job.

This is the career.

This is what you can do.

And I'm like, whoa, there's a different world out there behind broking.

Yeah.

So I sit with this very senior broker one day, and I'm like, oh, do I go to this big broker or do I go to Lloyds?

And he's like, listen, if you join Breaking House, it will become more about negotiating deals about the commercial side of your role.

Is that something you enjoy?

If you join Lloyds, it'll be very much a collaborative, strategic kind of role.

Right.

There's no good or bad, but that's kind of where your skills will excel.

And so I make a decision to join Lloyds.

Yeah.

So that's my first transition.

And I know the person that employed me.

And, you know, I asked him, like, why?

Why did you take me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the role was to look after the country manager, like the network of managers across Europe.

And he was like, you have.

You've been placing business in Europe because we didn't only place in London, we placed around Europe as well with insurers.

And also you've been on the ground.

So it's like, it's quite a good transferable Skill.

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, okay, brilliant.

Yeah.

Off I go to join Lloyds and I'm getting to your kind of the transformation piece because at that point I still don't know these kind of roles even exist.

Yes.

I guess that, that role at Lloyds.

What, so.

So you didn't necessarily know exactly what it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's kind of going into the unknown slightly.

Yeah.

And it's, it's a market development.

It's kind of similar to Broking in the sense, not similar to Broken, but aspects of it in a sense of we're going to look at the European market, what products across the Lloyds market we offer there.

What can we learn from each other, what can we grow?

Great.

And I'm in that role and there's a team next to me that opens offices around the world and they are part of the change team and they part of like operations team where they look at how, you know, the offices can be expanded, all that kind of stuff.

And I'm like, are they traveling around the world and at that they opening a Dubai office and you know, planning this great opening party.

And I'm like, that is the team to be on, you know, so I get a bit involved and I put my hand up for a lot of stuff whilst I do my work and, and I get to know them and fast forward a few years, Brexit happens.

Yeah.

I am one of the few people that have actually been on the ground, you know, placing business and, and seeing what it looks like in reality, but also understanding the, the Lloyd's market, how it works.

And what I'm realizing is when I was a broker, I did a lot of broker technician role as well myself.

This is the time where, you know, claims brokers will walk around with suitcases around the market, like it's different.

And then we were transitioning into technology, so I realized that actually there's a lot of tech and operations that I've experienced whilst also doing the job.

So I get asked to join the Brexit team and that's what I kind of discovered.

There's a thing like project management, you get to do, to do lists and you get to get paid for it.

Like, whoa.

Yeah, yeah.

And I realized my whole life of to do lists, like planning, that is what I excel.

I just never knew that was a job.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so I joined the Brexit team, I become a project manager and that's kind of my journey since on evolve to operations, evolve to, you know, at the Moment my bread and butter is target operating models.

So looking at, okay, the companies currently in this state is not, there's something not ticking or maybe there's, you know, new technology available.

How do you look at people, how do you look at process, how do you look at behaviors, how do you look then technology and how do you transform that into an operational business that actually is effective and efficient?

Yeah.

One of my passions looking for my career is I often meet young people in the market who have entered and they couple of years in and they on that broker underwriter trajectory and you speak to them and it's like, but what's your skill?

Like what do you actually do?

You know there is compliance, do you know there's change?

Do you know there's transformation?

Do you know there's like, did you know all these jobs are here as well?

And when you start digging into what people are good at, you realize that very often they are not on the right career path.

And as a result you potentially losing really good employees and talent who could easily be in a very different type of roles.

So my kind of variety promoting variety of roles and then get encouraging people to actually think of the soft skills or transitional skills that you can move across has become kind of bit of my passion.

Yeah.

To help look at through that lens as well.

So, so did you do.

So there's a, there's a, there's a couple of really interesting points we'll definitely come back to the.

So did you just to get to the, the current time.

So you did you.

Do you.

Did you transform.

Transition into the transformation stuff.

Stuff at Lloyds?

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

So you did that and then that was before you went into the kind of more consulting.

So.

Yeah.

So you kind of cut your teeth in a perm role there and then moved into the consultant stuff which is kind of what you're doing now.

Is that right?

Yeah.

So consulting was never something I would have like my.

If you met me four and a half years ago.

Yeah.

Pretty much that time.

And ask me what's my long term goal was being the next CEO of Floyd.

Yeah, yeah, that was my goal.

Right.

I, I know a lady in the market.

There's an opening right now.

Yeah, I know.

Right.

I know a lady in America would say she wanted to be the first chairwoman of Lloyd.

So the two of us will regularly get coffees.

I'm like, how are we going to conquer this world?

That was my thing.

I was brought up to corporate career leather.

Yep.

Even though my stepdad was an entrepreneur looking at it because he had his broken business from day one.

My grandma was like, I'm actually surrounded by quite a lot of entrepreneurs in my family and people that were business owners.

I.

That was never my career path.

Right.

And then what happened at Lloyds is during the Brexit program, I got to see people doing consulting on, you know, your big force, but also on the individual level or smaller boutique companies.

And I was like, oh, that's.

That's interesting.

Like, how does that work?

But there was so much risk associated with it for me personally.

And I was like, oh, I don't think.

Like, I like my cushy kind of like, I know I'm getting paid.

Yeah.

And I actually had a severe health condition called endometriosis.

Okay.

And it got to a point where I had to had it treated.

And the plan was to take two months off, you know, over summer and get back into work.

Ended up being six, nearly seven months off, series of operations and all that kind of stuff.

And in that time, you really kind of.

I've questioned a lot of my.

Yeah, yeah.

You reflect life goals.

You know, often when you go for something life changing, you're like, what am I doing?

My life.

And again, network.

Same as transitioning from broking into Lloyd's.

The network that I had were going well, Sandra.

But you do, you know, you really good at this transformation stuff.

You know, there's a career there to be built on your terms and how you want it.

The network that I had, they were at the right time when they were expanding and they were going, well, join us.

You know, it's not that scary.

Like, we can help you with that.

That fear of getting paid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which for me is a big motivator.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, people don't admit it though, isn't it?

I like to say it out loud.

And I was like, well, you know what?

Actually, yeah, maybe I am good at it.

Maybe there's something there.

And because my biggest thing during that period off was I wanted to be able to do something to give back.

Like, that was really critical for me.

I've, you know, I'm not going to go into.

But there's been coming up to me taking time.

There's been certain points to my working life that I wish I had either heard other stories of, had that ability to speak up and.

Or hear kind of what people go through, that maybe I would.

It wouldn't got myself into certain stages or made certain decisions that I really shouldn't have.

And so I was like, I want to do something to help people and to share my story and to help people.

Not to get to a point that I did.

And consulting allowed me to do that.

Yeah.

Because when you consult, you are your brand essentially.

Unless you do it for Big fours is obviously a very different thing.

But if you do more of a contracting or consulting for smaller.

Well, you have your own company and then you can basically partner with many smaller companies, you are becoming your brand.

So then you get to choose where you spend your time and how much of it.

So that freed me to then be able to do the work that I'm doing right now on a podcast.

It's taken me a while to work out what my thing is.

Yeah.

But freed me up to do it.

I think whenever I get asked.

Consulting of perm, it's pros and cons on both.

Yeah, yeah.

But that's kind of.

It was very much the episodes in my life that kind of drew me to those situations.

Yeah.

I think the, the contracting versus perm thing.

I think it also depends.

I don't know what you.

But it depends what kind of personality type you are like.

I mean, you have to, you have to be very comfortable in anything, whether, whether it's starting your own business, being a consultant or whatever in, in selling yourself and, and, and being, and being involved in that process.

If you don't, if you don't, if you're not comfortable doing that, then it's, it's going to be a really, it's going to be a really tough and quite lonely.

Lonely existence.

Right.

So.

Or have good partners and network to do it on your behalf.

Yeah, yeah.

Because if you either partner with a recruiters that are specializing that you build a good relationship, you prove your.

Or you partner with smaller consulting firms or even like I've done associate model, which basically means you kind of contract in big falls and stuff.

I've done those as well.

But yeah, it's for me.

Well, I guess I was selling myself in the sense that, you know, the network that I got me, the business knew how I work and they knew about my availability.

So I guess.

No, there's still element of selling.

Yeah, I think most, I think you're probably, probably better at selling than you.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're definitely typical.

I don't, I don't sell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everyone thinks that it's, it's, it's not what they want to admit, but.

Okay, so.

So that kind of takes us to the current time.

I wanted to get a little bit into Your kind of views, like on where the insurance market's at at the moment, just more from a kind of business technology standpoint.

And then we're definitely going to talk a bit more about the, the podcast and the, the women insurance piece because I think that's really important.

So it's a really big question, it's a hard one of what are you seeing right now?

Like what do you think?

Like where do you think the market is at?

It's like it feels like it's at a really kind of pivotal point from a tech, certainly from a technology perspective.

And transformation is, is, is obviously hot on most people's agenda.

Softening market, etc.

Like what's your kind of overview of, of all that and where you see it kind of headed?

I think there's few things with that.

Right.

So I, I recently spoke to people who came from banking.

Right.

And, and they go, oh my God, this market is so slow and change, like it takes so long to change.

I'm like, I hear you, I get it.

But equally, what you're forgetting is that literally 15 years ago, not even, you know, we will walk around with claims suitcases every day, dropping them off to a DXE velonetic kiosk to store it for you for the day, until the next day you're gonna walk.

Right.

So the thing about our market, the way it's been operating as well, you know, as a broker, my role would be to go into a Lloyd's building and queue sometimes for two hours to see an underwriter.

And then, you know, and then the underwriter would make a million pound decision right there.

It's, it's crazy.

It's, it's crazy.

But, but that's how this part, it's a lot of trust, it's a lot of relationship building and relation building.

Building takes time.

Yeah.

Equally, technology is very helpful because it's speeding up commercially is helping businesses to grow, to reach the clients they never would have.

Speeding up the process.

But behaviorally, right.

If I'm sitting there and this is maybe a bit controversial that a lot of people may not want to say out loud, but if I'm a, if I've been writing business on the basis of conversations, you know, this queuing in a, in Lloyd's building.

Yeah.

And if things take time and the, the power the underwriters had, which is still.

Right.

That business right here, right now with a pen, you know, was very good and it was fast enough.

If you think of the size of.

Those decisions, it's not that slow.

Yeah.

But now we are saying you, you can speed up this two hour queue to five minutes and I can do it over email, I don't have to meet you.

And there's like data that kind of froze the numbers.

Yay or nay?

Why would I want to speed that up?

Yeah, right, like that.

And I think that's the biggest clash.

As in speed it up from where it is.

Right.

For me, as a behavior, as an individual working in this market, it's very tough to sell the technology to people on the ground.

Yeah.

Because they've you and, and, and because they're used to doing it that way, it's sped up which means there's a lot less around the relationship.

The relationship is less important than it was because it's more around data and, and in technology, etc.

What's my power now?

What's the incentive to do it?

Yeah, yeah.

And it's, you know, and it's, I think it's a very difficult conversation and I understand both sides.

I am in technology, I push technology, I implement technology every day and I think there is a benefit to it.

But I think that's why people coming in from banking where it's always been transactional insurance, specialty insurance, has been relationships in order to be transactional.

Right.

So when you come and speed up the transaction, what about the relationship?

And I think the way we engage with each other and the way we build those relationship is slightly shifting.

So if I, I think that what's happening is, having said that, when we say like we, you know, the relationship, the technology can replace element of relationship.

Everywhere you read about speed, technology, AI coming and all that kind of stuff, it brings us to same playing field as in we all have to learn and catch up with technology that's coming.

We can't avoid it anymore.

It's happening.

And as an industry, if we want to survive and if we want to kind of thrive on the information, we have, data and technology is critical.

However, everywhere.

Everyone always says that the human connection is going to become even more important.

It's just different to maybe how it was before.

So I think we, we kind of need to shift away from, you know, we don't have the relationships.

It's not about human people.

It's very much so.

It's just different.

Right.

It's, it's, it works in different space.

I think for me technology is, you know that I always say that if you're joining this industry right now and you a technology person, it is the time to be.

Because we don't have a choice.

We have to adapt.

There's so much to change.

So it's pretty exciting to implement it because you in real life you see change of something that's operated for over 300 years in a very traditional way.

So I think there is, there is certainly a trend of the only, the only thing I do see and I think companies really need to kind of take an approach on that is there's so much technology available, there is so much buzz around AI and speeding up and all these kind of, you know, data will make decision for you for underwriting and all that kind of stuff.

The human element and the bringing people on the journey is something that I still see is not being done very well.

And as a result you bring all this technology, you bring all these processes, you expect people to jump on it.

People don't adapt to it, they get burned out, they get discouraged or you spend loads of money on new technology that no one uses and they still on the spreadsheet.

Right.

So I really think we need to start seeing as change part of the, and transformations part of the strategy for the business.

So when you're thinking commercially how much business do we want to take?

You have to join the technology and the transformation with you and I, I, I think we still as an industry very much in a commercial only focused.

No, that's interesting.

Building technology into that strategy do you think as well?

Because obviously the, I suspect the pace of change and certainly the pace of adoption of that change will evolve as look we've got a, a very aging population in insurance.

So there's, there's lots of people around that will be in the twilight of their career that have remember those not like the, and we're and probably worked for longer in a period where the relationship and the queue and all that kind of stuff was, was a thing they may have done.

They may have done that for 20, 30 years and now they're just in this kind of five, 10 year period at the end of their career where everything's changing.

So they kind of think well I don't really want to embrace one, they're not going to really see the benefit of it and two, it's the how they've always done it.

But as those people eventually retire and move on out of the industry, you then suddenly end up with the people probably a big hole to be honest, but also a load of people in the middle that, that are more able and open to change and probably trying to push it at the moment.

So you would think that the rate of it would actually increase once that, that happens.

But there's still that kind of period where that's not going to be the case.

And, and what happens in, in that bit.

So, and I, look, I totally agree with you.

I think the, the relationship part of insurance and the fact that it's all in one place and the uniqueness of, of that is, is kind of its superpower.

It'd be a really real shame to completely lose that.

And so how'd you, I guess how would you find a balance?

That's the, that's the, the question.

So I think that's to solve it.

Completely in one podcast.

Yeah, no, but there's two things that, and please remind me the second one if I forget it because I, I could is, is the way the market is built whereby you have, you know, someone doesn't understand how the Lloyds market is built.

But I always say it's like, like, it's like a Harrods or Selfridges.

There has loads of brands inside.

Right.

So I'll come back to that because from technology point of view, I think that's a very important point from talent.

And talent, as you said in, in kind of that final few years.

I think I spoke to somebody recently about it and I feel like we're missing a trick there whereby that talent, yes, they may not want the technology, they may not necessarily believe in, in the, the, the, the kind of, the benefits of it, but they do have knowledge.

I mean if you speak to an underwriter, for example, there's been placing property business in Caribbean for the past 40 years.

The knowledge that this person has, it's incredible.

Right.

And I think there's a program a few companies are starting to introduce where basically if somebody is at the room, time and stage, they don't actually and they want to keep on working because a lot of people still do.

They put them on like this part time arrangement where they partner them with young generation and when the young generation is implementing technology, they use the generation that's been there for many years doing these decisions that we're now asking tech to do to kind of validate it and train it.

It.

Yeah.

And so, so then they, because often when you suddenly start to lose a lot of talent who has the knowledge, there's a gap in the business.

Right?

There's a gap in an industry, there's a gap in a business.

So how do you utilize it?

And I thought it was brilliant idea.

It's kind of like how do you feed that knowledge into, you know, AI technology?

All that learns.

Yeah, yeah.

That has to have data.

How do you teach the behaviors?

How do you teach the.

The human connections?

How do you introduce.

It takes a specific people to be open to it.

Yeah, right.

But I think that's a really something that we really underestimate.

And instead of going, let's just wait out and there'll be.

Technology will be all great.

It's like that is a lot of.

When you're losing huge amount.

I mean that.

It's funny you say that.

Actually.

I was talking.

It's like slightly different, but I was talking to my business partner the other day about.

I'm like, I'm a real ideas person, but I'm like, I'm, I'm.

I lack sometimes the ability to be.

How to execute and get it down on paper.

I come up with loads of great ideas.

So one of my business partners is great at that stuff.

He's a very operational guy.

So I kind of.

We have meetings where I just download a load of stuff and then he kind of goes and does stuff with it, which is.

Works brilliantly.

But I said like, I mean, we're not there yet, but I almost feel like sometimes I just want to plug something into my brain and download the information, just get it on paper.

Because I can sit in there for hours in on a PowerPoint deck trying to get this brochure or info on there.

And it's kind of a bit like that, right?

Like, you mean you, you've got all of these people who are, who in some ways are seen as kind of semi problematic in the sense that they're a barrier to change, but they actually, what you're underestimating is that the knowledge they've got and the history and the mistakes that they've made, etc.

Etc.

There's nothing wrong with that.

That's the superpower they've got.

It's just their ways of working.

So actually if you tee them up with younger people who can, who are more open to change and embrace it, just because that's the kind of norm.

The other.

I guess the other angle of that is, is that do those people kind of invigorate them?

Because actually they.

Yeah.

Do you?

I mean, there's, there's, there's.

There's always that thing.

It's a bit like kind of when, when people have grandkids and stuff like that, it kind of invigorates them because they get to do kind of.

Do you know what I mean, that it's that it's that kind of thing.

I'm not suggesting they're quite that, that old, but, but you know what I mean, it's like that.

And the challenge is, can you get enough young people in to be able to do that?

And I'm not sure certainly from my side of the fence whether there's enough young people that see insurance as a kind of really exciting career, especially in those kind of really core tech roles when everybody's looking for the same kind of tech people and there's a lot more kind of sexy jobs that they can go into if you're a AI or data engineer or whatever it might be.

And I think we need to get better at marketing because, you know, I, I think so.

When I was at Lloyd's, right, and this is like before data was the big thing we were using as a market, I had access to basically the whole, that one of the biggest insurance probably insurance data set, if that makes sense.

And being able to look at the whole world and be like, you know, how do what's going on in this world?

The they're sitting there, it's like so much information in one place and it actually is very interesting if you know what to do with this data.

So at that point we were like very low tech, right?

We would like look at cover holder data, for example, and looking at what cover holders are selling in what countries, what products are doing.

Like it was pivots and Excel, very, very low, low complication and AI kind of thing.

But it was actually really exciting because you start to see trends, you start to predict things.

If you speak to innovation teams from back when, when they were doing prediction of what risks will be in the future, the biggest risks and the biggest catastrophes and stuff.

Like they predicted pandemic, for example.

It was on that list a couple of years ago, right.

But nobody was fully like, well that's just not going to happen.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So data in insurance can tell insurance companies hold.

Oh, it's mind blowing.

It's mind blowing and it can be super exciting.

But we just don't market it because often when you hear people joining the industry and been in it a few years and they get really into it, they're like, it's so cool.

Like there's so much you can do, but it doesn't have the names that, you know, when you say between your friends, they're like, oh, that's so cool, you're working for that brand.

I have a lot of friends who work for like the cool brands and they just, they just sound so much better than Me?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But just because of the brand.

So I, I think we need to get better marketing here.

But the other thing I wanted to touch on, which is this, this, this setup of the Lloyds market and this is another thing that I think is super interesting from technology and transformation point of view.

Again, people coming from banking, I always say, well, you have a bank and the bank operates in this environment.

And if it's infrastructure.

Right.

What, what people miss to understand about Lloyds is the Lloyds market operates in an infrastructure of 50 individual companies.

Right.

Which is the managing agents.

And then you.

Those companies have synd very often can also be individual companies.

I know we're not supposed to say managing agents like insurance companies, but like as a concept.

Right, yeah.

Which takes you to 90 individual companies.

And when we didn't know that, I.

Didn'T know the numbers.

That's kind of the numbers.

I mean, it goes up and down, but that's roughly, it's 50 and 90 syndicates.

That's roughly the numbers.

So if we think about it from a very simplistic term, that means we are asking 90 individual companies.

Okay, let's go with our 50 managing agents.

As I said, sometimes syndicates have their own systems as well.

Right.

So 90 individual companies who have their own data sets, own systems, own processes, own people to place business through one platform and one way, which is the Lloyds market platform.

And we are now asking everyone very quickly to change to new technology.

Yeah, that's why it takes time and that's why it's so exciting as well.

Because when do you ever have an opportunity?

You know, if you're big bank, you have your systems, you have your process.

Yeah.

You have some nuances between branches and whatever, but.

Yeah.

You never incorporate 50 different or 90 different systems.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And each company has your policy, administration, general ledger, accounting rules engine.

You know, there's at least three or four core systems that each company has a minimum.

And as I said, some of them have three or four.

Yeah.

We asking all of them to send data in the same way, process the data and transact through the Lloyds market, move money around and do the reporting for Lloyds market.

I'm not saying that's an excuse for being slow, but that's the complexity that we get to deal with here.

So I think that that's like sometimes it just is just take a step back and look at the big picture we're trying to do here, which is just unique.

So if you love tech, if you like transformation, that is something to get you excited because it's really not straightforward.

Yeah, I mean I wanted to touch on that because I look, I completely agree and I feel like I talk about this a lot on LinkedIn is, is the kind of marketing of, of insurance is, is, is poor and, and, and like for me, look, I obviously sell insurance to people but like as for a living, so most of the time they're already in insurance.

So it's probably relatively easy sell.

But, but for me it's always been like, you mean, look, you're doing a huge amount of good to the world.

I think that's one of the things they really under, like the market really undersells like the amount of safety and guarantee it gives the world and just individuals when the worst happens.

Probably it's like in an incredibly cool part of London.

Like, I mean you've just got to walk into the city and look at the buildings.

It's like, it's a great place to be.

There's an incredible network of people.

I mean the list kind of goes on and on.

But why do you think that is?

Like, I mean you're more, you're.

Obviously I'm a kind of a supplier to it.

I'm not actually in the market.

So why do you think that?

Why do you think they don't?

The industry as a whole is not great at marketing, so they underestimated the importance of it.

I don't think we ever wanted people to know.

Right.

Okay.

I think it's the best kept secret in the world and it's only really been something for talent push.

And so probably about 10 years like I think, and it's not, I don't think it was, somebody was going like, don't tell anyone about this city thing.

Like, I don't think it was like that.

I don't think people got in the room and I was like, let's just not tell anyone what we're doing here.

I don't think it was like that.

It was just so niche and, and it's, and it's been, you know, I mean a lot of industries, you see people go into it because of family members and whatever.

Doctors is probably the best known one.

Right.

Or.

But I think City of London has been so niche.

There's so much history and culture around it that it, it has only been very much a brother, son, daughter.

Like literally when I was starting in the market, it was very rare to find somebody in the market that didn't have a brother, uncle, you know, mom, father, whatever in that market.

It was very close to off roles and kind of a.

A life.

I mean city in itself.

It's a, it's a city like people don't know heads its own policy own like kind of ruling not government but you know.

So I think that's what it was is.

Is not.

I don't think it was ever intentional but it's just so niche and so specific that it was just best kept secret to be honest.

So insurance overall is something that you buy as a.

As an individual.

You buy insurance because you must you know to your point people don't understand that in order for you to start a business, in order for you to start a new project, build something you actually need to have an insurance and insurance enables you to function.

But as an individuals we only think of insurance that's you know car insurance and we only hear negative stories.

So I think one find this the most misunderstood on the specialty level.

I think it's just been nobody when you say reinsurance people like what something is best kept secret.

And then also as a, as an individual we tend to be exposed to insurance that you know it's a day to day insurance.

So it's.

My husband always laughs at me because you know when you go and buy, buy I don't know a phone or whatever and they're like do you want to buy insurance with?

And I'm like no.

And he's like why not?

You're an insurance person.

I'm like no, because we got to look at this policy.

Like what does the policy actually is.

What's the.

You know.

So I'll.

I'll go through all these things and only specific the the amount of times I don't know if anyone knows this but your probably phone is insured by three or four different policies that you already have.

Right.

So there's a lot of complexity and there's a lot of misunderstanding which then unfortunately doesn't help us to market it and see it as a, as something that actually helps people.

So yeah, two one, best kept secret because of generations and because the way city is built.

And two, it's just very misunderstood because it's a product is used on daily basis where specialty market is not.

Yeah yeah it's a different word.

It's not an enabler.

It's not seen as an enabler.

It's a scene as a needed not.

Wanted almost a necessary evil.

But, but, but, but different when it obviously when the, when the problems happen and then it comes.

It comes in to save and no reminds about it then do they?

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

So let's move on to talk a little bit about your community podcast, 100 Women Insurance.

Obviously I know a bit about it, but, but do you want to explain a little bit about the kind of the mindset and how it came about and then, and then we'll talk a bit more about the kind of things that you've.

You've undercover uncovered about it.

Sure.

So as I said, I've been on there like when I've decided to become a consultant, I was like how do I give back and what do I I did quite a bit of career coaching under keynote speaking workshops, that kind of stuff.

And then one thing that kept on coming up is like that it's just not enough.

And I got into listening to podcasts and I was like there's some really good insurance podcasts out there.

Like I just never hear female voices on them all very rarely.

And then this kind of whole or there is not enough women in a talent pool to become senior, blah blah blah.

And I'm like is that really true?

Doesn't sound.

Does it sound very true?

Like are there really not that many?

So my initial idea for a podcast, and I hope nobody steals it because maybe one day I'll do it, was women can do it too.

And the idea was to interview women in roles that are predominantly understood to be male only roles and show that they do it and kind of you know, it's possible.

But then to find those guests was quite difficult.

Yeah.

So would that have been insurance specific?

No, it was like, no.

Okay.

So it was because basically, so sidetrack.

I used to dance a lot.

And one of the ladies that used to dance with, she's a.

She works in the oil platform.

Wow.

And she's in the team.

The next to her.

Basically they do deep diving and then fixing of the platform at the bottom of the ocean.

And she was telling me about how actually women is very difficult for a woman to have that job because of the way your body reacts when you deep dive.

And because women have hormonal imbalances is actually very dangerous physiological reason for it.

Not just fascinating.

But she was like, but there is a woman on one of the teams.

I want to meet her.

Right.

So I was like, it would be really interesting.

That's where the ideas come from.

Yeah.

But then I thought, actually, do you know what, let's just stay close.

That might be the only person like that you'll ever meet.

Right.

So let's, let's start with home first.

Yeah, yeah.

And let's go.

And I was like, I think it'd be quite interesting to interview women and, and hear their stories.

Stories.

And, and it gone back to me reflecting on my, on my story and going, you know, I wish I would have heard that it's okay to deal with certain situations differently.

I wish you.

I, you know, was.

I would have heard the stories that some people had experience in the career.

I wish someone explained to me the mentoring doesn't have to be a, you know, a full six months program with a senior person and all this intensity.

And there's actually a chat over coffee.

Yeah.

So I was like, why not do that?

So the idea was that.

And again explaining the variety of roles.

That was my big thing.

So it was like, okay, let's interview women because there are not enough voices.

Let's talk about variety of roles.

So let's understand how they got to where they are right now and actually promoted that.

There's so many things you can do and be successful in.

Insurance celebrate women in the industry.

So kind of break that like there's not enough of us and just share career tips that anyone can find helpful.

Not just women, women.

So I nearly chickened out.

And someone said to me, well, you know, you're a project manager, you like deadlines.

Just put a number on it.

And I was like, oh, 100 sounds cool.

Yeah, let's go with 100.

All right then.

Little do I know 100 weekly episodes is two years worth of content.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How long have you been going now?

It's a year and a half on 60 something.

So we're gonna hit the 100 this year.

Yeah, that's how it's really come out.

And it was.

It's one of those things that I didn't overthink and I think is what made it what it is now, which was very much.

Yeah, let's just do it.

I have few friends.

Hopefully I can beg somebody to be on it.

You know, got a 20 pound mic on Amazon and got going.

Yeah.

And since then I've learned a lot more about podcasting.

But that was very much kind of, you know, the idea behind it was just.

So let's just hear the stories and share them.

So where have.

So I've been really interested to understand, like some of the common things.

I know we spoke about it briefly.

We chatted for like an hour before we did this.

We ended up.

I didn't want to use up all the good conversation, but.

So, yeah, tell me a little about what you've kind of found.

Because, I mean, in my old podcast, it's very similar to this one.

I did a series of kind of 10 episodes of women in tech.

To be honest, at that point I've.

I was struggling to find more.

More women, which was kind of sort of said everything.

And I, I felt like I learned absolutely loads about where the women I interviewed, their thought process and kind of were, especially in tech, which is kind of quite male heavy.

I certainly think that's changing, but.

And so, yeah, I learned loads.

But what I also found the overarching thing is everybody's experience was.

Was different.

There wasn't really much commonality in there.

So I just wondered whether or not you found similar common themes.

You've done about 50 more than me.

So maybe, yeah, certainly their themes.

And they're themes that quite surprise me, to be honest.

So theme number one, which really stood out is honest conversations.

Right.

So a lot of people who've built the careers that they determine to be successful, I.

E.

They.

They kind of build a career that, you know, we define success as like, you got to be a board member and actually success means so many different, different things to different people, but they got what they wanted from their career at that point of time for an honest conversation, which may not be easy, but actually saying, do you know what?

This is what I want out of my career.

I work for this company.

I want to contribute to this company.

The Company strategy is X, Y and Z.

My goals for X amount of years is X, Y and Z.

How can I make this work?

And you know, there's been people that I've interviewed who've basically said, I've actually said to my manager, I want to leave in two years time because I want to do whatever it is.

Yeah.

So can we not spend time at promoting me and educating me and to be the future leader.

Can we spend time teaching me whatever skill.

But I'll build something here for you.

So when I leave is stable.

Right.

And I was like, whoa.

I, I would have never thought to had such an honest conversation but you know there's a great power from it because I've asked their managers and I said do you, do you like appreciate an honest conversation?

And it takes a specific manager.

Right.

So not everyone, but I personally think a good manager is a manager that's able to have that conversation because then you know where the person stands, you know what motivates them and you able to actually get the best results from them essentially for the business, for yourself.

But also they are happy.

Yeah.

So it's, it's overall so the honest conversation obviously time it, you know, don't just approach your manager with like I'm going to leave in two years time just as they walk into the lunch.

Right.

But time it really think and I think, you know, is advice I was given but as well it's a theme that's come out from the episodes is you know, at the end of the day it's a two way transaction.

Right.

So if you want something, put yourself in the shoes of the company and the manager.

They want something from you as well.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

So how is that going to work both ways?

That's really, that's really interesting point because I think that and I also think the other challenge with that is companies stroke managers.

I think, I don't know actually where the intent of that comes from.

Need to be more open and realistic about the fact that most people join a company and work there for two, three, four years like that.

That's the.

And I don't know what the average is.

I probably should know that.

But they say that the young generation is going to change 15 times in their career, their career, not even job career.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean that.

But, but you said the days of somebody working somewhere for much more than about four or five years are, are, it's not, they're not gone.

There's always anomalies.

But the vast majority of people and I See it all the time.

But there is also still a bit of a stigma attached to job hoppers, or whatever they're.

They want to call them.

Actually, I put a post on LinkedIn about it this week, actually.

And, and it's always drive me kind of insane when someone, like.

Because people get branded with that when they've only been.

When they've been somewhere for like two or three years.

You can do loads of stuff in three years.

Like, I mean, so, but, but actually.

So they need to be more open about the fact of, like, look, I'm going to come and work here.

My plan is to work here for two, three years and I'm going to give you loads of great value in that period.

So I think that honest comes.

I totally agree with that, by the way.

But at the same time, I can understand why there would be a hesitancy to do that, because company, some companies still have got this thing in their head that somebody's going to come and work there for 10 years when it never really happens.

Like.

No.

So it's not actually happening.

The reality is the fact that most people were there two or three or four years, but if someone actually talks about it, it's, it's, it's not that it's seen as a negative.

And I think that kind of takes me to a second theme, which, which, which is, I think very often.

And this is, this is exactly coming.

So you may.

There is no such thing, I don't think anymore as job for life.

Right.

But you could have company for a long time.

Yeah.

Especially large companies.

And I think the theme that's come out from a lot of the conversations is when you think something is.

Doesn't feel right.

Like for most people, it just doesn't feel right.

Yeah.

We're not talking about redundancies and everything.

There's, there's a point in your career when you go not feeling it.

Right.

The first thing is to leave the company.

And obviously for a recruitment firm, that works.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm sorry, I'm gonna throw a curveball.

It doesn't always work.

But, you know, the, the, the other thing is like, what is it that's not that that's making you go, is it that your situation has changed?

Yeah.

Is it the team?

Is it the project?

Is it.

Is it the company and a culture that we, we don't pause enough and companies are not good enough in sort of moving people across the business.

Right.

And thinking of, well, I have this person that's been here a long time, they Understand they're part of the culture, they're not feeling it anymore.

They want a new challenge, want to learn something else.

Where else in the business can we move them before taking them out?

Right.

So I think that's been quite interesting and as well, even if you're moving outside, it doesn't always have to mean up upwards.

The term that I've only learned recently, which is squiggly career.

Yeah, it's the old career sometimes doesn't mean upwards.

So if you're thinking, okay, in 10 years time I want to be, you know, COO or something like that.

Okay.

In my current role or in kind of what is CEO type of CEO I want to be.

What are the things that I need to enhance?

Right, right.

And it might be that you actually need to move sideways to learn a particular technology, particular type of.

On the right type of business.

I don't know, whatever it is skill, you move sideways, your next role is actually sideways before you go upwards.

I think that's been really interesting hearing people's stories, how they got to especially very senior people, how they got to their senior roles.

And very often is not step by step by step, which is the old school way of thinking about it.

So I think that's been a very interesting theme for me is to embracing the kind of sidesteps within or outside of the company rather than always thinking has to be a promotion from a status point of view.

Right.

So that's the second theme and then the last thing is the definition of success.

I think that is.

That is my theme for this year, I think as well.

And retention piece is like understanding what motivates people and understanding what success means to people is so important rather than putting a perception.

There's nothing wrong with having team members who are happy being your team members.

Yeah.

Like, can we stop shaming those people?

Because you need them, they have the knowledge, they know how to do it, they come in, get the job done and they move on.

Yeah.

And that is.

Is fine and is actually being able to understand people's, you know, motivation and being able to think of how do we retain.

How do we retain talent overall in the industry.

Yeah, I think that's a theme that comes up a lot which is people going where, where their careers have worked and where they've sort of enjoy the culture in the company or whatever it is is because the company paid attention to their success needs.

And even managers, I've interviewed managers who are like, you know, I had these team members and I'll be like, like Pushing them to take a promotion and be like, yeah, you got to be the, you know, next person.

And.

And then they would become quite unhappy and then they will leave and they're like why?

Just because I really don't want to be a manager.

And they'll go to a site role that's identical.

And they're like why did I leave?

Yeah, yeah, because you didn't have that conversation.

Yeah, I literally had.

It's funny you said I had a conversation with.

It happened to be a lady, but it does happen to men as well.

But.

And she just left a position because she was a project manager.

She loved being in the detail and her old boss had pushed her to do this program management role, take on a bigger remit, manage project managers, etc.

You know, very typical type of role.

And she ended up leaving because she said I almost got forced a promotion.

They paid me more money.

And I must have said to her boss that I didn't want the promotion for 12, 18 months.

And it got to the point where it was like, like you basically have to take this promotion.

Took it six months later, left and, and, and now has gone back to do or looking to go back to doing a kind of project manager role because that's what she is great at and that's what she really enjoys doing.

And, and for her it wasn't about getting a 10 grand pay rise because it was kind of irrelevant.

Like she, that wasn't, that wasn't her driver.

Yeah, I think you can you see that quite a lot, don't you?

Like you mean that people get getting pushed up the ladder.

I always talk to whenever I have CIOs goes on.

One of the questions I always ask them is certainly if they've been a techie like, like a developer turned CTO or something like that.

The amount of software developers and techies that I speak to that, that feel like they need to be a chief architect or a head of architecture or a cto.

And when they get there they realize they don't really do any coding anymore.

And what they love is doing is coding.

Yeah.

And, and, and it's, and it's like kind of of that they just thought that that was the way they had to go.

So didn't really analyze what you were saying.

Like what that what are you good at?

What you enjoy doing?

What does good look like for you?

And yeah, I mean I think I see you see that a lot.

I mean it's probably not just a, it's not just a woman thing.

It's probably equally both.

But.

But it's interesting you've seen that as a kind of a common kind of theme.

Certainly I think that is something and I know is.

I know it's a difficult.

I'm a quite a big fan of.

Of like people managers versus SME managers, whatever you want to call them.

But they basically.

Not everyone is good at managing people.

Right.

And not everyone is good as at lobbying, politics, stakeholder management, which is what senior roles are about.

Right.

So why do we penalize people who are very good at what they do?

And I think it's.

It's.

It's been very, very interesting interview women but as you said, it's not women specific who've kind of said no, I'm happy where I want to be challenged mentally I want to be.

But actually I want to do my job and go home.

This salary is a good salary.

I don't need any more.

Like I want to get paid.

I want to have security, I want to have private healthcare, whatever it is.

But I don't need to have this extra responsibility.

And I think that's.

That's been quite, quite a interesting way of looking at it.

I think if you're a manager and kind of thinking about it, I think it's having those.

I literally recorded an episode today when we were talking about stop assuming what your team wants and actually ask them.

Seems so simple when normally the solutions to a lot of these problems normally are and they actually.

They get overlooked because they are so simple.

I think that's the problem.

Yeah.

So one of the things I'm always interested to get is from you today just two or three killer bits of advice.

So it doesn't necessarily.

You mean kind of on theme that it would maybe be to kind of younger women maybe or it doesn't necessarily need to be a younger one from.

From the kind of experience you've got, your career, the podcast, etc.

What.

What would be the kind of two or three kind of bits of advice you'd give to people that are trying to make their way, whether they be senior or junior, it doesn't really matter.

So number one one, which is your network is your net worth and do not.

And you're gonna like this.

But I really think do not underestimate the network of recruiters and plug for recruitment.

I gotta put it out there, right.

Because I re.

That's one of the themes not so much from a podcast, but I do a lot of coffee meetups and I do a lot of individual conversations and you wake up mid Your career, you've been busy doing stuff.

I literally DM'd someone the other day who was saying in two years time, I hope you be an important to come to your coffee meetups.

I'm like, no, you're coming next month because make time so many women.

But again there's women because I interview predominantly women.

But I'm sure men can relate.

Fifteen years into your career, the amount of DMS I get where people go, Gosh, where did the 15 years go?

I don't know anyone, I don't know where to look.

Last time I spoke to a recruiter was when I was starting.

I have bad experience when I was speaking to the, you know, young recruiters don't know where to go and then they stuck and then they unhappy and then they either leave the industry or they get burned out.

All sorts of, you know, it's not a pretty picture and it takes a long time.

So do not underestimate the power of network.

And by that I mean you don't have to go to large big conferences.

You grab a one coffee per month.

That person like it's like a LinkedIn picture.

They say if you connect with one person, you connect with the network.

Right.

Because that's how it's three degrees of separation, isn't it?

Yeah.

Same as with coffee.

You grab one coffee and as one of my guests advised, when you grab a coffee with someone, ask them to introduce you to someone else that you, they think you'll benefit from knowing, yeah, that's your other coffee the next month.

Right.

And then that's 12 coffees a month.

But that's probably over 100 people you just got exposed to.

Right.

So I think that is.

And recruit is the reason why I say is, you know, benchmark.

See where you are like the best job, especially at the senior level, you know, they don't come when you need it.

No.

So put it out there, say what you like and then you never know, it might come.

It might be a year, might be two years.

But yeah, so I'll sing to that.

But the other advice, someone gave me that advice long time ago and I think especially works in the Lloyd specialty market.

Kind of no matter what, you know, you're, you are the bread brand, you are the person that people see.

No matter logo behind you will change, it will keep on changing.

And yes, some logos will help you to open the doors, some less.

Especially in this market where we all know each other, you are the brand.

So really be look after that brand and look after what you want.

To portray.

One of the things I often teach when I do workshops about personal branding is like decisions about your career are made when you're not in the room.

Simple as.

Yeah.

So often people will make decisions, like you said about this lady who was being promoted all the time because she wasn't listened to.

I mean in this instance it sounds like she was saying no.

So I don't really know what, what they were thinking.

But often people don't know what you want.

So put your personal brand in front of people, do some work on yourself, take a moment to refresh, reflect, you know.

And I think the, the last one is getting your job done is a bare minimum.

Like do it okay.

And then focusing on the network and everything else and you know, looking up the earlier your career, this is your time to do it.

I'm not saying work every night till 10, 11pm and all night long.

That's not what I'm saying.

But I'm saying get your job done.

Get a job done well so nobody can question it because that's where your values and integrity comes from.

But do use this time at the beginning of career to network, to get involved in other projects, to test what else is out there.

Like I've been part of projects where we were raising capital for Lloyds, which I was going around the Lloyd's London with CFO and, and going to these investor pitches and like my role was to kind of like take notes and make sure that all the meetings are aligned.

Right.

To some people would be like, what you doing?

You know, you were managing like why are you taking notes?

Gosh, what an experience it was raising capital for Lloyds.

Like, you know, cool people you'd meet as well.

Yeah.

What exposure that exposure got me exposure to execs and all sorts of people and that led me on.

So really early on your career, put your hand up not to burn up point but Excel, Excel at that time, like this is your time to really try and test and get yourself out there.

I wasn't actually going to ask you this, but it's just sprung to me now.

And what's your view on that?

Because there's flexible working work from home in office.

That that's.

It's been a big debate and I mean I feel like LinkedIn's kind of saturated with it and it kind of changes.

I mean there is definitely a movement in insurance.

Like post Covid it was pretty flexible and it's gradually in the last, I don't know how many years is it's going down two Years maybe it's gradually kind of moving back to more time in the office.

I think I did a bit of research for a client the other day and certainly the kind of three to four days is now the norm.

Whereas I think if you went back 12, 18 months it was probably maybe 2 to 3, maybe even 1 to 2.

So that's happening.

There's definitely.

And I've also seen lots of stuff in the news, not specifically about insurance, about women in general not being.

Or certain groups of women not being particularly happy about it and all very valid points around kind of home life, kids, etc.

Etc.

Women are still generally doing more in the house when at home when it comes to that kind of stuff.

That's a very generalization.

No, no, no.

But I know where you're going with it.

No, no, I know where you're going.

You're not responsible for society.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and so, but then, and then.

So I, I get that and I can totally understand that.

And, and but on the flip side network's important.

You can't really mean I'm.

Relationships is my business.

You.

You can't look teams teams a phone call.

But it's.

You don't build the same relationship.

It's still very transactional.

So what's your kind of view on that like and, and, and what's the.

What's the general view of women in insurance?

Not that you're the spokesperson.

No, you could be semi the spokesperson for maybe 60 or so you've interviewed.

Do you know what.

You know what I love about like news and how they spinning.

Because when, when we all went into lockdown and start working from home there was loads of articles how working from home.

These are the advantages women and then now we're returning and that seems to be disadvantaging women.

So like you know we always had disadvantage.

It's a narrative you can find anyway.

But I think companies demand date five days a week, four days a week will only get specific type of talent like straight away you closing yourself down on.

So if you're gonna put a post and say we all about diversity and then you're gonna do five day mandates then you are lying.

Yeah.

Simple words.

I think there is a benefit of being in the office.

I certainly do.

I especially if you're in a role where you have younger team as well client facing, you know, collaborative ways of working.

I think there is benefit in being in the office.

There's.

There's nothing replaces of in person interaction versus online interaction.

However there are a Lot of roles where all you do is you sit on your lap, laptop, right.

And you don't really speak to other people at all.

So do these people really need to be in the office every week for two days?

Yeah.

No.

Is them being at home all the time and never networking and getting to other people, is that not beneficial to them?

Yeah, it's not beneficial to them.

But quite frankly, as a company you couldn't care less.

Right.

Because that means they have nobody to talk to.

So they're going to stay your big company for a long time.

So if you want to be selfish, that's great.

As an individual, I think coming into cities helpful.

But if you have a role that you come in, you log on on your laptop and you sit in front of your laptop for your whole day, why do you need to be, you know, I just don't get it.

But if you have a role that's commercial, that's.

As I said, you have young team.

I think there is a huge benefit.

But again, I've heard of companies that benefit two days, the mandate two days a week and people then choose to turn up on Monday and Friday.

Yeah, right.

Because they don't want to be around.

But then their team members come on Tuesdays and Wednesdays place and so they own teams whilst they sit in the office.

Again, Like I've done a poll recently about it and the overarching, you know, and there are companies that really got it.

Like there are companies in the industry that got the right balance.

They encourage being in the office but they say make sure you align with your team of how your office days look like.

People being treated as adults.

I think that is the core of it.

And I think companies are keeping on, you know, doing this five day week kind of thing.

They will survive for X amount of years because there's enough people that are doing it and there are people that are okay with it.

But I don't think you can say you are attracting diverse talent and mandating five days a week.

And I just spoke to somebody who was talking about single mothers.

Is a single mother who has to navigate childcare, all that kind of stuff.

Is she not capable of working and not capable of delivering?

I honestly don't think so.

I think once you become a parents there's like another level of your organizational skill.

Men and women opens up.

Right.

You did not know you had time.

When I used to say I was busy when I didn't have a child, I don't know what I was thinking.

I was literally talking about another Podcast of the day.

I didn't realize how I always say to.

I've got a friend who's.

I'm closing in on 40 but I've got a friend who's.

Who's just having their first, first kid and he's kind of pretty successful guy, him and his wife off traveling, doing all the good stuff that I did when I before I had kids.

And I said to him the biggest learning curve is you just don't realize how much time you've got.

Those days we used to sit in front of the TV for three or four hours and just, they just used to waste away.

Good.

Enjoy them while you can because then they are going to wait for.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So I think, you know, my.

I think there is benefit of being in the office.

I think it's important to be in the office especially I think a lot of you.

There's lots of studies.

The young people are suffering as a result of not being in the office and not having exposure to people to learn from, you know.

So I think there is, there is an element of that There are so many successful companies build that are virtual and you know, they make it work.

So this whole argument of like they will not do the job if they're working from home.

Listen, you know, if the job is not like if you set in clear KPIs you will know that how many people come into the office and sit, stand in the kitchen the whole day and go for a cigarette break and then set the lunch and you figure.

Out who they are pretty quickly.

Yeah.

If they do, it's not hard.

I think also the other issue about it is, is that, and I don't really know what the answer this is, but you're trying to create one set of rules for potentially a thousand people or 500 people, however it may be.

And like you say, if you, if you're a data engineer and therefore you spend all your time on a computer or the vast majority of it, then coming in maybe once every two weeks to meet with your team all on the same day probably makes sense.

And there's the additional cost and the environmental cost of everybody going on a train and coming in three days a week when you're just going to sit there and do exactly the same thing and the time as well.

But if you're, I don't know, a broker or you're the CEO and you need to be the face of the business and you need to be around or whatever the job is and you need to be around people, then it probably makes sense to be in three or four days a week.

And they're.

I say it, most of those people want to be in that time because they used to doing that job and they need.

Yeah, exactly.

And they want to be around people.

Yeah.

And that's their job.

And so therefore, if you're an underwriter, then you get that you need to be in the office four or five days a week.

But.

But trying to get a rule for everybody kind of doesn't work.

But then there's the flip side of them.

But then there's always a few people that think that's unfair.

And so getting that, that balance.

Yeah, it's not, it's not a problem that's going to be solved.

It's not a problem.

But I do think the companies that I have seen made it work are the companies that really trust their employees to be adults and they focus on the performance, not where you are.

And you know, you, you really.

Yeah.

You can make it work.

I mean, I get it.

Bigger companies, but again, you then dissect it to teams and departments and things.

So.

Yeah, I think, I think we have bit of work to do.

Yeah.

If we genuinely mean that we want to be diverse.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think most companies generally do, then it's not maybe not getting it 100.

Right.

Right, look, we're coming to the end.

I've got some quick fire questions to fire you.

Yeah, I briefly read them and I was like, oh, I don't know, I'll just go with the flow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Number one, which brand or company do you most admire and why?

This was the only one that I read and I was like, I don't.

Know, what about, what about product or anything like that?

Is there like a product that you like?

Someone said that someone narrowed it down to a product.

Product to me.

Can we come back to that one?

Yeah, of course.

What's the one piece of advice you wish someone had given it to you at the start of your career?

Be honest about your situation in, in a right setting.

But, but share with somebody.

If you're going for something tough, share.

Okay, so.

So as in like bumps in the road.

Share it with somebody at work.

Yeah, share it.

Definitely.

Yeah.

Okay.

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

Job with anyone for the day.

A pilot or someone is something I really wanted.

I wanted to be at actually a military flying pilot.

Jet pilot, you know what that.

So, so I recorded.

I've recorded probably about 10 episodes of this now.

Come out in different orders but that's the second time and in probably the previous 30 that I did.

No one ever said that Someone said a fight fighter pilot the other day.

Oh brilliant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it would be good.

It would be a really cool job to do for a day.

Best kind of non fiction business related book that you've ever read.

Are you a big reader?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Love it.

And what's the kind of brief synopsis.

It basically talks about feeling like improvement.

I said to somebody, oh you just got to read the title and it tells you what to do.

I'll say that one.

But the other one that I really love is how not to give an F.

And I'm not going to swear.

That is a really good book.

Is that the.

The Art of Not the Orange.

The Art of not Giving.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I haven't read all of it but love it.

But if you.

I know people, some people read it and they're like it's bit too harsh cuz he literally swears pretty much every other word the word.

But I just think it's so blunt and to the point.

It hit me.

It definitely helped me a lot.

So.

So yeah, best career decision you ever.

Made actually changing into operations.

Yeah, definitely.

Opening myself what you were going to.

Say moving into taking the broker job in the first place.

The insurance one.

That's worked out pretty well.

I can see what you mean considering.

You didn't want to do it.

Yeah, no, I see what you mean.

But the reason I would say the operations is because literally everyone was like you shouldn't be doing it.

You should be on a broker side and it's so me and I love it.

And project management, program management, change.

Love it.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

Person, role model or the person you admire the most?

My grandma.

Okay, tell me, tell me a bit about her.

My grandma and my stepdad actually that's probably the two people my grandma is.

Your parents, are they still in Poland?

Yeah, my stepdad unfortunately passed away in the summer last year so it's a bit.

It's been a bit of a tough time but my grandma because she was a.

A private chef to a number of oligars during you know, times that like one women were not really having their businesses and stuff and she was basically doing.

She was bringing fish into Poland doing communist time.

So like it's a whole other episode.

Yeah, yeah.

But just really cool.

She was flying planes where you know that time where like you could smoke on a plane and you Know, it just wasn't a thing.

And she was cooking for like a lot of Russian important people.

And there's stories that are.

I'm slowly getting out of her are just mind blowing.

You've got to get them.

That comes back to the whole download.

So I just love.

Because I can just only imagine what she.

So she would, for example, my granddad would have to very often be pretending to be the business owner because as a woman she couldn't be in certain meetings, be the business owner.

Like, oh, just brilliant.

I love it.

And then my stepdad, because I just think he's persevered despite all odds.

He had Ms.

He was in wheelchair, able to move for the last 10 years of his career and he was called provider.

The reason why I'm in the UK is him.

He's, you know, provided for our whole family.

The illness was never definition of who he is.

Like, if you met him, if you known him, the last thing you would have mentioned is that he was in the wheelchair, unable to move.

That, like, wouldn't probably even make it to a top 10 of words that you would use to describe him.

And to me, like, I.

He just never, never let his situation define his life and his decision.

And I think that's too often we can allow that and he didn't.

So I love that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, we're gonna go back to the brand one before the last.

Oh, brand again.

Don't worry about it if you don't want it.

If you haven't got one.

No.

So do you know, I'm a big fan of like the new brands and things, so I'm trying to move away from paper, which is not easy.

So Notion and GoodNotes are two apps that I really like, which is kind of ability to make it a bit more digital.

I'll say these are the things.

But now you really got me.

I'm gonna be thinking a lot for.

Me, I think I use.

I use good notes, actually.

It's really good.

And then the final question, what's the best thing about working in insurance?

I asked that question at the end of my podcast as well.

I know you do.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I agree with everyone with majority of people that answers, which is people and travel.

I still think, you know, exposure, if not travel, exposure to global people around the world.

But people, people.

It's just something about.

As in the people that work in it or just.

Just the variety.

Like what?

Just variety of people, the connections, the type of people that you get to meet.

The.

The kind of the journeys that People been through the connections that you build, the way the city works.

You know, I always call it like a high school full of adults.

Right.

Yeah, it's.

It's just everyone knows everyone and everyone.

Actually one thing that I always say about this man market, and it's maybe my experience because I've never burned bridges here, but you know, if you're in a tough situation where you can't find a role for whatever reasons there is, people will really go beyond to help you open the door.

If not get you a job, at least open the door.

And I think that is just quite unique from what I'm hearing.

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

That brings us to the end.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking some time to have a chat.

Where can everyone get your podcast as well?

Like what's the best place?

Type in anywhere.

Google, Spotify, Apple.

But type in 100Women Insurance on Google.

And you'll find me and connecting with you.

LinkedIn.

Good.

Loads of people who want to, but if they want to get involved in like the coffee mornings and all that stuff.

Amazing.

Well, look, thanks everyone for listening.

Go and check Sandra's podcast out.

Keep listening to this.

We've got loads more episodes coming and we're.

We will catch you again next time.

Cheers, Sandra.

Thank you for having me.

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

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