Episode 16
Decoding the Insurance CIO Journey with Arvinder Mudhar, Group CIO at IQUW
In this weeks episode of Beyond the Desk, Mark Thomas sits down with Arvinder Mudhar, Group CIO of IQUW, whose career spans investment banking, global tech transformation, and the intricacies of the insurance world. From his first lines of BASIC code in East London to leading IT strategies across Mumbai, Geneva, and now London, Arvinder's journey is anything but typical.
Key topics that we discussed include:
- Why he never planned to be a leader, and how he found his way into the CIO chair
- The biggest cultural shift he experienced when moving from banking to insurance
- How bereavement counselling and career coaching shaped him into a better leader
- His view on AI as the most profound shift in tech in our lifetime
- Why insurance needs a CMO for the next generation
This episode is packed with practical advice for anyone considering a career in tech leadership, as well as deeply human insights into how people grow, change and lead through challenge.
Connect with us:
- Mark Thomas on LinkedIn: Connect Here
- Follow Beyond the Desk on LinkedIn: Follow Here
- Watch Full-Length Video Episodes on YouTube Here
- Arvinder on LinkedIn: Connect Here
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with colleagues who might find it valuable!
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Stay tuned for more conversations with leaders shaping the future of insurance and InsureTech. Thanks for tuning in - see you next time on Beyond the Desk! 🎧
Sponsor:
This episode is brought to you by Invecta Search, the brand new leadership search product from Invecta Group, which leads the insurance industry in building best-in-class technology and transformation leadership teams. Find out more: www.invectagroup.com
Transcript
1, 2, 3, 4.
Speaker B: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.
Speaker B:I'm your host, Mark Thomas, and every week I'll be sitting down with industry trailblazers who are driving innovation and modernization with within the insurance sector.
Speaker B: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.
Speaker B:But it's not just about their successes.
Speaker B:It's about what you and I can take away from their experiences and the advice they have.
Speaker B:For anyone wanting to follow in similar footsteps.
Speaker C:Whether you're just starting out or looking.
Speaker B:To level up your career in the insurance or insurtech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.
Speaker B:So grab your headphones, get comfortable, and let's jump into beyond the Desk.
Speaker C:Oh, Linda, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker C:How you doing?
Speaker A:Good to be here.
Speaker A:Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker D:Pleasure.
Speaker C:Well, we were just setting off air.
Speaker C:I was recommended to have you on the podcast about three years ago, so I haven't actually been trying to get you on for that amount of time, but it's been in mine for a while, so I'm glad we managed to get it booked in like, like always.
Speaker C:I'm going to go right, we're going to go right back to the start of, of, of your career and work the way through it, but probably worth just giving a quick intro on, on current role, who you are, and then we'll go from there.
Speaker A:Well, thanks a lot.
Speaker A:So, Ivindamudhar, I'm CIO at IQUW Insurance.
Speaker A:Been there just over a year now.
Speaker A:Joined there from a company called Unum, an employee benefits insurer.
Speaker A:Prior to that, CIO roles in Brit and I've worked prior to that really was mostly investment banking, asset management, wealth management.
Speaker A:So the last three jobs have been a first in insurance.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Okay, great.
Speaker C:So let's go right back to the start and kind of early life when you were a kid, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker C:Is that, is that, were you into technology and stuff early on or like, what did that look like?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So went to school in East London.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And randomly ended up at the computer club at Northeast London Polytechnic in Stratford.
Speaker A:And one evening, a whole bunch of us, we were taught how to code in basic and I was like, this has Changed the world.
Speaker A:And I must have been about 15 or 16 at that time.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:And then went out and bought.
Speaker A:Worked over a summer.
Speaker A:Bought my own computer and fully nerded out ever since.
Speaker A:So I did A level computer science.
Speaker A:I did a computer science degree, finished that, went into IT consulting, cut me in half.
Speaker A:And he's like wires and code and stuff.
Speaker A:I'm that kind of guy.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So, so.
Speaker C:Right, so that, that.
Speaker C:So grounding in.
Speaker C:In.
Speaker C:In software engineering.
Speaker C:So were your first few jobs as a software engineer?
Speaker C:Is that.
Speaker C:Is that kind of.
Speaker A:My first few jobs were painter and decorator and I was a really good painter and decorator.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:My speciality was wallpapering ceilings.
Speaker A:I was really good at that.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Not a skill you need these days.
Speaker A:And then.
Speaker A:And after that I realized I could never make much money doing that.
Speaker A:So I was a car mechanic for a while.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:I was a terrible car mechanic.
Speaker A:I remember.
Speaker C:So is this after you studied computer science?
Speaker A:This was after A levels.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:And then an opportunity came along at what was Thames Polytechnic Nano, Greenwich University to do computer science.
Speaker A:So I said, yeah, I'll give it a go.
Speaker A:That's how I ended up in computer science.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Because after A levels, even though I did computer science, A level, you weren't really sure.
Speaker A:This is a long time ago.
Speaker A:You weren't really sure if you can have a career in this kind of stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:But yeah, never look back.
Speaker A:I did a four year.
Speaker A:I don't think they call them this anymore.
Speaker A:I did a thick sandwich where he did a year in industry.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So I worked at the Wellcome foundation in primary drug manufacturer.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Building system that made Cal Pole.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:Fun.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:I use that a lot now with, with a five year old and a two year old.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So post university, did you.
Speaker C:Is that.
Speaker C:What did you go.
Speaker C:Were your first jobs in technology?
Speaker C:Were they software engineering focus?
Speaker A:Yeah, so they were in a couple of consultancies.
Speaker A:Relatively smallish consultancy at the time, company called Cap, which eventually became sema.
Speaker A:I was a software engineer there.
Speaker A:We did some work at place like BP and then I went to work for a company called Data Logic.
Speaker A:Did a lot of work for companies like Sainsbury's, British Steel, all around kind of software engineering, software delivery.
Speaker A:Trained to be an Oracle DBA for a while back in the day.
Speaker A:Right, yeah.
Speaker A:All great fun.
Speaker A:And then one day randomly, someone said to me, oh, there's a job going at this bank called Credit Suisse.
Speaker A:Have you ever heard of Them I said, sounds exciting.
Speaker A:Went down there and it was, it was actually a one called Credit Suisse First Boston.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'll always remember that the interview was.
Speaker A:So the offices were on Great Titsfield street in a place called United Kingdom House.
Speaker A:Just above it.
Speaker A:Just above the biggest mothercare in the country.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the first thing, a stupid question.
Speaker A:I said to the, I said to the HR lady who's interviewing, I said, do you get discounted mother kicks?
Speaker A:I've just had a kid.
Speaker A:She said no, but yeah.
Speaker A:So that was a Credit Suisse first boss.
Speaker A:And that was my first foray into genuine financial services as a career.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was great.
Speaker A:Great.
Speaker A:That was a, it was a bond trading house and we, we built settlement systems for them.
Speaker C:So you still doing it hands on engineering at stuff at this point?
Speaker A:Absolutely, yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, that was, that was VAX, PDP 11 infrastructure.
Speaker A:So going way, way back.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was there for a while, then I moved to.
Speaker A:From there I went to NatWest Markets.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that was my first foray into kind of managing and running teams of technologists.
Speaker A:Again that was equity, equity trading assessment.
Speaker A:Really, really busy firm.
Speaker A:And that was kind of my first foray also into I guess what you'd call high performance compute.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because we were working with trading systems, we were working with large databases, we were working with offshore teams.
Speaker A:Learned a lot about that and learned a lot about how to kind of build systems that way.
Speaker A:And then eventually that kind of moved into much more of a management role.
Speaker A:I then went to JP Morgan and that was my first, a kind of real role where actually I wasn't hands on cutting code.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:We were delivering systems to front office.
Speaker A:A combination of equity derivative systems, convertible bonds.
Speaker A:And we delivered systems in London, Hong Kong, spent six months in Hong Kong, spent six months in New York.
Speaker A:We delivered in Japan.
Speaker A:It was, it was, it was a great time to be doing that kind of work that was all leading up to kind of Y2K if anyone remembers.
Speaker D:That 25 years ago.
Speaker A:And towards the end of that I was asked to come and join Merrill Lynch.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that was specifically.
Speaker A:And the reality is the, the guy who I worked for at JP Morgan left there and went to Merrell's and gave me a shout.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that was again settlement systems or, or back office stuff.
Speaker A:Did that for quite a while.
Speaker A:Built a really good network there.
Speaker A:Again we were delivering systems all over the world and then the opportunity came up to move to India.
Speaker A:So Merrill lynch were building their own captive offshore center called Merrill Lynch India Technology Services.
Speaker A:And Also they had a investment bank in India called dsp.
Speaker A:So they needed this CTO for DSP and someone to work to help build out their offshore technology center.
Speaker A:Y so I moved out to India for 18 months.
Speaker A: That was kind of: Speaker A:Brilliant.
Speaker A:I mean I lived and worked in Mumbai.
Speaker A:Mumbai is a great city.
Speaker A:It's not an easy city to live in.
Speaker A:Built a huge amount of capability in the offshore center and really transform what the investment bank were doing in terms of their critical infrastructure.
Speaker A:Towards the end of that, Merrill lynch got bought by bank of America and the whole financial crisis and because of the, because of my status there, I wasn't an Indian citizen.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:It became difficult for me to kind of continue to, to work there as they were now owned by a bank.
Speaker A:So I wanted to come back to the uk.
Speaker A:But in while I was looking to come back to the uk, an interesting role came up in Geneva.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:So I went from Mumbai and then ended up being the CIO for Merlinch, Monk Suisse.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:A Swiss wealth manager again, the Merrill Lynch Group.
Speaker A:Great place, fantastic people.
Speaker A:Did a huge amount of work in terms of re platforming their core systems there.
Speaker A:Very different client base.
Speaker A:You know, very ultra high end asset management, wealth management, smaller firm as well.
Speaker A:Like much more.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Learn a lot about working in highly, highly regulated environments.
Speaker A:The Swiss are notoriously good at making sure that data stays within their borders.
Speaker A:But also they very innovative because the clients they deal with, who've got assets all over the world, you need to be creative about how you manage and support them.
Speaker A:And we did a huge amount of work there.
Speaker C:So that was the first CIO role.
Speaker A:Then that, that was, that, that was the first proper CIO role.
Speaker A:Before that I was the CTO in, in India.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So you don't, you've done a kind of, you'd obviously gone through the typical route of kind of engineering into leading engineering teams and then into a CTO role.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then, and then flipped from CTO to cio.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Came back to the uk.
Speaker A:Um, so I'd worked in New York, Mumbai, Geneva.
Speaker A:I came back to work in Croydon.
Speaker A:So bank of America have a massive, I don't know if they still do a cash processing center.
Speaker A:Just, it was just outside Croydon station.
Speaker C:Yeah, they used to have a big, quite big office in Bromley as well, didn't they?
Speaker C:Right by the station.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So yeah.
Speaker A:And I spent a bit of time there mostly in their kind of high end cash processing business.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:That was good fun because that Was again, that was another area I hadn't, hadn't worked in terms of finance.
Speaker A:And we would process billions of dollars a day through that business.
Speaker C:And what was that a CIO role as well?
Speaker A:That was a strategy role.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:Much more around how do we think about structuring the business going forward?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Towards the end of that I was asked to come and work at Barclays and that was to head up technology for their wealth advisory business.
Speaker A:So that's a business based in Jersey.
Speaker A:Yeah, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Geneva.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker A:So Barclays had a wealth division and inside that a division that ran a lot of their trust businesses and the job was to kind of run, run all of the technology for those trust businesses.
Speaker A:So a few few years into running that, the firm took the decision to sell their trust businesses.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:And selling trust businesses is very complex.
Speaker A:Lots of jurisdictional requirements to make sure you legally inform trust and the trust, the trustees, the people who are beneficiaries, all of that kind of stuff that took a good few years to kind of work its way through.
Speaker A:Great fun.
Speaker A:I mean it was a technology role, but it was a technology role supporting a really complex M and A transaction.
Speaker A:I then got an opportunity to work within.
Speaker A:So Barclays, a massive firm.
Speaker A:Barclays have an infrastructure division which is a massive organization, you know, has a billion pound budget we could have at the time.
Speaker A:And I worked with that leadership team to think about what their long term strategy would be.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I'd moved out from, I'd moved on from I guess running teams and delivering systems.
Speaker A:Something very, very different.
Speaker A:While I was there, I was approached by Brit Insurance.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So they, so the, I started to talk to the recruiter and he said, oh, come work for this insurance company.
Speaker A:I said, look mate, insurance.
Speaker A:I work for an investment bank.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Why would I come up for insurance?
Speaker C:I've had that conversation a few times.
Speaker A:And I went to meet the COO and the head of HR and the CEO at Brit and I realized these are just really good people.
Speaker A:It's a really, really good business.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So what year would this have been?
Speaker A: That would have been: Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:And that, that, that initial meeting I had with them really changed my perception because up to that point I'd only worked in massive corporates doing massive multi billion dollar change.
Speaker C:And you've done that.
Speaker C:You've done the rounds from probably all the big names in the banking space.
Speaker C:You pretty much worked for everyone that's worth working for.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:And it was great.
Speaker A:But when I Met when I understood what they were trying to do because at that time Brit had gone through their own process.
Speaker A:So they were, they were P backed.
Speaker A:I think they were owned by Apollo.
Speaker A:They were in by Apollo.
Speaker A:They then went through an ipo, then they were purchased by Fairfax.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the job at Brit was to kind of stabilize the IT infrastructure.
Speaker A:Really think about what that investment in IT would be, really think about data and cloud.
Speaker A:So I spent a few years there.
Speaker A:The biggest part of that was actually we moved their entire infrastructure to out from data centers out to Azure.
Speaker A:We were one of the first people to kind of really consider how you run a entire business.
Speaker A:Cloud native.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Great fun.
Speaker C:And I guess, am I right in saying that that's there your first role where you've been, you've had the overall CIO role because it's obviously a much smaller business, complete control of technology, whereas the CIO CTO roles you've had before are kind of more divisionally led because they're much bigger business.
Speaker C:Maybe apart from the one in Switzerland.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:So I think there was a, a great opportunity to, to mold the organization the way I, I felt we should work.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And all the experience I had working offshore really came in useful because Brit had a very large offshore presence with, with an offshore supplier.
Speaker A:So I was able to understand from both sides how you make offshore work and how you, how you get the best out of it.
Speaker A:That, that kind of combination of infrastructure.
Speaker A:But also thinking about how you service data and how you build systems, that was the first time I came across the fact that, you know, what is a policy admin system?
Speaker A:What is a claim system?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:What is an underwriter workbench?
Speaker A:All of that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:Now is, that's part of what I do.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But at that time it was, it was new to me and Brit were really good.
Speaker A:I mean, they, they, they put me in a whole bunch of Lloyds market training courses because they, they understood that coming from outside the industry, it's all.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's all jargon.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And acronyms and terminology.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But that was great.
Speaker A:So, learned a lot about how you face off to the C suite, how you build a strategy, how you effectively present to a board, say, look, yeah, you may think you're spending a lot of money on tech and you may think you're getting value, but you're going to need to spend more.
Speaker A:And actually there are bad guys out there who are coming to kind of attack your systems, attack your infrastructure.
Speaker A:And this is the kind of things you have to Protect.
Speaker A:So, you know, we, we, we built out the CISO infrastructure, we built out the data team, we built out cloud engineering team, and again towards kind of the end of that, I got, I got contacted by a recruiter, said, would you like to come work for a company called Unum?
Speaker A:I said, I work in Lloyds Market now.
Speaker A:I want to come work for an employee benefits insurer.
Speaker A:Same thing.
Speaker A:I met the CEO, I met their leadership team and I understood what company they were.
Speaker A:And I've worked in some really respected companies.
Speaker A:Unum are a fantastic employer and with a fantastic brand and they passionately care about the product that they sell to the companies that sell it to.
Speaker A:And you feel that when you're in the firm, it's a great firm.
Speaker A:I joined them on a Monday and we went into lockdown, I think on the Wednesday.
Speaker C:Oh, wow.
Speaker A:So you're immediately thrown into how, how do you deal with basically an entire environment that's changed overnight, with very little relationships and didn't know who anyone was.
Speaker A:But that was great.
Speaker A:You learn a lot about people through that kind of adversity.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:About how, how organizations cope with crisis.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Everyone pulling together and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:And it was, it was great.
Speaker A:We kept the firm running, we.
Speaker A:The first thing was how do we continue to pay our claims, how do we make sure that our customers, our clients are serviced and then how do you look after your staff?
Speaker A:So all the traditional stuff.
Speaker A:Well, we say traditional, all the stuff that we take for granted now, like working from home, having the infrastructure at home, having teams, having laptops.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:We almost had to create all of that overnight.
Speaker A:And the team did a fantastic job.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And while at Unum, we did a huge amount of stuff moving Unum into much more digital environment.
Speaker A:So building broker portals, building claims portals.
Speaker A:We delivered a huge amount of end user facing tools.
Speaker A:We built a product called Help at Hand, which was effectively one of the first kind of digital GP services.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So learnt a huge amount through there.
Speaker A:And again towards the end of that, I was contacted by an organization that said, oh, come work for a company called iqw.
Speaker A:And I said, I never really heard of them.
Speaker A:And once I did my research, Iqra, in many respects a combination of a startup company with some deep legacy and a company with some really entrepreneurial spirit about what they do and they've got a lot to do and they wanted someone to come in and start to, I guess a combination of think about infrastructure, think about change, think about working with the data teams, thinking about how do we give underwriters tools that prepare them for the future.
Speaker A:How do we think about AI, how do we think about automation?
Speaker A:All that kind of stuff that I love doing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's where I'm now.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So there's, so there's a couple of bits there that I really want to dig into.
Speaker C:The first one is so, so obviously started life as very much as a, as an engineer, as a techie.
Speaker C:You kind of born and bred technologists and it sounds like that's what you kind of really loved in.
Speaker C:Probably, probably still do.
Speaker C:But so what, what was that?
Speaker C:One of the, one of the things I think the questions I get a lot and I'm always interested in is the transition from, from being hands on and, and doing the stuff that's kind of more, you're more passionate about, that you've kind of grown up loving and started doing as a kid because you just really enjoyed it.
Speaker C:To get to doing the stuff that I don't think necessarily anybody at 14, 15, when they get into it, kind of think, oh, actually I can't wait to be a manager of these people.
Speaker C:So when you would, when you were an engineer, did you, did you always have the, did you always think you would end up leader and a manager of people?
Speaker C:Was that always part of the plan or, or did that just evolve and happen?
Speaker C:And what was it, what was that journey like?
Speaker A:I think happened not because I wanted it.
Speaker A:I didn't deliberately go and say, right, I'm going to be able, I'm going to be running this team.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Some of it is opportunity.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Some of it is you just look at a role and say, actually I could do that differently or better.
Speaker A:One of the things I've always felt, and I still do feel, is that technologists need to be led by people that understand technology.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's where you get the best out of them.
Speaker A:So you need to, you need to be led by someone who's been, who can, who, you know, has been in that kind of, you know, up at 4am Debugging code because there's a certain amount of empathy but also understanding about kind of how things work.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I've kind of, I didn't set out to, to do what I do.
Speaker A:On the other hand, I really enjoy what I do and you know, it's one of those things where I like to tell other people because actually you can have a, you have a really great varied career in technology, but you don't need to cut code.
Speaker A:You know, you, you can be, you can have that seniority and responsibility.
Speaker A:So I think there's.
Speaker A:With tech there's always kind of two or three directions.
Speaker A:You know, you can either become the best developer.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or you can become the best architect or the best infrastructure or the best at data.
Speaker A:So you can have a very technical career.
Speaker A:And some of the large organizations I've worked with have this concept of a distinguished engineer where you can, you can have a really senior career, but as that specialist.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or you can go down that kind of really senior managerial route or the other, the other way is consultancy.
Speaker A:And all of those are completely valid senior careers in technology.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:What did you, what did you find?
Speaker C:Is the, did you find it quite, quite easy to transition into leadership and management or was that.
Speaker C:Was leave it because.
Speaker C:Because I think what you tend to find, I talk about it a lot is that engineers, I speak to lots of senior people, normally architects, to be honest, who have got ambitions to be CTOs, they get to become a CTO and they realize they've got to some of the technology stuff behind.
Speaker C:And actually there's always that kind of wobbly moment where they think, actually I really like, like doing that and I'm not sure I want to, want to leave it behind.
Speaker C:And obviously too much in the detail and can't let go.
Speaker C:And that creates problems.
Speaker C:So was, was that a problem for you or did it just kind of evolve and you're quite happy to move into it?
Speaker A:I think there's, there's a realization that you have to leave some stuff behind.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there's a realization that actually you need to understand the tech, but really the tech you're involved in day to day is PowerPoint and Excel.
Speaker A:So that ability to kind of change and translate becomes more important.
Speaker A:So that inflection point of being a deep techie, really loving it and then thinking, well, actually you know what, I could run a small team and I could use the skills I have to.
Speaker A:Actually I could run a department.
Speaker A:I think sometimes there is a ambition for people to do it and sometimes there is a.
Speaker A:Actually I'm better at running a team than I am cutting code, but it takes people a while to realize what they're good at.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:I think actually some people really struggle to ever kind of appreciate what they're best at as well.
Speaker C:That's definitely happens.
Speaker C:So that was one of the kind of key challenges throughout the career.
Speaker C:The next one was obviously after a period in long period in investment banking, working for arguably some of the biggest and most reputable firms on, on the planet, certainly banking.
Speaker C:When you were There as well, was, was, it was almost like, I think now big tech in America is probably, probably the, the kind of number one industry.
Speaker C:But, but back then banks were where all the good engineers and stuff went.
Speaker C:What was you mentioned?
Speaker C:Obviously you hadn't necessarily heard of Brit and that trend, but what, what was that transition like on two fronts?
Speaker C:One from an industry perspective, but, but also going from a big business where there's probably a lot more infrastructure around you, from a leadership perspective to being the, the kind of tech guy and, and probably a lot of people looking at you for, for all the answers.
Speaker A:So I think there's, there's probably three parts of that transition.
Speaker A:The first one, we're talking about the businesses.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I, I moved from investment banking into insurance, but I still ran technology.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I think if you were, if you were an investment banker, you couldn't become an underwriter.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker C:No, no, of course.
Speaker A:Whereas some of the core technology, you know, you're running networks, databases, infrastructure that kind of moves with you.
Speaker A:So that, that wasn't too hard.
Speaker A:I think that the key thing was actually getting credibility, that you understood enough of insurance that you could have a conversation with people who are looking at growing a business or looking at investment or looking at strategy that I think takes a bit more personal effort and time to really spend with your team.
Speaker A:And you need you with all of these things.
Speaker A:You have to have a team you can rely on.
Speaker A:So when I moved to Brit, I relied heavily on my architecture team, relied heavily on the bas to kind of give me a hand to understand what these things were.
Speaker A:I think that the, the most important part of that transition and the kind of, the second part of that is, is not to be daunted by it because actually, even in the, even when I was in investment banking, moving from wealth management, asset management to security settlement to foreign exchange, they're very, very different businesses.
Speaker C:I was going to say, does it feel like you're going, you're moving industries kind of within it, within one big industry?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:So the offshore trust business is completely different to FX trading.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I'd kind of been through a number of those.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So actually it wasn't too much of a leap to move into another financial industry.
Speaker A:If I'd ended up in, I know, telecoms or pharma, that would have been a bit more difficult and that probably I may not have felt as, as comfortable.
Speaker A:I think that the third, probably the most important part of this is you have to build a relationship with people that they trust you.
Speaker A:Banking is an interesting place.
Speaker A:Especially in very large corporates with kind of a us mentality.
Speaker A:It's very easy in large banks and large corporates with that kind of culture to move people exit people change roles.
Speaker A:Much more difficult in smaller organizations because everyone knows each other.
Speaker A:But it's, it's also much more considered, much more so in some of the banks.
Speaker A:You know, you would get told, you know, on a Friday can you stack rank all your staff from 1 to 100 on Monday you're told.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You know, can you work out with HR how you get rid of the bottom 10%?
Speaker A:That that is not how insurance companies work.
Speaker A:It's much more considered, much more about making sure you do the right thing, not say it doesn't happen.
Speaker A:But there is a, a better, I would say a better duty of care.
Speaker A:Also I think with it within insurance there is a, it's a different kind of product.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Investment banking is an immediate product.
Speaker A:Insurance, you're selling something to someone who's going to buy it and hold it for a year and actually you've got to pay a claim if it doesn't work.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's a very, very different kind of mindset to it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I guess in insurance you're kind of hoping that as, as both the person who's, who's providing the insurance and the person who's buying it, you hope you never need to use it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Like you mean.
Speaker C:No, nobody.
Speaker C:Never, Never, never.
Speaker C:Whereas in banking you, you're obviously using it immediately.
Speaker A:You don't get a choice.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And then, and then the final bit like I wanted just on, on the career journey, we're going to move on to something else is, is just the, the, the kind of differences of, of taking on kind of working in much smaller environments and, and, and kind of the challenges around insurance now and what, what's kind of in focus for you and I guess how you've seen that evolve over the last kind of seven or eight years since you've been here.
Speaker A:In some of the larger banks, if you, if you wanted to get stuff done from a DBA, there'd be a team of 100 DBAs you could call on.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or, you know, there'd be an army of architects you'd call on when you're running.
Speaker A:I mean Brit and Unum and IQ are not small, they're kind of, you know, thousand ish person firms.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But the technology team has to do everything and so quite a few of the team are multidisciplinary.
Speaker A:So you know, the the person that runs a laptop estate also happens to be the guard, knows how to fix a network, also knows how the, how the, you know, the CCTV cameras work, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But that makes it more interesting because you don't have this vast array of assets at your disposal to make change and optimize.
Speaker A:You have to work with a smaller group.
Speaker A:But also quite often they're a much more motivated group because they know how the infrastructure works, they know how the systems come about.
Speaker A:They are on first name terms with everyone in the business in terms of underwriting or claims or operations.
Speaker A:There's much more of a community feel about it.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Barclays had what, 130,000 people working for it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's very rare that you're going to get that kind of same community feel unless you kind of, you know, branch or in a smaller bit part of that business.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Whereas definitely with IQ and definitely with kind of companies like Unum and Brit.
Speaker A:There is that, there is that community feel there.
Speaker D:Yeah.
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Speaker C:Do you think that's an issue?
Speaker C:Because I, I always think that's an insurance.
Speaker C:Talking to someone actually about it this morning, somebody who's just, just working insurance that we've, we've just put into a position and who's relocating to London and I was just talking about the community aspect around being in, in the City in London is, is, is quite, it's like you take it for granted, but it is quite unique.
Speaker C:Especially you start working in the US it's very, very spread out.
Speaker C:So I think it's like an is, it's a, it's a superpower of the.
Speaker A:Insurance sector, isn't it?
Speaker A:I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker A:There is a, I think there's a lot of personal value in it because quite.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I, I know most of the other kind of CEOs of similar kind of insurance companies.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it's great.
Speaker A:You know, you can ring someone up and say, what do you think of this?
Speaker A:And yeah, it's a, it's a good conversation.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that, that is really useful.
Speaker A:What I haven't got, I haven't got the experience of working for a massive insurance company.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you know, an Aviva or a Chub.
Speaker A:I mean that would probably feel a bit like, like a Barclays or JP Morgan.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But yeah, if, if, if that comes along, great, I'll be interested in some of that.
Speaker A:But on the other hand, I quite like working in a smaller organization.
Speaker A:I quite like being the person who is ultimately responsible for delivering security, resilience, reliability, change across the entire enterprise.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:It gives you a bit of freedom.
Speaker C:Going to say the autonomy to actually get things done and be the main decision maker.
Speaker A:But there's two sides that there is that you know, when things don't work, it's you.
Speaker A:So you know, when there is an incident, it's you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:When you have to explain things to regulators, it's you.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But there's also an opportunity there to kind of, you know, make sure that people know it's you and you support the firm and the team and you know, you, you know, what's that phrase?
Speaker A:Never let a good crisis go to waste.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:When things happen, make sure that you, you learn and your team learn from it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So I wanted to.
Speaker C:And just kind of evolve that into kind of your role now.
Speaker C:So like what, what's, what's big?
Speaker C:Obviously we've had, we've had David on the podcast before who, who works here.
Speaker C:He's a friend of mine.
Speaker D:Obviously work.
Speaker C:When you work with him.
Speaker C:The what, what's kind of big on the agenda for you both in your role at iq, but what in, in I guess in a more general sense of what you see is the kind of the big things that the insurance space is tackling from a tech perspective over the next kind of 12, 18 months or so.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I think there's IQ are an interesting organization because we've got A very mature motor business.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:A very entrepreneurial specialty Lloyd's business and reinsurance business.
Speaker A:And each of those, even though they weren't, they were under the IQ umbrella, each of those is a very different set of infrastructure, different set of vendors, different set of customers.
Speaker A:And quite a lot of the challenges.
Speaker A:How do you support each different brand, but also build some consistency in the infrastructure, in the network, in the tooling.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that, that, that's, that's definitely a challenge because not everything works for everyone.
Speaker A:So we're working through that.
Speaker A:I think the other big challenge is insurance, as you said.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's a product that no one wants to buy, no one ever wants to use.
Speaker A:I think the.
Speaker A:Certainly in the motor business there's lots of challenges on how you sell that kind of product.
Speaker A:Certainly with the way motoring is evolving with much more bundled products into, into motor.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So how do we respond to that?
Speaker A:You know, there's lots of stats about younger people actually driving a lot less and using, you know, companies like Uber and that kind of stuff more.
Speaker A:The other part of what we do in terms of the specialty business is that the market is now moving much faster.
Speaker A:So the expectation form, you know, you're getting a submission from a broker.
Speaker A:To be able to create a price and quote insurance.
Speaker A:I think that we need to almost move to an investment banking model when that is kind of measured in minutes rather than hours or days.
Speaker A:And a lot of that takes a huge amount of compute power in pricing, but it also takes a lot, a lot of thinking about automation and thinking about workflow and thinking about how you manage the data.
Speaker A:Because some of these things that we have to price have hundreds or even thousands of data points that you have to take into your actuarial and pricing systems to create the right price.
Speaker A:That takes a huge amount of planning and effort and actuarial science and data science.
Speaker A:And that's where I think some of the challenges are for all of us in that business is turning everything we know into data and extracting value from it.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's great fun.
Speaker C:And what would you say the kind of.
Speaker C:What's the, what's the kind of one or two things that kind of keep you as a CIO at the moment up at night?
Speaker C:Like what?
Speaker C:Or just, I guess that doesn't necessarily need to be used specifically or just generally, what are the things that are the kind of debate.
Speaker C:Major challenges on the mind at the moment.
Speaker A:So I think for any cio, if you're not worried about cyber threat, you're doing your Job wrong.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because even if you think you're in a business which hasn't really got much exposure, the opportunity for someone to ransomware or any of that kind of stuff is you have to have a strong team on the ground to protect the firm.
Speaker A:Luckily, with iq, we've got some great people who are, who are working with us, and we've got some great partners.
Speaker A:But that, that has to be a concern.
Speaker A:I mean, one of the, one of the things we sell is cyber insurance.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we have to be absolutely on our game.
Speaker A:So does that keep me awake?
Speaker A:To be honest, nothing really keeps me awake apart from.
Speaker A:And we're going to talk about football, but I think cyber is one of the things you have to care about.
Speaker A:I think that the second is, are we getting the best out of the data we have?
Speaker A:Because we've been.
Speaker A:Insurance companies have been collecting data on policies and claims for decades.
Speaker A:Are we able to leverage that and create value off the back of that?
Speaker A:And for many years that's been hidden behind reports or dashboards.
Speaker A:But really, with the advent of tools like Copilot and AI, you can ask the data questions in natural language.
Speaker A:And I think the first firms that start to really pivot and get that right are going to be winners.
Speaker A:So how, how do, how, how do I help our firm get into that spot?
Speaker A:I think that that's.
Speaker A:And that that's a really interesting challenge to have.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:How, what, what is your, your kind of take?
Speaker C:Obviously, AI is like top of pretty much everyone's agenda at the moment, at least thinking about it.
Speaker C:There's lots of, well, there's lots of uncertainty about where it goes and, and we're kind of in that kind of crest of a wave of all that kind of stuff and moment.
Speaker C:Where do you see that kind of evolving over the next kind of 612 months for IQ and I guess more generally.
Speaker A:So I've been relatively fortunate in that I've been in the industry a long time.
Speaker A:So I was there when the PC was created and I was there when the Internet was created, and I was there when mobile computing came along.
Speaker A:Now, each of those actually change the world.
Speaker A:But because it was a hardware thing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So the PC was a hardware thing.
Speaker A:You know, the Internet, the ability to connect these systems together.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And mobile computing is a hardware thing.
Speaker A:I think AI is different.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:There's hardware at the back end of it, but it's, it's, it's software that's driving this and it's data.
Speaker A:I think this is the biggest cultural, social, economic technology change that we may live through.
Speaker A:And I think we are at the kind of, the very, very start of what this will do for us.
Speaker A:It's going to reshape industries as we understand how we can, how we can use this data.
Speaker A:Some industries, it's already changing and reshaping in terms of insurance.
Speaker A:I think there's.
Speaker A:There's already things we're doing, there's already products we're using to help us ingest data, process data, look at data images, all of that kind of stuff is there.
Speaker A:And there's also products that we're using to kind of make us more productive.
Speaker A:You know, things like Copilot within, within the Microsoft estate or anything else like that.
Speaker A:But I think there is more.
Speaker A:I think there is a vast amount that we're going to be able to do once we understand really what the scope of this is.
Speaker A:I think our biggest challenge is going to be regulation, if I'm honest.
Speaker A:I think if we can, if we create agents that can process claims intelligently without humans being involved, we have to convince regulators that we have actually got the data and are doing it properly, because at the end of a claim is a person or a company or an individual.
Speaker A:So I think there's huge opportunity there.
Speaker A:I think there's huge opportunity in automating the entire quoting process.
Speaker A:I think there's huge opportunity in leveraging the data we have and making money off the back of that data.
Speaker A:You either use it to create your own competitive advantage or you use that data to monetize it.
Speaker A:And I think a lot of Lloyd's firms are, if I wanted, on the fringes of that.
Speaker A:And some people have gone all in and are using AI to kind of really run businesses.
Speaker A:But I think the first person that really sits back and says, right, how do I completely reshape this industry?
Speaker A:Is going to be a winner.
Speaker C:I want to move on to talk a little bit about.
Speaker C:So obviously we spoke before this, and I always ask every guest if there's any kind of particular things that I wouldn't be able to find out necessarily from looking at LinkedIn and, and my network and all that stuff.
Speaker C:And, and you, you, you probably told me the most unique one I've had in 40, 50 episodes of doing this that.
Speaker C:Well, actually, you tell me, like, because it's, it's stuff that you do outside of work that I wanted to just talk about how it's affected your.
Speaker C:Your CIO role.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, I mean, many years ago, it's a long story, but we had someone die in the Office.
Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker A:And very traumatic experience for everyone involved.
Speaker C:How far is this in the banking days?
Speaker A:In the banking days.
Speaker A: This was in the mid: Speaker A:And what was really, it was a tragic experience.
Speaker A:And I mean, we all go on management training courses and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker A:No one teaches you how to deal with that.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker A:And one of the things that happened there was the firm sent in a group of bereavement counselors from bupa.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And these people were absolutely amazing in how they worked with us.
Speaker A:And I, I thought, well, this is brilliant.
Speaker A:I've got to do some of this.
Speaker A:I went and took a, a course.
Speaker A:I took a diploma in bereavement counseling.
Speaker C:So you did that as kind of like evenings and stuff like that, Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I also realized that this is really bloody hard.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:This is, this is, you know, this is open heart surgery on people without actually touching people.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:So is it psychology kind of based?
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's Freedman counseling.
Speaker A:And because it was so hard, I thought I'd love to do more of this, but I can't do this.
Speaker A:This is, this is difficult.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I wanted to help.
Speaker A:So I pondered it for many years.
Speaker A: And then In, I think: Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Over a couple of years, part time.
Speaker A:Brilliant.
Speaker A:Absolutely brilliant.
Speaker A:Because what I realized is because as, as you become more senior, your actual skills move away from being a technician or a change manager or a leader to actually all you're doing day to day is really managing people and understanding people and getting, and helping them get the best out of themselves.
Speaker A:And it wasn't until I, I started this career management and counseling that I, that, that clicked in me to say, actually a contribution that I can make as well as my own career is growing other people's careers.
Speaker A:And that, that, that kind of changed how, how I work.
Speaker A:So it changed my approach on growing talent, it changed my approach on how I work with people.
Speaker A:And, and I think it's, it's going to sound a bit crass.
Speaker A:It made me a better leader.
Speaker A:It made me a much more people focused leader.
Speaker A:And some of the hardest things I've done because you have to know yourself a bit more.
Speaker A:You have to be open to understanding yourself and understanding your own limitations.
Speaker A:Most brilliant.
Speaker A:I mean, the other thing that I would encourage people to do is kind of think about how they interact with mentors or guides or advisors.
Speaker A:Because many, if I'm honest, there are great people out there who are career counselors, career Mentors who've done it from their own experience.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think having an academic rigor behind it really changes how you work because you have to go and, you have to go and study, you have to go and research.
Speaker A:You have to understand how, how, how years and years of academic research can impact how you become a better mentor and a better counselor.
Speaker C:Yeah, so I've got so many questions on that.
Speaker C:So first one would really be.
Speaker C:So you, you said it changed how you are as leaders.
Speaker C:So give me some context around that.
Speaker C:Like how, how does it, how did it change the way you approach that?
Speaker C:Apart from being obviously more people focused and being more aware of it, which.
Speaker A:Is, I guess, I think that lots of different things.
Speaker A:I think the first one is appreciating that when people come to work, they bring their entire self to work.
Speaker A:So you have to almost take the time to understand the entire person.
Speaker A:I mean, it's okay knowing what kind of, you know, how many kids they've got, what are they doing the weekend, but actually understanding what are their aspirations, what do they want out of their life, where do they fit in their own career cycle.
Speaker A:And being able to have those kind of difficult conversations with them and say, look, I'm not asking you because I'm being nosy.
Speaker A:I'm asking you because I want to help you grow your career.
Speaker A:Because the more successful you are, actually, the more successful I am.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And being able to have those open and relatively candid conversations within a kind of relatively safe space is not an easy thing to do.
Speaker A:And going back to.
Speaker A:No one teaches that do it.
Speaker D:No.
Speaker A:So having that ability, I think is, is important.
Speaker A:The other part of that is letting people know that you're going to have this relatively, you know, difficult conversation with them, but from a good place.
Speaker A:You're not doing it to catch people.
Speaker A:Like, you're doing it to work out how you support them.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that, that I think is that that changed the way I work with people and it's, it's hopefully made me a better leader and a better kind of mentor and advisor.
Speaker C:What do you think throughout doing that?
Speaker C:And so do you, do you obviously you use it day to day in your leadership role.
Speaker A:Role.
Speaker C:Do you do it while as a kind of a standalone activity, kind of spare time, evenings, whatever?
Speaker A:Yeah, I work with quite a few entrepreneurs, startups, people in role transitions.
Speaker A:I do a lot of work with kind of children of friends and family.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Not because I think I'm not doing it because it.
Speaker A:And all the work is pro bono.
Speaker A:I'm not charging anyone.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:I, I learn a lot from doing that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But also, even if I can help one person's career by doing it, you know, that's one person's career whose life is, is been hopefully guided down, down a path that they wouldn't have before.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:What, what would you say is, Is there any, are there any kind of patterns or commonalities that you've, you've found throughout doing it?
Speaker C:Because you said you've obviously done lots of people, opened your eyes.
Speaker C:I'd just be really interested to know, like things you've learned from, from, from doing it.
Speaker A:That's a great question.
Speaker A:I, I would say that firstly every.
Speaker A:I've worked with a lot of people where they say, actually I cannot progress my career or I'm having these issues with my manager or this is a really difficult project.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it depends how much time you spend with them, because actually quite a few of, few times I've worked, you start to peel some layers back and you understand that person and, and maybe there's some hidden trauma in there or there's some relationship issues or there's some issues in their, in, in their childhood which impact how they, how they see the world and how they work, which you would never have those conversations when he was talking to someone about, you know, the latest project or some kind of transactional thing.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, because you just wouldn't get into that detail.
Speaker A:And they, those things shape how an individual works.
Speaker A:Those things shape the fact that, you know, person X is struggling with the promotion because actually they don't actually want the promotion.
Speaker A:They're just being pushed into it by their family or their financial circumstances.
Speaker A:And to your point earlier about career progression, if you're a really, really good programmer, but all you've been told by your parents is actually you should be a senior leader, you're almost denying yourself the fact that you're a really good programmer.
Speaker A:And I've worked with a number of people who are in the medical profession who want to move out of medicine because they feel they want to run a business.
Speaker A:And you have to ask them why do they do that?
Speaker A:And kind of peeling some of that stuff back isn't easy.
Speaker A:And you have to set some boundaries and you have to be very, very cautious about how you do it.
Speaker A:Yeah, but it's one of those areas where if you do it well, you can really help people.
Speaker C:Yeah, because, because, I mean, that's really interesting because obviously I advise people a lot on, on career next steps and stuff like that, but But a lot of that is kind of very surface level.
Speaker C:You don't tend to know the people that well.
Speaker C:Like some of them you do, you've known for a long time.
Speaker C:But even then, I mean, I don't talk to people really about their family and like stuff like that.
Speaker C:So do you, have you found throughout that process that, that a lot of the decision making and expectation management and stuff like that has often has an underlying point because I mean, you talk about it all the time with, with, I was talking something about it at the time with, with men, there's normally a kind of an expectation that they provide for a family and stuff like that and all that kind of thing.
Speaker C:It's like a kind of.
Speaker C:Yeah, not always, but, but, but that could, that can in, in turn often push people to take on more senior roles.
Speaker C:And I've definitely seen that in the past.
Speaker C:Like I said to you before, someone's pushed to be kind of almost the push to be a CIO or cto, but actually what they love doing is transformation or they love being a coder.
Speaker C:So actually they're much better off being the best engineer, the chief engineer or whatever, rather than put being a cto because actually they love being, doing the code.
Speaker C:So have you found that, have you kind of.
Speaker A:Yeah, and I think actually it's, it's a, it's a, it's a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker A:We almost, from a very young age, we're kind of almost told that success and seniority are the same thing.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it isn't always, you know, your, yours, your personal success may be your personal success.
Speaker A:And quite often people I work with, they, they cut, they come in talking about things they want to do as part of their career.
Speaker A:But actually when you ask them about what are the, what, what are the most powerful things and powerful emotions they felt, they're nothing to do with work, they're to do with their, their family or, you know, their sport or, you know, their own aspirations or their own, you know, their interest in art.
Speaker A:So you kind of help them to say, well actually if you really want to do more of that, and that's what gives you passion and, and gives you real contentment.
Speaker A:How do you build your career around it?
Speaker A:Rather than I must be senior so I can have more money to do this thing.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:And how do you, how's that kind of evolved in.
Speaker C:Because you spoke a bit about the responsibility of building people, people's careers.
Speaker C:And, and I know we spoke a bit about like kind of like push, pushing and highlighting careers in Insurance especially.
Speaker C:I think there's a.
Speaker C:There's a.
Speaker C:The insurance industry I always talk about it doesn't really do a particularly good job of positioning it as a.
Speaker C:As a place to be.
Speaker C:There's not many people that kind of have gone out and specifically wanted to be in insurance, but maybe slightly less so in banking, more banking, probably a bit better.
Speaker C:Certainly historically they were.
Speaker C:So how has that helped shape that?
Speaker C:Like, you're kind of the.
Speaker C:That.
Speaker C:Do you think there's a responsibility to.
Speaker C:To do that kind of thing?
Speaker C:And how has it helped with that?
Speaker A:There absolutely is.
Speaker A:So lesson insurance.
Speaker A:I'll give an example.
Speaker A: So in the mid-: Speaker A:In investment banking.
Speaker A:It was like 5%.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we actually worked with UCL and built a.
Speaker A:A master's in investment banking technology.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:Which we deliberately targeted at courses that have a higher proportion of women at bachelor's level, numerate degrees.
Speaker A:So, you know, geography, chemistry, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:Because you can have a fantastic career in technology in an investment bank.
Speaker A:And we were really successful in that.
Speaker A:So we had a couple of years when that ran that had over 50% of the intake were women.
Speaker A:So it's kind of how you.
Speaker A:How you use what, you know, to change people's careers and people's lives.
Speaker A:But you have to have the foresight to think about that.
Speaker A:And that's an example of banking.
Speaker A:But I think the same with insurance.
Speaker A:I think we.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:If you go and talk to anyone who's 14 years old now and said, you know, would you want to.
Speaker A:Would you want to be, you know, you're either going to sports or, you know, influencers.
Speaker A:They're the kind of YouTuber.
Speaker A:Yeah, YouTube, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:And that's perfectly good careers.
Speaker A:Yeah, but no one's told them you could.
Speaker A:You could, you know, have a great career either in technology or in insurance or in underwriting, because we.
Speaker A:It.
Speaker A:It's not a.
Speaker A:It's not a visible thing.
Speaker D:No.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:I wanted to move on, like, to, to like I'm always.
Speaker C:So imagine there's.
Speaker C:There's a.
Speaker C:There's a load of people listening to this podcast that are aspiring CIOs and maybe engineers or something like that.
Speaker C:What I'd love to get from you is kind of two or three absolute kind of diamond pieces of, of information and.
Speaker D:Or.
Speaker C:Or advice that, that you've picked up along the way that, that you would say are the kind of.
Speaker C:The two or three things that you, you learn along the way that would be.
Speaker C:Would be great for someone who wants to, who wants to do that.
Speaker A:So I think that the first part is stay technical.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:So have an interest in things that interest you technically, whether that's infrastructure or coding or databases or whatever it is.
Speaker A:Stay technical because it keeps you kind of close to what you're trying to deliver.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:The second thing is going to sound really odd is be really good at Excel and PowerPoint because they're skills which are going to stay with you forever.
Speaker A:I think the third is actually, and technologists are really bad at this is have the confidence to present, practice it, get good at it.
Speaker A:Because translating technology solutions into business problems and then being able to articulate that is a skill in itself.
Speaker A:And I think if you, if you can kind of stay technical but be able to do that translation, you'll go really far in my, in my view, because that, that's, that's sometimes a bit that gets lost as a skill in itself.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And what about the one or two kind of like, things that haven't gone quite so well that you, you really learn from?
Speaker C:I often think that, like, it's normally you.
Speaker C:You learn the most from when things go badly.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:And I don't want to dwell too much on the things that went wrong, but I'm sure there have been one.
Speaker A:Or two things and a thing I would say is that if you think a program or a transformation or a change initiative, if your gut tells you it's not working.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Take the decision early.
Speaker A:And all of us are kind of relatively optimistic and say, I'll give another couple of weeks, it'll be all right.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:If everything is screaming at you, bin it, start again.
Speaker A:That's what you should do.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And there's.
Speaker A:I've got a few examples of that where, you know, you turn up and there's a program that's kind of on its knees and you're like, trying to give it life support, everything is telling you, look, this ain't never going to happen.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But you kind of persevere and actually you should, you should listen to yourself in the first place.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's.
Speaker C:That's so true.
Speaker C:For, like, so many things that happen, happens loads in.
Speaker C:In the recruitment world, the amount of times you kind of think it's gonna.
Speaker C:You keep giving it a chance and chance someone actually, I can't remember who it was.
Speaker C:One of the previous guests in the podcast said that there's a.
Speaker C:There's some real science about kind of if you look at a problem and Spend like a couple of minutes on it.
Speaker C:The answer you'd get after a couple of minutes is normally the answer you get after weeks and weeks of looking at data.
Speaker C:So just, just kind of make the decision and go with it.
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker C:Well, look, we're coming towards the end.
Speaker C:I've got some quick fire questions for you.
Speaker C:I'm going to fire them your way.
Speaker C:So the first one is which brand or company do you most admire and why?
Speaker A:I had to think about this.
Speaker A:I'm going to give you a very, very.
Speaker A:Not the answer you would expect.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:The brand I think I admire the most is Iron Maiden.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:If you, if you think about them, we're going 50 years.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:They have a massive following.
Speaker A:I mean they, they, they had rock and real.
Speaker A:A million people went to it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:They have a recognizable image.
Speaker A:They give their customers exactly what they want.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And they'll be.
Speaker C:Are they your favorite band?
Speaker A:One of my favorite.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:They're going to be around for another 50 years in some guys.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And when you go to an Iron Maiden gig, people, grandchildren, grandparents, take their grandchildren there.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:It's that kind of enduring thing.
Speaker A:And what is great about that is they give their clients what they want every single time.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that's brilliant.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Amazing.
Speaker C:That is definitely a unique one, but really very good.
Speaker C:One piece of advice that you wish someone gave you when you were first.
Speaker A:Starting out, be really good at Excel.
Speaker A:Honestly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Do you know what?
Speaker C:That resonates so much.
Speaker C:So we're digressing a little bit.
Speaker C:But I did a business degree, so I'm not technical.
Speaker C:Although I've ironically dealt with technical people my whole career.
Speaker C:One of the modules in that was basically something to do with it and it was very Excel based.
Speaker C:I assumed that that was the module that I could basically doss about and not really do.
Speaker C:Ironically out of my whole business degree, it's probably the one bit that I could have used the most and I'm not too bad now.
Speaker C:But I often look at that and think, I wish I would have listened more in that and paid more, put more attention.
Speaker A:So I think people forget that as you get more senior, actually you end up doing a lot more admin.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And really a lot more of the admin is being good at producing documents, producing presentations and understanding finance.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Amazing.
Speaker C:If you could swap jobs with a person for the day, who would it be?
Speaker C:The guitarist of Iron Maiden.
Speaker A:I also have this fascination with physics and particle physics.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:So some of Brian Cox.
Speaker A:I've had With Brian Cox for a day.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Getting really into the.
Speaker A:The guts of kind of quantum mechanics and that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:I'm a proper nerd, as you probably guess.
Speaker C:No, no, no, it's not.
Speaker C:I mean I.
Speaker C:I mean I love that guy but almost is like hard to get your head around some of the stuff that.
Speaker A:It's great.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Best kind of business related non fiction book that you've ever read.
Speaker C:Are you a big reader?
Speaker A:I am.
Speaker A:So I think of all the stuff I've read, there's a book called the Examine Life by a chap called Stephen Grosch.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:G R O S said everyone should read that book.
Speaker C:What's it about?
Speaker A:So he is a psychotherapist.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker A:And it's basically there's about a dozen or so clients and he talks about his relationship with the clients and it's a revelation about the power of therapy.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But also just how different people are from what you expect and what shapes and changes people is not what you expect.
Speaker A:It's a really powerful book.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Definitely.
Speaker C:I'll check that out.
Speaker C:If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about insurance, what would it be?
Speaker A:I think goes back to what we're talking about turning in turn it into an industry that people want to come and work for because it.
Speaker A:Nearly everyone I've worked with an insurance ended up doing it after they did something else.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:We've got a great apprentice program.
Speaker A:We should do more of that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:It's a great industry to kind of build a career in.
Speaker C:What do you mean?
Speaker C:It's a big question.
Speaker C:I don't expect to have the kind of perfect answer.
Speaker C:But what, what, what, what do you think is like what, what, what does it do?
Speaker C:But why doesn't it do that?
Speaker C:But because I mean I, I'm fair.
Speaker C:I mean I haven't got the answer either and I've worked in IT for 20 years but.
Speaker C:And of ironically placing people in careers.
Speaker C:But the like I'm forever kind of mind blown of how badly like the industry does it promote in itself and like the kind of it almost needs like a chief marketing officer of the industry.
Speaker A:And I think part of it is.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's when you're growing up insurance is something that you know, your mum or your dad did.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:In terms of, you know they're going to get the house insurance or the car insurance.
Speaker A:There was never any connection to you as a child growing up through that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I think if you teach people that, you know what many businesses couldn't function without having insurance at the back end.
Speaker A:Many times, you know, you look at hurricanes or earthquakes, what brings entire cities back is the fact that people paid out the insurance.
Speaker A:I think that's really interesting but I don't think we promote it enough, I don't think we talk about it enough.
Speaker A:It's tricky because, you know, there are much more interesting industries but in terms of, in terms of social revolution.
Speaker A:Relevance.
Speaker A:Sorry.
Speaker A:Insurance is a, is a big part of society.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker C:Second Last 1 person you most admire in the world and why.
Speaker A:So I thought about this and I don't know his surname but I know his first name.
Speaker A:His name's Darren.
Speaker A:He's a paramedic.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:Recently there was a member of my family needed an ambulance and this chap Darren came along.
Speaker A:He was absolutely, absolutely brilliant.
Speaker A:I mean I couldn't fault everything he said and everything he did and he caused the member of my family much less anxiety and pain.
Speaker A:And I think to myself it takes a very special person to be, to be a paramedic.
Speaker A:And yeah, he, he's, he's probably gonna, yeah after he's done that he's gonna go and there'll be a fight outside a pub or there'll be a car accident.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's got to go there not knowing what he's going to expect.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's, that's just a, I think that's a massively underpaid, massively underappreciated job and that, that I think, yeah, unsung hero.
Speaker C:There's probably quite a few Darrens out there as well.
Speaker C:The final one, as always, what's the best thing about working in insurance?
Speaker A:People.
Speaker A:And I think it's, it's, it's because the, the people in there are all there because they want to be there.
Speaker A:I mean any of us could leave and kind of work in a different industry but most people who turn up there spend 20, 30, 40 years working in insurance.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean at working in technology.
Speaker A:I mean I work with, you know, likes of Google, Microsoft, that kind of thing.
Speaker A:There's very few people who work in Microsoft that used to work in insurance went to Microsoft.
Speaker A:There's lots of people work in insurance that came from Microsoft.
Speaker A:So there's a, there's a.
Speaker A:Once you're in.
Speaker A:Yeah you kind of stay and you build networks and it's a great place to work.
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:It's funny isn't it, because it's often seen as kind of a bit of a negative that people end up they're doing their whole career in insurance is like they've kind of like life in it.
Speaker C:But actually that, that should be kind of seen as like people want to stay in it if it wasn't a good place and they wouldn't want to stay there.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Well, what a great way to finish.
Speaker C:Look, thank you so much for the time.
Speaker C:Three years after the, the first recommendation we got around to doing it, I'm sure there'll be some people that, that want to connect and stuff.
Speaker C:LinkedIn.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:To connect and.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And actually interestingly, if I don't know how it works with your coach and stuff like that, if people want to find out more about that, is there like way that they can get in touch?
Speaker A:Drop me a message on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:I mean I did, I did the MSC at Birkbeck.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think it's still, still called career management and counseling.
Speaker A:The, the team, the, the teaching team there are fantastic.
Speaker A:Go and check it out.
Speaker C:Yeah, amazing.
Speaker C:Okay, well look, if you want to connect with both of us, you know how.
Speaker C:And there's plenty more episodes coming as usual.
Speaker C:Connect with us like comments, comment, subscribe and we will catch you again next time.
Speaker C:Avinda, thanks.
Speaker A:Thank you very much.
Speaker B:And that's it for today's episode of beyond the Desk.
Speaker B: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.
Speaker B:If you liked what you heard, don't forget to hit like and make sure you subscribe so you'll never miss an episode.
Speaker B:There are plenty more to come every single Monday and if you're feeling really generous, please leave us a review and share it with your colleagues.
Speaker B:It really helps others find the show.
Speaker B:If you're hungry for more stories from the leaders shaping the future of insurance and Insurtech, be sure to stay connected with me on LinkedIn, where I'll be sharing upcoming guest info and more behind the scenes footage from this episode and all the others coming up.
Speaker B:Thanks again for tuning in and I'll catch you next time for another inspiring conversation.
Speaker B:Until then, take care and keep pushing the limits of what's possible in your own career.
Speaker B:This podcast is sponsored by Invector Search, the brand new search solution to guide you in finding the best insurance leadership talent globally.
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