Episode 1

Innovation and Leadership in Insurance Tech with Giles Baxter, CIO Europe at Brown & Brown

In this episode of Beyond the Desk, host Mark Thomas sits down with Giles Baxter, CIO for Europe at Brown & Brown, to explore his remarkable career journey in technology, transformation, and leadership within the insurance sector.

Giles shares his personal story, from starting in chemistry to entering tech by chance and how he navigated roles at Accenture, RSA, and other pivotal organisations. He dives into his experiences leading complex transformations, driving innovation, and embracing the unique challenges of merging diverse teams within a rapidly evolving insurance industry.

Listeners will gain valuable insights into:

  • The importance of curiosity, adaptability, and taking risks in career growth.
  • Building relationships and leveraging networks to unlock new opportunities.
  • The evolving role of the CIO, from managing infrastructure to driving business strategy and innovation.
  • The challenges and rewards of integrating businesses during rapid growth.
  • Practical advice for aspiring technology leaders, including how to align technology investments with business goals.

Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out in insurance, Giles’ story is packed with lessons on leadership, adaptability, and achieving impactful results.

Never miss an episode of Beyond the Desk! New episodes drop every Tuesday. Subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with your colleagues to help others discover inspiring stories from leaders in insurance and Insurtech.

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Beyond the Desk is powered by Invecta Search. The brand-new leadership search product from Invecta Group aimed at leadership hires in the global insurance sector. For more information, check out the Invecta Group LinkedIn page here.

Transcript
Mark Thomas:

Foreign.

Giles Baxter:

Hello and welcome to beyond the.

Speaker C:

Desk, the podcast where I take a.

Giles Baxter:

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.

Giles Baxter:

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.

Giles Baxter:

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.

Giles Baxter:

But it's not just about their successes.

Giles Baxter:

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.

Speaker C:

Whether you're just starting out or looking.

Giles Baxter:

To level up your career in the insurance or insuretech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.

Giles Baxter:

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

Speaker C:

Giles, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker C:

How you doing?

Mark Thomas:

Morning, Mark.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, very well, thanks.

Speaker C:

Good stuff.

Speaker C:

Right.

Speaker C:

So like, I always think like we'll go through the whole career and stuff like that, but, but like, I guess let's just.

Speaker C:

And we'll probably go right back to the, to the start and kind of work our way through it kind of chronologically.

Speaker C:

But before I do that, let's just do a bit of an intro if you'd like to just introduce yourself and what you're all about and company job, etc.

Speaker C:

And we'll go from there.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, very good.

Mark Thomas:

Giles Baxter, CIO for Europe for Brown and Brown.

Mark Thomas:

So we're a large US based insurance broker and I run technology for our operations across Europe.

Speaker C:

Good stuff.

Speaker C:

How long have you been there?

Mark Thomas:

A year now.

Mark Thomas:

So I started at the beginning this year.

Mark Thomas:

So just coming up to the end of my first year.

Speaker D:

Cool.

Speaker C:

How's it gone?

Mark Thomas:

Busy?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, definitely busy.

Mark Thomas:

It's been great.

Mark Thomas:

Really enjoyed it.

Mark Thomas:

It suits me really well and it's quite nice.

Mark Thomas:

It's nice at this time of year to just reflect on the year that's gone by, look forward to the year ahead.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, we've come a long way.

Mark Thomas:

We've got a lot of exciting stuff ahead of us.

Speaker C:

So I like to say, I like to go all the way back to the start.

Speaker C:

So like my, my first kind of question really is, is how did you.

Speaker C:

What did it look like?

Speaker C:

We were talking just before about your kids being at university and stuff like that.

Speaker C:

What, what did that look like for you?

Speaker C:

Were you always into tech right from, from a young age or was it kind of a gradual evolution?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, so I, I started chemistry was what I was into, into university, did a chemistry degree, ran up some debts at uni like everybody else does and went through the, through, through the milk round.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Applied to a whole load of different people and the, the one who could help me pay my debts off fastest, unashamedly, was Anderson Consulting at the time.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So I took the job there.

Mark Thomas:

They, they send your, your first six to 12 weeks of learning what you're doing.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Sat me in front of a computer and said, we're going to teach you to code.

Mark Thomas:

Wasn't sure I was expecting that.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So a bit of an accident, to be honest, but I enjoyed it.

Mark Thomas:

I got on all right with it and, and had a great, great time with Accenture.

Mark Thomas:

So that's how I fell into it.

Speaker C:

Were you, did they do anything through that process to kind of figure out whether or not that would be what you would be good at?

Speaker C:

Because I get.

Speaker C:

Were you.

Speaker C:

Because I guess if you were into chemistry, you weren't.

Speaker C:

You weren't overly kind of tech savvy before that or into any kind of specific kind of tech related stuff computer wise?

Mark Thomas:

No, I mean, they took a really broad range.

Mark Thomas:

So you start with 30 of you.

Speaker C:

Right, okay.

Mark Thomas:

And call that start group.

Mark Thomas:

And we were from a broad range of subjects.

Mark Thomas:

We had English students, history students, some, some very sharp mathematicians, a few scientists.

Mark Thomas:

So we were kind of all over the spectrum.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

And it's great.

Mark Thomas:

I mean, interestingly, we, we met up on our 30th year anniversary as a start group just earlier, a couple of months ago.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So still in contact with all those?

Mark Thomas:

Still in contact with them.

Mark Thomas:

You know, we all started together, we all went through our training together.

Mark Thomas:

Amazing.

Mark Thomas:

And it starts building that network.

Mark Thomas:

But it's amazing to see what people have done as well.

Mark Thomas:

So still, some still with Accenture as it is now.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Others out in industry, others doing completely different careers, but actually all quite successful in what they're doing.

Mark Thomas:

So they seem to do quite well at picking out people who had energy, who were driven, I think was the main characteristic they were looking for.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I mean, they certainly had.

Speaker C:

In my line of work, you always used to think people that went into kind of extension, stuff like that in the early years, they used to kind of churn out really good people whether they stayed at Accenture or not.

Speaker C:

So they've obviously got something, a kind of a method to bring in but that's interesting.

Speaker C:

How did you, how did you find that?

Speaker C:

How did you.

Speaker C:

Obviously took to the, the tech world relatively quickly and stuck with it.

Speaker C:

But was that, was that kind of easy to pick up for you or is it, is it something that you, you had to work at?

Mark Thomas:

They were very structured in, in how they developed you.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Which was great.

Mark Thomas:

I did best part, 10 years there.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

I think I probably got about 20 years experience.

Mark Thomas:

So they, they do work you very hard and long, but in a very structured way.

Mark Thomas:

It was very up and out at the time.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But you get a load of exposure, so that was great.

Mark Thomas:

So you go from coding to running coding teams to then going, well, do you want to go up a deeply technical path or do you want to go up a management path?

Mark Thomas:

So that that's almost your first career choice for me was going, I want to be more managerial than technical.

Mark Thomas:

And then you go from small teams to teams of teams to leading jobs, to managing the relationship with the customer.

Mark Thomas:

Structured and a great and accelerated career path.

Speaker C:

Did you, did you stay there for how long were you there for then doing that?

Speaker C:

Because it sounds like you went up through the, the levels while you, while you were there.

Mark Thomas:

About 10 years, actually.

Speaker C:

Oh, wow.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, so a good, good old stint.

Mark Thomas:

So I learned my craft in, in depth.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Which is, which is really helpful and I think that still comes through in, in some of the stuff I do today, particularly as you're doing more around the kind of exec table of how you present ideas, how you, how you think and structure your work.

Mark Thomas:

And particularly as you're scaling, being able to scale, how you structure what you do, that's really important.

Mark Thomas:

And that, that comes right back from those kind of early days of going through a structured environment, I think.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So talk, talk me through the.

Speaker C:

So, so when you left there kind of 10 years in what, what kind of position and role were you doing then?

Speaker C:

Have you evolved from the, the hands on code in stuff to doing something more senior kind of leadership stuff there, or was it further down the line that you kind of took on the more leadership type positions?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I kind of got my pigeonhole.

Mark Thomas:

What I became known for, if you like, was big difficult programs, typically under a little bit of duress.

Mark Thomas:

So there were always kind of two or three programs going on within Accenture that were the big scale ones that were a little bit difficult and they're the ones I tended to get sent away to in the insurance sector.

Mark Thomas:

So you kind of fall into a sector in the beginning.

Mark Thomas:

My first customer, I got Sent to happened to be an insurance customer and then you fit within the insurance vertical and round you go.

Mark Thomas:

But I ended up on the big scale program.

Mark Thomas:

So whether that was Scott Ek legal in general Pearl Assurances, it was the big transformation programs and you just run bigger and bigger teams in solution delivery.

Mark Thomas:

So software development typically.

Mark Thomas:

So I'm more of a software than an infrastructure guy.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Typically I'd have kind of the, the architects reporting direct in, but then run squads and tribes of people across that.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So what, what was the, the kind of catalyst after 10 years for you to, to move on from there?

Speaker C:

And what did that, what did that look like when you, when you did.

Mark Thomas:

It was kind of the first wave of Internet, really.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So lots, lots of startups.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, lots, lots of my mates going, we've got to a certain point within this world, did I want to carry on just doing more and more scale away from home failing programs or did I want to give a, give an Internet startup a go and an opportunity came up.

Mark Thomas:

So I thought now or never.

Mark Thomas:

Good, good point.

Mark Thomas:

In your career.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Right, so.

Mark Thomas:

As well.

Mark Thomas:

So hadn't fully settled down yet, had the ability to go and try something different.

Mark Thomas:

So I thought, yes, it's the right time for me, I want to do that.

Mark Thomas:

So I went and joined an Internet startup.

Speaker C:

Okay, so what was that?

Speaker C:

What was that company and what was the role?

Mark Thomas:

So that was Actress.

Speaker C:

All right.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So it was the startup team at Actress.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So they had funding, they had an idea, they had a design, they roughly knew the software they wanted to deliver and who with and then needed somebody to be their development director.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So I came in and ran the development of the Actress product delivery for the first two releases.

Speaker C:

Yeah, okay.

Mark Thomas:

Which was again pretty cool.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

And again change as well.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, massive, massive, massive.

Mark Thomas:

It was good.

Mark Thomas:

I think there were about 20 of us when I joined.

Speaker C:

Right.

Speaker C:

Wow.

Mark Thomas:

We had our software engineering offshore to South Africa.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And again, you'll see a bit of a theme emerge here.

Mark Thomas:

But the Actress alumni for the startup team we met last month as well.

Mark Thomas:

So we got our pre Christmas drinks in.

Mark Thomas:

So that team that started it up, incredibly tight again, all doing different things, but successful in what they do.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But a very small, very focused, very driven team to get that software out.

Mark Thomas:

Great times, actually.

Speaker C:

Is that, is that, is that just because of the bond you think you, you build in like a kind of a startup type environment like you like?

Speaker C:

I mean I listen to quite a lot of podcasts as well and you hear about the.

Speaker C:

I Was recently listening to the.

Speaker C:

The Story of Netflix actually like the book and the bond those people got from kind of put in late nights and all that kind of stuff is something, it's kind of almost akin to kind of when you go to university with people and stuff like that.

Speaker C:

Is it, was it, is it that kind of thing?

Speaker C:

And is, is that, is that really what you wanted, having come out from a, a big firm like Accenture?

Speaker C:

That must have been a real kind of culture shock going from like a, a huge business like that to something that's a lot more, A lot more kind of smaller startup, a lot less structured.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it is very different.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, very different.

Mark Thomas:

But you are a highly capable team.

Mark Thomas:

You do pull some incredibly long hours together and you're all in it and fully into it together.

Mark Thomas:

I remember performance testing.

Mark Thomas:

So the way we performance test the first release of the software is we'd get the whole organization in 8:00 in the evening.

Mark Thomas:

We'd all hit the quote button at the same time and watch the application fall over on the floor.

Mark Thomas:

But you know, you've got the whole office in there's all of you there.

Mark Thomas:

You're all tight.

Mark Thomas:

You all know exactly what's going on.

Mark Thomas:

We did a lot of traveling to South Africa together because that's where the software was built.

Mark Thomas:

So you're spending a lot of your downtime with people as well.

Mark Thomas:

So you build a real trust, respect, tight bonds with people.

Speaker C:

Yeah, and they persist as well.

Speaker C:

South Africa, for a couple of, couple of trips there was.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it was Joburg, not Cape Town.

Mark Thomas:

So you had to be a little bit careful.

Mark Thomas:

But, but again, we have the story about eating kilo steaks when we were out there, because that was like your rite of passage to join the team.

Mark Thomas:

And typically when we meet up, we'll go out to steakhouse and you know, the old stories will come out and you, you've just got those shared stories together that are really powerful and bond you together.

Speaker C:

So how long did you do that for?

Mark Thomas:

I think that was three years.

Mark Thomas:

Okay, so a year and a half to get the first release out and then get the second and the third release out.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So that was then all about just scaling the, the application.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

And so what, what was the, the kind of jump, I guess, jumping forward when, when did it evolve then into being a, a kind of a CIO leadership?

Speaker C:

Is that, was that at that point were you kind of thinking that was what you always wanted to do and then, and, and did that kind of just.

Speaker C:

Or did that just organically Happen.

Speaker C:

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker C:

Like, did you always have your eyes set on kind of the overall leadership role in tech?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I think I did actually.

Mark Thomas:

So that, that formed up kind of post actress time is going well.

Mark Thomas:

I do enjoy tech and I enjoy the leadership side of it so.

Mark Thomas:

Well, what's, what's the role where you have all of the leadership and you're making the final decision on the tech and.

Mark Thomas:

Well, that's the CIO role.

Mark Thomas:

So I thought I'd like to give that a go at some stage.

Mark Thomas:

So I did a bit of research around.

Mark Thomas:

There was a paper the DNA of a CIO and what are the different skills you need to have to do it?

Mark Thomas:

And it just gently helps guide your career to go well.

Mark Thomas:

There needs to be a bit of strategy, there needs to be a bit of running service, you need to be commercial, you need to have great engagement with the business.

Mark Thomas:

Your communication stuff.

Mark Thomas:

You know there were 10 things and as you go through your career going well how, how are you working each of those muscles And I think it's all right to be a bit spiky as well.

Mark Thomas:

I think by the time you get to everyone's a little bit spiky.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

But as long as you're aware of it and you hire a team around you that help fill in your spikes.

Mark Thomas:

But anyway, so, so that, that helped shape kind of what I needed to get there and then my career choices from there gently taken me in that direction.

Speaker C:

So what was the.

Speaker C:

What where did you get, which role did you land the first CIO role sounds at rsa.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So from actress I went to a small consultancy called Project One.

Mark Thomas:

Project One put me in a, in an rsa.

Speaker C:

They used to do this.

Speaker C:

I used to actually do some work with them years ago.

Speaker C:

They used to do kind of the, the way they paid people was quite unique, wasn't it?

Speaker C:

They used to pay based on kind of how they had.

Speaker C:

They did how many your utilization in this country.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

Mark Thomas:

And I think at again I probably hadn't done my due diligence quite enough to understand that wasn't, wasn't a great model for me at the time of my life I was in.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Speaker C:

I used to hire lots of people from Accenture and stuff like Big four consulting people.

Mark Thomas:

But they were great.

Mark Thomas:

Again sending out typically fix on fail projects.

Mark Thomas:

One or two people very.

Mark Thomas:

You're on your own, you're in it, you're accountable.

Mark Thomas:

So you, you grow up pretty fast.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And you learn to be self sufficient.

Mark Thomas:

And again, you're, you're doing, you're in, in front of customers.

Mark Thomas:

So that was great.

Speaker C:

I'd imagine that had been quite a good fit for you as well, because from what I can remember they, they did used to do the, the kind of big challenging programs that were sometimes not going particularly well or stuff like that.

Speaker C:

So that would have fit with your mold that what you, what you kind with.

Speaker C:

With Accenture and stuff like that, I guess.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, did.

Mark Thomas:

So that, that training that you've had through Accenture helps.

Mark Thomas:

That kind of startup mentality helps.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But then you're really on your own.

Speaker C:

Right, right.

Mark Thomas:

You're in, in ones and twos, running programs in, in a client.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And, and the program I ran was.

Mark Thomas:

One of the programs I ran was for rsa.

Mark Thomas:

I.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

I really enjoyed them as a business.

Mark Thomas:

I was working directly for the, for the group CIO at the time.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, they seem to like what I was doing.

Mark Thomas:

And, and so I, I joined them.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

And, and did you join as a CIO straight away or was it, was it a different role and then an evolution?

Speaker C:

Because I think that's a, I mean, we can talk about this again a little bit.

Speaker C:

Again, a bit more detail because you've obviously had multiple CIO roles, but getting that first CIO gig is obviously, once you've got the CIO role, getting the second one third and the fourth one is.

Speaker C:

Becomes easier every time.

Speaker C:

But in theory.

Speaker C:

But I think most people struggle to get that first one.

Speaker C:

So what did that look like for you?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, so I joined Iran's IT strategy and architecture for the group.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

Which was great.

Mark Thomas:

So I got massive exposure right around the group.

Mark Thomas:

Right from the start, the group reorganized.

Mark Thomas:

It reorganized into UK international and emerging markets.

Mark Thomas:

And on the day it reorganized, the kind of the new CEO for emerging markets store was open up.

Mark Thomas:

Popped my head around the door and said to him, hi, Paul, congratulations on your new role, big job, good luck in emerging markets.

Mark Thomas:

And he went, thank you very much.

Mark Thomas:

Who the hell are you and what do you do?

Mark Thomas:

So he sat down, had about 15 minute chat, said, look, I run strategy and architecture.

Mark Thomas:

Give me a call if you ever need a hand.

Mark Thomas:

I'll see what I can do for you.

Mark Thomas:

10 minutes later my phone goes, I need to get a message out to everybody across emerging markets to say who I am, what the agenda is and start getting those communication channels flowing.

Mark Thomas:

It's like, right, that's, that's going to be interesting.

Mark Thomas:

I need it today.

Mark Thomas:

So, so we got that working.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

For him.

Mark Thomas:

And then the phone kept ringing more and more.

Mark Thomas:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

And so I ended up going out and doing.

Mark Thomas:

Just starting to look at the technology around emerging markets.

Mark Thomas:

After about six months of doing that, and that ended up being all I was doing, I went, do you know what?

Mark Thomas:

This is silly.

Mark Thomas:

I have been searching for a.

Mark Thomas:

For a CIO role.

Mark Thomas:

You're kind of doing it anyway.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Do you want the title?

Speaker C:

Amazing.

Mark Thomas:

And.

Mark Thomas:

And that's how I got my first CIO role.

Mark Thomas:

So I.

Mark Thomas:

And I was kind of early to mid-30s at the time.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So quite young for doing that.

Mark Thomas:

Quite young.

Mark Thomas:

Quite bigger job than I realized at the time.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Didn't know what I was doing.

Mark Thomas:

So if I look back on it, they took a real risk on me.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But.

Mark Thomas:

Which was great.

Mark Thomas:

And RSA was very, very good about that.

Mark Thomas:

Again, developing talent, taking a risk, wrapping the right support network around it.

Mark Thomas:

And he was a great mentor and leader.

Mark Thomas:

He didn't know much.

Mark Thomas:

He wasn't a deep technologist, but he knew when I didn't know.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So if I paused when I was talking to you about stuff, you go, you.

Mark Thomas:

You don't know the answer, Giles, do you?

Mark Thomas:

Go away, be sure.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And then come back.

Mark Thomas:

So he managed me very well at a personal level around whether I was confident in what I was doing in tech.

Mark Thomas:

So they were.

Mark Thomas:

And then the Matrix Report was to the group cio, who gives you kind of that.

Mark Thomas:

That technology slant on it.

Mark Thomas:

So very big matrix organization.

Mark Thomas:

And that.

Mark Thomas:

That worked well for me.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

I mean, that's.

Speaker C:

There's a.

Speaker C:

There's a real lesson in there, isn't there?

Speaker C:

Like, kind of.

Speaker C:

But basically be.

Speaker C:

Be inquisitive, be helpful, kind of be friendly.

Speaker C:

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker C:

Like, that all stemmed from you kind of go putting your head around the door and just kind of putting yourself out there basically to try and help someone.

Speaker C:

And it's kind of evolved into you.

Speaker C:

You getting a.

Speaker C:

Probably the catalyst to the last kind of 10 years of your.

Speaker C:

Or the next 10, 15, 20 years of your career, I guess.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

I mean, it seems I've.

Mark Thomas:

I think about that moment quite a lot.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

It's a really good one.

Mark Thomas:

You know, as I on it, knowing what I know now, would.

Mark Thomas:

Would I have made that move?

Mark Thomas:

I'd known quite what he was like and how big the job was and all the rest of it.

Mark Thomas:

And so that for me was a real turning point of just, you know, take taking a risk by putting your head around the door when you could have just walked past having a little Conversation following it up.

Mark Thomas:

And it's almost startup mentality.

Mark Thomas:

We talked a lot.

Mark Thomas:

But you go back to the actress days about start, think big, start small, scale fast.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Think big.

Mark Thomas:

You've got this big role in mind.

Mark Thomas:

Start small.

Mark Thomas:

It's those little conversations.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And.

Mark Thomas:

And then out of that, jump on the opportunities and scale yourself fast.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So what did that evolution from then.

Speaker C:

So obviously we'll, we'll touch a bit more on.

Speaker C:

On some of the.

Speaker C:

The cio.

Speaker C:

Rod and I definitely want to get into the kind of the changing of industry and stuff, but you're at RSA for quite a while.

Speaker C:

Then went to Gallagher's for, for a bit.

Speaker C:

What was that?

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

And.

Speaker C:

And it looks like from.

Speaker C:

Certainly from what I've seen of your profile is that you.

Speaker C:

You kind of evolved into bigger CIO roles as that went on.

Speaker C:

So kind of divisional CIO to more kind of what broader remits to group CIO was that just.

Speaker C:

Did that just kind of all get like.

Speaker C:

I guess you, you liked the CIO role even though it was a challenge and you.

Speaker C:

And you.

Speaker C:

And you kind of wanted to take on more responsibility.

Speaker C:

You kind of found your feet in that role after.

Speaker C:

After doing that.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So I think not, not super planned in terms of the.

Mark Thomas:

Definitely directionally.

Mark Thomas:

For me, every move I've made has needed to directionally make sense.

Mark Thomas:

So if you do the.

Mark Thomas:

The RSA thing, it went from strategy and architecture for the group to CIO for emerging markets.

Mark Thomas:

I then went out with coo.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

For Asia, Middle east.

Mark Thomas:

Lived in Dubai for a year and a half, which was quite fun.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Then came back to the UK and that was the scale job running tech and change for the uk.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And broadly, those are kind of two to three year gigs each.

Speaker D:

Yep.

Mark Thomas:

So it's.

Mark Thomas:

It's building the team, is setting the strategy, building the team and getting the delivery runs on the board.

Mark Thomas:

But then when it moves into it's operating, it's running its steady state, it's a bit less me.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So I.

Mark Thomas:

And I guess some of that kind of again plays back to the startup thing.

Mark Thomas:

I enjoy the change, I enjoy that.

Mark Thomas:

That energy at the beginning and putting energy into the machine and growing a team and setting the strategy.

Mark Thomas:

So by the time I did four years as UK cio, we'd set the strategy, we had it up and running.

Mark Thomas:

It was time for something new for me and that was the move to Gallagher.

Mark Thomas:

So that was out of a carrier and into a broker again.

Mark Thomas:

We'll talk about kind of.

Mark Thomas:

We've talked already.

Mark Thomas:

A little bit about kind of your network.

Mark Thomas:

But again, how did that role come about through my network.

Mark Thomas:

So I got a call from people who are in doing work with Gallagher.

Mark Thomas:

The group CIO with Gallagher was ex Accenture.

Mark Thomas:

We had a conversation.

Mark Thomas:

It clicked really quickly.

Mark Thomas:

They just gone on the buy.

Mark Thomas:

Lots of brokers in the uk.

Mark Thomas:

So the UK had been their heavy investment and it was, how do we bring all of that together?

Mark Thomas:

How do we rebrand it as Gallagher?

Mark Thomas:

How do we bring everybody onto platform and start to build proper presence in Europe?

Mark Thomas:

So that was the role there.

Mark Thomas:

Again, high degree of change.

Mark Thomas:

I like that strong network made sense because it was still leveraging the insurance connections.

Mark Thomas:

And guess what?

Mark Thomas:

I've been a customer of actress at rsa.

Mark Thomas:

I was a customer again, Gallagher.

Mark Thomas:

So never wind people up on the way out because you never know who you're going to come up against again.

Mark Thomas:

And it becomes increasingly small in the insurance.

Mark Thomas:

Insurance world, doesn't it?

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So the moves.

Mark Thomas:

The moves make sense.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

So you mean.

Speaker C:

I think the.

Speaker C:

So again, jumping on a little bit from that.

Speaker C:

Like.

Speaker C:

I mean, there's.

Speaker C:

Because I definitely want to go back to that and understand the differences.

Speaker C:

But what.

Speaker C:

What did you find in the.

Speaker C:

In the differences from going from a carrier to a broker?

Speaker C:

Was it was there.

Speaker C:

I know that.

Speaker C:

I mean, in my mind they wouldn't necessarily be that mistake.

Speaker C:

But was it.

Speaker C:

Was the differences in the industry space or was it more the type of role and the stuff that you were doing, or were they similar roles?

Mark Thomas:

Fairly similar.

Mark Thomas:

The businesses are very different.

Mark Thomas:

So for a carrier, it's scale, it's running on thin margins, you're carrying the risk.

Mark Thomas:

So you need to be a lot more sophisticated about how you're managing the risk.

Mark Thomas:

For broking, it's more of a commission business.

Mark Thomas:

So just the economics works slightly differently.

Mark Thomas:

Brokers are.

Mark Thomas:

With Gallagher and with Brown and Brown, you're doing.

Mark Thomas:

You're acting a bit like a carrier as well in an MGA business.

Mark Thomas:

So there's a lot of similarity there.

Mark Thomas:

But we do more.

Mark Thomas:

We're more commercial bent, we're more specialist bent as opposed to rsa at the time, did a lot of personal lines, which is volume, it's heavy analytics, it's fraud detection.

Mark Thomas:

So it's at scale.

Mark Thomas:

The.

Mark Thomas:

The budgets were bigger.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

The infrastructure was bigger, the scale was bigger.

Mark Thomas:

Whereas what we found in the brokers and particularly the consolidators, which is where we are, you've got a lot of fragmented technology that you're bringing together.

Mark Thomas:

So it's a big consolidation Play or integration.

Mark Thomas:

Simplification play.

Mark Thomas:

And actually there's a really big cultural impact there as well because you're constantly acquiring businesses and you're bringing them in culturally as well as technically.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So by the time your technology journey's underway, that's okay.

Mark Thomas:

It's.

Mark Thomas:

Can you win hearts and minds to get people to want to come onto your platform, to want to use the services you build, to trust that you can deliver a service for them that they can get from that.

Mark Thomas:

The guy who sat in their small business for years and years.

Mark Thomas:

So they're just different cultural challenges, I think was probably the main thing.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

I want to jump forward to the more recent past because I think probably when we got to know each other, you had just moved to rm, which is obviously totally out of there and we've spoke about it before, but I'd really like to get into the mindset of that.

Speaker C:

So tell us a little bit about what that, that, that looked like, why you did that, made that move, what the, what the role was and.

Speaker C:

Etc.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So I, after, after Gallagher, I did.

Mark Thomas:

Did a bit of time kind of wandering around here.

Mark Thomas:

Sure.

Mark Thomas:

We're in Shoreditch.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Wandering around Shoreditch looking at all the startups and, and educated me on that a bit.

Mark Thomas:

I was doing a little bit of fractional work and what I, what I really wanted to do was not do something in insurance.

Speaker D:

Right.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

Why is that?

Mark Thomas:

So I, I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just an insurance cio.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Because I do think the skills are transferable with the right mindset and I wanted to prove that to myself.

Mark Thomas:

So I wanted to do something different.

Mark Thomas:

I wanted to do something with a bit more of a socially worthy badge on it, if you like to give back a little bit more.

Mark Thomas:

And I did a small piece of work for RM again, almost back to the kind of project 1 days ago and they had a project wasn't working very well.

Mark Thomas:

I did some work for them pro bono because I was in a giving back phase and that was important to me.

Speaker C:

What do RM do?

Speaker C:

Like what's their business?

Mark Thomas:

So they were born out of research machines.

Mark Thomas:

They play into education.

Mark Thomas:

They're an ed tech and at the time they did three things.

Mark Thomas:

So they run technology for schools for 3,000 schools across the UK.

Mark Thomas:

The easiest way to describe it, a mini Amazon to school.

Mark Thomas:

So they provide.

Mark Thomas:

The story was if you turned a school upside down and shook it, everything that falls out except the teachers we could provide you.

Mark Thomas:

And the third thing they did was Mark GCSEs and a level papers.

Mark Thomas:

So half the A levels in the UK were marked on RM software.

Mark Thomas:

So we'd collect all the papers in, scan them, distribute them out and manage that whole marking of papers.

Mark Thomas:

So I did a piece of work for them again.

Mark Thomas:

They liked what they saw.

Mark Thomas:

This.

Mark Thomas:

Well, we're kind of looking for a group cio.

Mark Thomas:

Would you do it for a while?

Mark Thomas:

I said, I'll do it for two years for you.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Loved it.

Mark Thomas:

Really enjoyed what we did there.

Mark Thomas:

The first question from my kids was, oh, dad, you mark all the A levels, do you?

Mark Thomas:

Does that mean no?

Mark Thomas:

Absolutely.

Speaker C:

There's an angle.

Mark Thomas:

But it was great.

Mark Thomas:

I went out, I visited all the schools that we.

Mark Thomas:

We supported in.

Mark Thomas:

In our.

Mark Thomas:

In my local community, so got quite connected in with the community.

Speaker D:

Nice.

Mark Thomas:

A whole load of safeguarding going in for children, which was great to see, but really nice for.

Mark Thomas:

For me to be involved back in the education process.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

The big move there was again moving a lot of the infrastructure into cloud.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

What that ended up doing for schools was take a whole load of their infrastructure out of the school.

Mark Thomas:

That allowed them just freed up more space within the school and they get a much better service by having this stuff done at scale than they could if they were doing it themselves.

Mark Thomas:

So the model really did feel Win.

Mark Thomas:

Win.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And I.

Mark Thomas:

I was there when Covid hit.

Speaker C:

Oh, right.

Mark Thomas:

So I was actually due to leave when Covid hit and.

Mark Thomas:

And it hit just as I was about to leave to go to.

Mark Thomas:

To Brown and Brown.

Mark Thomas:

I said to open gi.

Mark Thomas:

I'm.

Mark Thomas:

I'm actually going to need to.

Mark Thomas:

To stay a bit because I need to get these schools and support getting these schools up and running when they're teaching from home overnight.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So it actually went surprisingly smoothly because we'd been on that cloud journey.

Mark Thomas:

The infrastructure was out of the schools already.

Mark Thomas:

All we had to.

Mark Thomas:

That the kids had the devices, of course, at home rather than in the classroom to be able to access all of the remote learning.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Had that been a few years earlier, that would.

Mark Thomas:

I guess that would have been a shocker.

Mark Thomas:

Would have been a shocker.

Mark Thomas:

And a lot of schools did find it difficult, but for us, we could get those schools up and running overnight as long as the kids had their devices.

Mark Thomas:

And that was almost the part I played in Covid.

Mark Thomas:

I felt great about that and it was really nice to be part of it, but again, it was a bit.

Mark Thomas:

We had a couple of weeks that felt a bit startupy, like where everyone was in the whole time just Making sure it all went smoothly.

Mark Thomas:

But again, a bonding experience, a great experience.

Mark Thomas:

I've.

Mark Thomas:

I've got some friends and some people I stay in touch with out of that great experience.

Speaker C:

What, what were the.

Speaker C:

What did you find?

Speaker C:

Is that you mean.

Speaker C:

I'm sure there's a whole heap of differences, but like going back to what you said about the transferable skills, did you find that it was transferable like, or was there?

Speaker C:

They're kind of a steep learning curve for you.

Speaker C:

How was the change?

Speaker C:

Because I think lots of people in your position there would probably stay doing insurance CIO or at least financial services CIO roles for the entirety of the rest of their career.

Speaker C:

And they probably wouldn't challenge themselves to go and do something different certainly once they've landed that cio, maybe early in their career.

Speaker C:

So what was that like?

Mark Thomas:

So you think there are a whole bunch of things that are transferable.

Mark Thomas:

How you structure your thinking, how you structure your team, how you manage the commerciality of your function.

Mark Thomas:

All of that still works.

Mark Thomas:

There are some real differences in kind of the products and the technologies that we deploy.

Mark Thomas:

So you need to get into that.

Mark Thomas:

I'll give you an example in a second.

Mark Thomas:

And the next one is.

Mark Thomas:

And your customer base is radically different.

Speaker C:

Yeah, of course.

Mark Thomas:

So you have to get out in front of your customers.

Mark Thomas:

So for me it was really important.

Mark Thomas:

I went out, I spent time in the schools, I spent time in my kids schools who we have to provide services into.

Mark Thomas:

That was eye opening, seeing it from the other side.

Mark Thomas:

But you've got to be curious about that stuff.

Mark Thomas:

So you've got to be curious about your customers.

Mark Thomas:

It's vitally important.

Mark Thomas:

You've got to be able to build trust with them.

Mark Thomas:

Again, working that muscle or wanting to do that, you need to do that wherever you go.

Mark Thomas:

It just happens to be you're learning a different set of customer priorities and what's important to them.

Mark Thomas:

So that sounds.

Mark Thomas:

Well, the other bit was the technologies were very different.

Mark Thomas:

So I know we all talk about AI at the moment, but if you go back to the time at rm, we were doing some pretty cool stuff with machine learning.

Mark Thomas:

So we'd got to the point in our marking business where we could mark handwritten A level English papers more consistently and accurately through machines than we could through human markers.

Speaker D:

Right.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

Now the world culturally wasn't quite ready to let their kids papers be marked by a computer, but you could massively accelerate what we were doing and apply some, some quality control across the top through that kind of tooling.

Mark Thomas:

So again, a Very different set of products we were using to create that within a, within an education environment.

Mark Thomas:

But the architectural skills of plugging stuff together, assessing the right products to fit are all very transferable.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So I think the skills are transferable but you have to be curious about the environment you're deploying them in.

Speaker C:

I think that word you use there a couple of times about being curious, I think that's quite common in lots of people I've interviewed on podcasts about just the way that you should be really and handling those kind of situations.

Speaker C:

But it's interesting that you so, so like I don't think most people would necessarily when, when they think of innovation and stuff like that would necessarily think of education as where, where that there would be lots of technology innovation.

Speaker C:

But when you actually talk about that kind of there's, there's a whole heap of stuff that can be done there to, to modernize, isn't there?

Speaker C:

Like in, in comparison to.

Speaker C:

So it's.

Speaker C:

So yeah, I mean it's.

Speaker C:

I bet it was quite an interesting journey.

Speaker C:

But what, what was the, what was the catalyst then for you wanting to, to kind of of come back semi into insurance?

Speaker C:

Because I know you went, you left there and then came into a software provider.

Speaker C:

So it's probably similar to the actuary stuff, although maybe a bigger bit bigger business this time.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I said I'd do two years.

Mark Thomas:

So I did my two years and said it's important you find somebody who's going to take.

Mark Thomas:

So I've kind of moved you up a gear.

Mark Thomas:

I've done it's time for you to find somebody else.

Mark Thomas:

And I had a phone call from Open gi.

Mark Thomas:

So again similar space to what I kind of known for software product company playing into insurance brokers private equity backed this time.

Mark Thomas:

So I'd always wanted to do a PE gig that kind of ticked a box for me and moved there in Covid completely remote in terms of the whole onboarding interviewing process.

Mark Thomas:

Six months before I even met anyone physically from Open gi.

Mark Thomas:

But again a very interesting point in their journey where we had a bunch of heritage product sets worked very well, brokers loved them but then wanted to build next generation product and build it properly cloud native and the guys there had secured the funding and support of the P parent to do that and they just said well if you're going to do it and we're going to give you the money to do it, you, you need somebody who's going to give you a good chance of doing it.

Mark Thomas:

And so they, they looked around, they Couldn't find anyone so they phoned me up.

Mark Thomas:

So, but, so yeah, so it was great.

Mark Thomas:

I had again a lot of interviews with the PE House as well as the leadership team at Open GI and then we ended up bringing ThoughtWorks in to help us do that.

Mark Thomas:

So again, selecting Top Draw partners to help us not only build the software but to rebuild our, our engineering capability in a very pure agile way.

Mark Thomas:

So we had cloud native microservice API enabled built with very pure cloud.

Mark Thomas:

We used the Spotify model.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Engineering and it worked really well.

Mark Thomas:

So that opportunity to do something transformational for them and build modern software for an industry that's not typically known for modern software.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, that, that was a real cool opportunity for me.

Mark Thomas:

So that, that was a no brainer.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

I mean and then, and then the final one to take you to where you are now.

Speaker C:

I'm, I'm guessing that that Brown and Brown wanted to do something fairly big and challenging otherwise it probably wouldn't have got you excited.

Speaker C:

But what, what made you, what made you move back into the, the kind of core insurance world.

Mark Thomas:

So again for Brown and Brown, they've, they've been on an acquisition trail across Europe.

Speaker D:

Yep.

Mark Thomas:

They're a high growth broker, very high quality business.

Speaker D:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Had always looked at them and thought they're interesting.

Mark Thomas:

I wonder how they do that.

Mark Thomas:

And they had, they've been on an acquisition spree across Europe growing incredibly fast.

Mark Thomas:

ean I think if you go back to:

Mark Thomas:

If you go forwards to where we are now, 50 times that and on a massive, massive growth curve.

Mark Thomas:

an organization at the end of:

Mark Thomas:

That's kind of step one.

Mark Thomas:

But then step two is very much continue that growth and acquisition trail.

Mark Thomas:

And you've seen that we announced.

Mark Thomas:

When was it?

Mark Thomas:

1st of November I think it was that we've acquired a 700 person brokerage out in the Netherlands called Quintus.

Mark Thomas:

Again, a very high quality business.

Mark Thomas:

We're starting to have scale in Europe, not just the uk and that's a super exciting journey to be on.

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Giles Baxter:

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

Speaker C:

What's the what's the kind of the the big kind of challenge for you now then?

Speaker C:

Like what what made you apart from obviously the business side of things, what's the kind of big technology challenge for you over the next few years?

Mark Thomas:

So I think that the first challenge is bring those businesses together and bring them onto platform common security layer, common infrastructure layer in the cloud.

Mark Thomas:

So this year we brought two and a half thousand people onto our cloud platform, two and a half thousand teammates onto our cloud platform.

Mark Thomas:

So that's a scale provision of infrastructure.

Mark Thomas:

And then what we're looking for is around our three main business units.

Mark Thomas:

So retail, mga, wholesale, what's our application strategy around each of those around simplifying the application strategy.

Mark Thomas:

So you buy every business, it comes with a policy admin system, you end up with tons of them.

Mark Thomas:

How do we consolidate that?

Mark Thomas:

So we've got simplification journeys running across all three of those businesses.

Mark Thomas:

Then as you roll forward we're talking about how do we change the mix of where we're investing our change money.

Mark Thomas:

So the mix we talk about is run change innovate.

Mark Thomas:

So we go back to that innovation point we talked about earlier.

Mark Thomas:

If you talk about we talk about kind of bringing people onto platform, whether it's our security platform, our infrastructure platform, our core admin system platform that that for us is a kind of a part of a run investment.

Mark Thomas:

So as we go forward into next year, how are we shifting our mix into change and transform and that's much more around the data platforms that we're building and much more around the Customer journeys and portals that we're building.

Mark Thomas:

And then you go beyond that and start looking at sales leadership and CRM.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So shifting the mix, that's the important bit for us.

Mark Thomas:

And being able to free up money out of the kind of running of the business into changing and innovating for the business.

Speaker C:

Interesting.

Speaker C:

So I guess I wanted to.

Speaker C:

One of the things that I was interested about.

Speaker C:

You've obviously had lots of different CIO roles over a decent chunk of time.

Speaker C:

You mentioned about that, the DNA of a cio.

Speaker C:

Do you think that's.

Speaker C:

What do you think the DNA of a good CIO is now in comparison to what.

Speaker C:

What it used to be?

Speaker C:

Do you think it's changed?

Mark Thomas:

That's a good question.

Mark Thomas:

Yes, I think it has.

Mark Thomas:

So I think a CIO position now is.

Mark Thomas:

It's a lot more core on the exec leadership team than it would have been at the beginning.

Speaker C:

Right, okay.

Mark Thomas:

All right.

Mark Thomas:

So for me, if you go back to the beginning, it was more about just.

Mark Thomas:

Just make sure when we turn the taps on, the water comes out.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, right.

Mark Thomas:

One of the things I love about Brown and Brown is we talk about.

Mark Thomas:

We got five pillars as to how we're going to achieve that strategy of doubling our business.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Organic growth, inorganic growth, customer people and our teammates and our talent, and then using technology with purpose.

Mark Thomas:

Right, right.

Mark Thomas:

So I think technology's very much become.

Mark Thomas:

It's a key pillar in how every business is a tech business now.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, right.

Mark Thomas:

And the CIO has a proper seat at the table, and that's the type of business I look for, that recognizes that where you are the business, you're part of the business, you're driving it, you're commercial.

Mark Thomas:

I just happen to run the technology function.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So actually, my view of a CIO is increasingly business savvy, increasingly being asked to help drive the business forward.

Mark Thomas:

Less about, just make sure that the data flows and the water comes out the taps when you turn them on.

Mark Thomas:

And I think that changes how you need to be and present as a person.

Mark Thomas:

You need to be part of that business and energized and trusted and respected.

Mark Thomas:

And so that's important.

Mark Thomas:

So I think more of the softer skills you need to come through the technology skills and into the softer people skills.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I thought that was what you're going to say.

Speaker C:

I mean, it's an interesting one because one of the things that.

Speaker C:

I mean, look, lots of people that listen to the podcast will be people that are aspiring to be a cio, Right.

Speaker C:

They might be in that kind of architecture role.

Speaker C:

Like you before, do you think it's now even more important that people understand how the business works and they want.

Speaker C:

And I guess they're just focusing a bit more on how technology can drive growth and stuff like that, rather than, like you said, keeping the lights on and just keeping things working.

Speaker C:

Is that kind of critically important now, do you think?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I think it's vital.

Mark Thomas:

So I'm through my first year and a big part is the change in kind of mindset within the whole team in technology is trying to understand how everything you do every day is linked through those golden threads into the organizational goals and how it's creating value for the organization.

Mark Thomas:

So understand the work you're doing and understand how that work creates value.

Mark Thomas:

And if the work's not creating value, value, why are you doing it anyway?

Mark Thomas:

So that constantly questioning how am I creating value through technology is really important.

Mark Thomas:

It's not about creating architecturally pure ivory tower solutions, it's about how are you producing solutions the business want to use that creates value for the end customer.

Mark Thomas:

How are you developing yourself and bringing all of yourself to work and enjoying your work?

Mark Thomas:

Because if you're enjoying your work, you'll want to do it.

Mark Thomas:

You understand how it creates value.

Mark Thomas:

You're progressing, you're enjoying where you're working.

Mark Thomas:

All of that stuff is vital.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I guess that kind of segues quite nicely onto like I, I'm always really interested in, in what the, the kind of 2, 3, 4 key snippets of advice you would give to someone.

Speaker C:

So if you, if you were to kind of look at your, your previous self or someone that was, was aspiring to get their first CIO gig?

Speaker C:

What's the, what are the kind of few bits of advice you've picked up over the years that you would give to someone wanting to take on that role?

Mark Thomas:

So I think we've taught be curious a lot.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

I think that's really important.

Mark Thomas:

Be curious.

Mark Thomas:

Understand the business.

Mark Thomas:

Understand how the business makes money, delivers for customers.

Mark Thomas:

So understand your customers, understand your business.

Mark Thomas:

Be curious, engage.

Mark Thomas:

I think the bit for me that's worked quite well is the ability to translate the technology into business speak and translate the business goals down into the technology team.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So you've got to be able to act well on that interface and translate.

Mark Thomas:

That's important.

Mark Thomas:

I think we talked about that turning point around.

Mark Thomas:

Me just popping my head around the door and taking that risk.

Mark Thomas:

So do take risks.

Mark Thomas:

What's the worst that can happen?

Mark Thomas:

So take risks.

Mark Thomas:

If I go back to the early days of my career, I used to think it was all about delivering the results.

Mark Thomas:

And it wasn't so much about the how you delivered them, but your results would speak for themselves, Right?

Mark Thomas:

Yes.

Mark Thomas:

You've got to deliver the results, but the how is really important as well.

Mark Thomas:

Okay, so it's not just the what, it's the how you do it.

Speaker C:

When you say how, like give some more context on that simple thing.

Mark Thomas:

Do you smile when you come into work?

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

A silly thing.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Do the business seek you out and ask you for your advice or do they go, I don't want to talk to Giles.

Mark Thomas:

Whenever I come away, I'm more confused than when I left.

Mark Thomas:

If I talk to Giles, does stuff get done?

Mark Thomas:

Does he care about it?

Mark Thomas:

Does he understand my business?

Mark Thomas:

So that being not only respected for that you can do stuff and you know your subject matter, but trusted at a personal level as well, goes a little bit back to the great teams you worked for and the fellowship you created.

Mark Thomas:

But trust and respect.

Mark Thomas:

So be, be, be respected and trusted.

Mark Thomas:

Enjoy going out for a beer or, or a glass of wine or whatever with the relax and enjoy the company of the people you work with.

Mark Thomas:

When you've cracked that and you've.

Mark Thomas:

And you take a few risks and you're curious and you're delivering great results when you've cracked it, haven't you?

Speaker C:

Yeah, I mean, I think that relationship things often underestimated, isn't it like that?

Speaker C:

The relationships with the people that you're actually working with and delivering to more senior team, et cetera.

Speaker C:

Is that the people part?

Speaker C:

It's really key, isn't it?

Speaker C:

I think if you don't get that right, then I think you're always going to struggle.

Speaker C:

At least if, then if you make mistakes, you've got people on side.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And we can have a rep, can't we?

Mark Thomas:

As technologists.

Mark Thomas:

Always a bit of a black art, dark art.

Mark Thomas:

Don't come here, don't worry about it, we'll fix it all for you.

Mark Thomas:

But I think making it transparent and understandable is really important.

Speaker D:

Important, yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Because the guys, they, they invest heavily in their technology.

Mark Thomas:

It's really important.

Mark Thomas:

They do like to understand where the money's going and how it's creating value and feel like they've come away from a conversation, lifted up rather than, oh, don't I feel even more in the dark than when I started.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, that's really important.

Speaker C:

What about you?

Speaker C:

And maybe it kind of sits under the kind of be curious kind of banner, but what about the variety, because I think that's, that's one thing that, that really is noticeable about your, your career is that you, I appreciate lots of them are in and around insurance, but, but you've, you've taken risks in, in the roles that you've gone to as well to, to kind of stretch your, your knowledge and your experience and stuff like that.

Speaker C:

You mean, do you think that's really important and, and do you think that variety in the part in your past career has, has been a, has been a benefit to what you've, you've ended up.

Speaker C:

Up doing now?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So it's important for me.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, you're right.

Mark Thomas:

I've always.

Mark Thomas:

There's a theme, there's a story you can tell from the, the journey of the direction it's going in, but it's not in straight lines.

Mark Thomas:

I think we talked about that earlier on.

Mark Thomas:

I'm just, I'm not laser focused on what the next job is and what the next job is, but there's a theme in it and I, I work better when I'm, when I'm learning, when I'm approaching tough challenges, when I'm doing new stuff, I perform better.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So that works for me.

Mark Thomas:

It keeps me engaged, energized, active.

Mark Thomas:

It's, it's also great for the team.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Because you're pushing the boundaries, you're doing new work.

Mark Thomas:

We, we don't tend to use bleeding edge technologies, but we'll use modern technologies.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So we're doing, we're doing a lot around data mesh at the moment, for example.

Mark Thomas:

And that's, that's great for our data guys.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Like they're learning new skills all the time.

Mark Thomas:

They're becoming more employable.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

People will approach them and go, doing good stuff over there.

Mark Thomas:

Can you go?

Mark Thomas:

Nope.

Mark Thomas:

Why do we want to move?

Mark Thomas:

We've got a great environment here.

Mark Thomas:

We're doing great stuff.

Mark Thomas:

So I think it's been important for me to do different stuff.

Mark Thomas:

It keeps me active, it gets my, gets me to bring my best me to work.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And the interesting debate I have at Brown and Brown, which is great, we can have this debate that open is I've said you need to keep me active and challenged and engaged and as long as you can do that, that I'll stay and love working here.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So we've got a really healthy relationship around that as well, which is great.

Speaker C:

What's your view on the in insurance experience as well?

Speaker C:

Because that's the, that's the kind of thing that is, is a Fairly common theme, isn't it?

Speaker C:

Like, I mean that trying to get different skills, different ways of thinking, different levels of experience and from different industries that are maybe doing things more innovatively or using different types of technology or etc.

Speaker C:

But, but the, the insurance industry does, does generally have a reputation for, for hiring within and keeping within the ecosystem.

Speaker C:

What, what are your thoughts around that?

Mark Thomas:

I think there are, there, there are some roles where that helps.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it definitely helps me a bit that I can talk to the business in insurance terms because I've been around it for a while and I know, I know a bunch of the characters in it that, that just helps build confidence.

Mark Thomas:

But I'll give you an example.

Mark Thomas:

When I, when I turned up, we had a big program we were running in the first month that was leaderless.

Mark Thomas:

I went out through my network and I pulled in a program manager who I'd worked with rm, never worked in insurance before.

Mark Thomas:

Brilliant program manager.

Mark Thomas:

Put through the interviews and he met a bunch of the business guys and went, yeah, but he doesn't know insurance.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, but you know insurance, you don't need an insurance guy.

Mark Thomas:

You need somebody who's really hot at running a program at scale and bringing confidence into the program.

Mark Thomas:

Delivery took about six weeks and they came back absolutely the right decision.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

All right, so I think you get the right skills for the role.

Mark Thomas:

We can teach you insurance, right.

Mark Thomas:

What are the outcomes we want, how we create?

Mark Thomas:

So what's the work that needs to be done?

Mark Thomas:

What are the outcomes we want?

Mark Thomas:

How is it creating business value for the business?

Mark Thomas:

And then what are the skill sets we need?

Mark Thomas:

It's rarely insurance skill sets.

Mark Thomas:

Now if I've got a business CIO in my retail business or my MGA business.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it helps if they understand that business.

Mark Thomas:

They'll come up to speed a lot faster.

Mark Thomas:

But it usually goes on the advantageous rather than essential skill sets.

Mark Thomas:

If we're building out data solutions and we talked about doing a load in data mesh at the moment, they're quite hard skills to come by.

Mark Thomas:

But I'd like somebody who's got really deep, deep data skills.

Mark Thomas:

I'd like somebody who's got really deep, agile delivery skills.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, we can teach them the insurance stuff.

Speaker C:

Yeah, yeah, it's an interesting one.

Speaker C:

I, I think, I mean, I, I, if anyone follows me on LinkedIn, I harp on about it quite, quite regularly.

Speaker C:

But, but yeah, you mean, I, I think, I think sometimes people.

Speaker C:

Lazy is probably the wrong word, but it's maybe the easier option.

Speaker C:

It's the kind of root of least resistance, isn't it, to hire someone because actually they can get up to speed more quickly.

Speaker C:

But, but, but there's a whole world of great skills that are out there that like you say, if you're intelligent and switched on, I think you'd probably pick insurance up pretty quickly.

Speaker C:

Especially in some of those more technical roles where maybe insurance is kind of 10% of the job, maybe.

Speaker C:

Have you seen throughout your time working insurance you've had multiple different roles now is there really a willingness to take more risks on people from outside the industry now?

Speaker C:

Do you think that's changing?

Mark Thomas:

I don't know.

Mark Thomas:

Unfortunately, people have always been willing to say, Charles, just hire the right team.

Speaker C:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Get the right skills and actually bringing some different thinking in helps.

Mark Thomas:

And the guy runs data for us at the moment we bought in, he's done some work for the UN on how.

Mark Thomas:

How do you get food to aid stations in an optimal way.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

Pretty cool stuff.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Not terribly relevant to insurance, but it's a way of thinking and how do you get your models working and, and bringing that kind of skill in?

Mark Thomas:

And he's landed well.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So again, I think as long as you've got people who can interact well with the business.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I have that conversation up front with the business that goes well.

Mark Thomas:

These are the skills I expect you to bring.

Mark Thomas:

This is the outcomes you're expecting me to deliver will get you the right person.

Mark Thomas:

I think we're all, I'm certainly all up for bringing external skills in.

Mark Thomas:

We talked about being spiky earlier on in a leadership style.

Mark Thomas:

So how am I very cognizant of where I'm spiky and I don't need everybody to have the same spike because otherwise we end up as a very one dimensional leadership team.

Mark Thomas:

So how comms might not be my strongest point.

Mark Thomas:

So I've got a couple of people in the leadership team who are very, very good on the comms side and they kind of balance that.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So how as a leadership team are we balancing all those different skills out?

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Similarly, I almost don't want a team that's full of insurance experts.

Mark Thomas:

I want a broad basket of skills who help us go faster.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker C:

I wanted to transition that over to a little bit about I don't want to focus too much on the things that you've messed up, but the.

Speaker C:

I'm always interested in like lessons learned.

Speaker C:

So like you've obviously had.

Speaker C:

We spoke a lot about the risks you've taken.

Speaker C:

Generally it sounds like they've Turned out all right.

Speaker C:

But were there, were there any.

Speaker C:

There any things along the kind of big lessons that you've learned and any examples you've got of kind of things that went wrong and the lessons you took from it?

Speaker C:

Because I think there's often you learn just as much from things going wrong.

Speaker C:

Is it probably more than you do the things that go right?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Well, maybe let me do two on.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Great.

Mark Thomas:

So one is as I look back on the year.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

I do it every year.

Mark Thomas:

I wish I'd gone a bit faster in certain areas.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So you always wish you'd done more.

Mark Thomas:

And it's the decisions you don't take when you're.

Mark Thomas:

You're antennae or your guts telling you you need to make a decision.

Mark Thomas:

And it's usually a people thing.

Mark Thomas:

So have I, have I given someone enough time?

Mark Thomas:

Have I given them enough coaching?

Mark Thomas:

Have I worked out that role's not working for them and so they need another role inside or outside the business.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And that's okay.

Mark Thomas:

A conversation to have.

Mark Thomas:

So it's those tough conversations that you know you should be having that you.

Speaker C:

Kind of put off kind of over analysis of that.

Speaker C:

Of that thing.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Don't put them off.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So always listen to your, to your gut.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

There's a bit about then validating that and having a good network of people you trust and respect that you can debate some of this stuff with.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

That's, that's really important to check you've got it right.

Mark Thomas:

And to hold myself in check, that's important.

Mark Thomas:

I think the other one, the group CIO chap called Gray Nestor, I spend a lot of time with him.

Mark Thomas:

He's great.

Mark Thomas:

When I came in, he said to me, giles, worry about your time and where you spend your time.

Mark Thomas:

And we've broken it down four buckets.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So time with your team, time with the European exec and leadership and business.

Mark Thomas:

The third one is time with the US team and the fourth one is doing work to spend some time doing some work.

Mark Thomas:

That would be nice.

Mark Thomas:

So keep checking in on the balance between that and what I generally find is when things don't go well, I've got that balance wrong.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So I've neglected to spend time with my team because I've over indexed on spending time out in the business.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

Or I'm spending my 25 of work I'm doing in the evenings when I get home and then I'm neglecting my family.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And my, my mental and physical well being.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So I think understanding where you spend your time getting that right and also looking after yourself and your family and that whole support network that keeps you healthy so you can bring yourself best self to work.

Mark Thomas:

Of course that, that's important.

Mark Thomas:

So if you, if you take that back to the.

Mark Thomas:

Where have I got things wrong?

Mark Thomas:

It's where I've got out of balance and where I spend my time.

Speaker C:

So do you do.

Speaker C:

How do you make sure you keep that kind of all.

Speaker C:

All imbalance?

Speaker C:

Is it.

Speaker C:

Is it kind of regular, kind of take yourself out, check in kind of mindset, kind of reevaluation of where you're at?

Speaker C:

Do you tend to kind of do that regularly?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, so I do.

Mark Thomas:

I do tend to check in at the end of the week with myself and I'm fortunate.

Mark Thomas:

I live in central London.

Mark Thomas:

I can walk to work.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Incredibly lucky.

Mark Thomas:

I don't lose time on the train or commuting.

Mark Thomas:

So it's half an hour and it's half an hour back and I use that as think time.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Just to check in on myself and go, how am I feeling?

Mark Thomas:

How often do I get to the gym or go for a run this week?

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And it's okay to go a week or two, but then.

Mark Thomas:

Are you pulling it back on week three?

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Am I spending enough time with the kids?

Mark Thomas:

Enough time with Sabine, my partner.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And she's great and she keeps me balanced and she pulls me up on it as well.

Mark Thomas:

So again, I have a good network.

Mark Thomas:

Just a great support at home.

Mark Thomas:

My kids tell me off if I'm not home enough.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

They tell me when I'm home too much as well sometimes.

Mark Thomas:

So that's great.

Mark Thomas:

That really healthy relationship and work and my.

Mark Thomas:

The CIO Gray, my CEO chap called Mike Bruce again is brilliant.

Mark Thomas:

They keep me in check and we keep checking in on that stuff and it's just a super open, healthy relationship.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Interesting.

Speaker C:

That's.

Speaker C:

I don't think people talk about that quite enough, do they?

Speaker C:

It's just keep it, keeping it balanced, keep making sure you've got a nice structure and stuff like that I think becomes more important that interesting about the.

Speaker C:

The walking and thinking time.

Speaker C:

I think that's people.

Speaker C:

I'd love to think I use that for my commute, but it's normally kind of just trying to find a seat or something like that.

Speaker C:

But have you always done that?

Speaker C:

Do you think you've always managed to keep that, that level there?

Speaker C:

Was that something you've kind of you've grown into?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I mean I did a lot of sport as A kid.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So that kind of sticks with you.

Mark Thomas:

I've definitely noticed that.

Mark Thomas:

I mean, what we do is attritional.

Mark Thomas:

It's hard work.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And you do work some long hours and if you're not feeling healthy, you can't bring your best self to work.

Mark Thomas:

I do notice it if I haven't.

Mark Thomas:

If I haven't been down the gym or haven't been for a run.

Mark Thomas:

And so I make myself do it and when I'm doing it, I do actually enjoy it.

Mark Thomas:

I find if I spend an hour out on a run, I solve a few problems.

Mark Thomas:

Because you kind of get into a rhythm, you think stuff through, it helps.

Mark Thomas:

And you not only have kind of helped cleanse yourself physically, you've.

Mark Thomas:

You've cleared some mental blockages as well.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So it is important for me and I do make time for it.

Mark Thomas:

The other thing that's lovely is again, we talked about Sabine, but she runs as well.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

So we'll do that together.

Mark Thomas:

So again, you can knock this off together.

Mark Thomas:

You have some nice time together.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And that's one of the things we value doing.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

I mean, I got quite into.

Speaker C:

I've just had a period of garden leaving.

Speaker C:

I kind of made a promise to myself I was going to do 10,000 steps every day for three months.

Speaker C:

And I used to listen to stuff like podcasts and whatever, but I started, I did a few where I forgot headphones and I was just.

Speaker C:

So I ended actually just started doing that because, I mean, like you say the amount of good thinking you can do, you don't.

Speaker C:

I think you quite underestimate how much time you spend just kind of thinking about stuff or listening to stuff.

Speaker C:

You don't spend much time just.

Speaker C:

Just kind of free do it.

Speaker C:

So I think that's a really good bit of advice.

Mark Thomas:

But the other.

Mark Thomas:

The other nice thing you said in there is you.

Mark Thomas:

You said you do it every day.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So you're forming a habit.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

And once you've formed the habit, they're hard to form.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But once you've formed them, it just becomes part of your natural rhythm in the way you sort your day out.

Speaker C:

Definitely.

Mark Thomas:

And then it just happens.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C:

I'm struggling a little bit now.

Speaker C:

I'm back working, but I'm trying to keep to it.

Speaker C:

So I guess the kind of final point before we get onto some kind of quick fire questions I want to talk about is just more generally kind of the view on insurance.

Speaker C:

Now, you've obviously been around in the insurance sector for quite a While you've seen lots of change in evolution, what's your kind of view on, on where the insurance industry's at from a tech perspective now and I guess more specifically what the big challenges are for the industry over the next few years and how you see that panning out?

Speaker C:

Big question.

Speaker C:

Sorry.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And I think it depends about what part you're in the industry, whether you're sitting there as a startup and there's a super exciting.

Mark Thomas:

Although some of those are going through a tougher time at the moment or whether you're at the scale end with a carrier.

Mark Thomas:

Different challenges.

Mark Thomas:

I think the thing that's similar across it is we're using tech more than we ever have been.

Mark Thomas:

We've got a more voice at the table than we ever have done and I genuinely think we're creating more value through technology than we've ever done before.

Mark Thomas:

So I think it's a really exciting time to be part of it.

Mark Thomas:

Whether you're part of it as a startup, as we've noted, I've been fortunate.

Mark Thomas:

I've done some of that.

Mark Thomas:

Or right at the scale end or anywhere in between, you keep focusing on how are you bringing technology value to the business and it's easier to do and it's faster to do and it's a more exciting time to do it than ever before.

Mark Thomas:

I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be a cio.

Mark Thomas:

And within the insurance industry, another kind of set of words that our group CIO goes is technology has never moved this fast before.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

It'll never move this slowly again.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

What an amazing place to be.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C:

You mean the.

Speaker C:

What did I see the other day that someone said about AI, they said like the, the AR you use today is the worst AR you'll ever use.

Speaker C:

So it's kind of the same kind of thing, isn't it?

Speaker C:

It's that it's, it's evolving really quickly.

Speaker C:

So, right, we're coming towards the end.

Speaker C:

I always do a few quick fire questions at the, at the end just for, for a bit of fun.

Speaker C:

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

Mark Thomas:

It's toughie, actually.

Mark Thomas:

So I said, I came here on a lime bike this morning.

Mark Thomas:

I've got a love hate relationship with lime bikes.

Mark Thomas:

So again, I think they're disrupting how we travel in London, but they're, they're a pain in the backside when they're left all over the place.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, yeah.

Mark Thomas:

But I think that anything that's that's disruptive is a.

Mark Thomas:

I like unicorns.

Mark Thomas:

So we've got a lot of fintech unicorns, whether it's the Challenger banks and I bank with Challenger banks, so I enjoy those brands.

Mark Thomas:

So I'm not so much a big brand.

Mark Thomas:

Although again, I'm very impressed with what Satya Nadella has done around Microsoft and how he's reinvented Microsoft over the last n years.

Mark Thomas:

So there's a whole bunch of them out there, but I think more for me it's Challenger brands.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

The next one is what is the one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you when.

Speaker C:

When you were kind of first starting out?

Mark Thomas:

I heard someone else ask this question the other day and they said I wouldn't have given myself any advice because the journey is as important as the destination.

Speaker C:

Yeah, okay.

Mark Thomas:

Which I think is a Buddhist thing, isn't it?

Speaker C:

Yeah, yeah, maybe, but.

Mark Thomas:

But I think that's really important.

Mark Thomas:

So the advice I'd give is enjoy every moment of the journey as you're on it.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And it goes back to some of the stuff we talked about.

Mark Thomas:

Being curious.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Taking a few risks, enjoy it along the way and bring your best self to work every day.

Mark Thomas:

That would be my advice.

Speaker C:

I thought you were going to say, always put your head around the door and talk to someone.

Speaker C:

That's.

Speaker C:

That's the most poignant thing I've noticed for this is like if you do that a few times, you, you never know.

Speaker C:

You can kind of create your own luck.

Speaker C:

Right?

Mark Thomas:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

You never know when the opportunity is going to present.

Mark Thomas:

Right.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

The next one is.

Speaker C:

So if you could swap jobs or lives with someone for, for one day, who would it be?

Mark Thomas:

Oh, where would I go?

Mark Thomas:

So, so my, my partner works in guys hospital and she works on, on the, in the cancer wards.

Speaker D:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

And doing stuff around cancer pathways and, and she comes home at the end of the day and we say, I've had a bit of a rough day.

Mark Thomas:

And she just gives me that sideways look and goes really Giles.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So she keeps me amazingly balanced.

Mark Thomas:

I.

Mark Thomas:

I would love to do her job.

Mark Thomas:

Job for a day and understand what hard really looks like.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So she goes for incredible lows and incredible highs when they've diagnosed somebody and seen them come through.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So what, what job would I like to do?

Mark Thomas:

Something that's really on the front line of health and helping, helping people get better and that, that I think is, is incredibly admirable.

Speaker C:

Do you think the.

Speaker C:

I know it's not exactly health but education is, it is kind of, of in that more public service kind of space.

Speaker C:

Do you think at some point in your career you go back to doing some stuff like that?

Mark Thomas:

So I really enjoyed that time and I'm pleased I did it.

Mark Thomas:

Would I go back and do it more towards the end of my career?

Mark Thomas:

If it's in an advisory role or it's a helping out, I'd love to do more stuff around that again.

Mark Thomas:

So I've done work through my career whether it's been.

Mark Thomas:

I did some work for the Dame Kelly Holmes fund for the 30% club, which is helping coach women into the top leadership roles.

Mark Thomas:

So I think doing that as a stream alongside what you do, where you're giving back every day and through the year is really important.

Mark Thomas:

And particularly as I've had a bunch of people who've supported me to get where I am, giving back is really important.

Mark Thomas:

And we'll start talking more and more about kind of apprenticeships, you know, summer jobs, interns, we do a load of that as Brown and Brown and really gearing that those programs up so we're giving back into the community.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

Is incredibly important.

Mark Thomas:

So whether I do that as a role or I do that as part of my role.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, I'd love to do more of that.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

The next one is what is the best kind of business or non fiction related book that you've, you've ever read?

Mark Thomas:

So our.

Mark Thomas:

I'll answer slightly differently.

Mark Thomas:

So Powell Brown, our CEO, avid reader.

Speaker D:

Right.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

All right.

Mark Thomas:

So I, I went into a business review after six months with him and the rest of the opco.

Mark Thomas:

And so how are you doing in six months?

Mark Thomas:

What's your strategy?

Mark Thomas:

What's your plan?

Mark Thomas:

How you getting on?

Mark Thomas:

Like yeah, the hour and a half under the spotlight.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Mark Thomas:

And at the end he said, I'm going to send you a book, Charles.

Speaker C:

Right.

Mark Thomas:

And about two weeks ago a book popped up so I can't not read it.

Mark Thomas:

Startup Nation.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

And it talks about creating a culture of innovation at a national level.

Mark Thomas:

And very much it's not a kind of top down, it's very much grassroots embedding innovation and challenge through a nation and how it thinks.

Mark Thomas:

And this nation then has more startups per capita than, than any other just because of the way that's built into your culture.

Mark Thomas:

So it's all about cultural journeys and building innovation into cultural journeys.

Mark Thomas:

So I'm enjoying that at the moment.

Speaker C:

So you're still on it?

Mark Thomas:

I'm still on it.

Mark Thomas:

Definitely need to finish it before I see him next But I'm really enjoying it.

Mark Thomas:

I'm really enjoying it.

Mark Thomas:

And it resonates a lot across kind of that culture of innovation we're trying to bring in as we shift our mix from change, from run to change, to innovate.

Mark Thomas:

And I think as we talked about that, that's what sparked it off for him.

Speaker C:

Yeah, that's interesting.

Mark Thomas:

Right, well, here's how we build a culture of innovation.

Mark Thomas:

Our culture is really important.

Mark Thomas:

And making it innovative and making it from the grassroots up, it's not all about driving it down.

Mark Thomas:

It's about allowing it to bubble up as well.

Speaker C:

Yeah, yeah, I'll have to check that out.

Speaker C:

That's quite relevant for some of the stuff I've been doing more recently.

Speaker C:

The best career decision you ever made, Right?

Mark Thomas:

It's almost the accidents that have happened.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Mark Thomas:

So we talked about how did I get into it in the first place?

Mark Thomas:

Well, that was a bit of an accident.

Mark Thomas:

How did I get my first CIO role?

Mark Thomas:

That was a bit of a risk.

Mark Thomas:

So I think the best decisions I've made is I've known roughly the direction I've wanted to go on, so I've had some guidance around it.

Mark Thomas:

I've been quite fluid about the decisions I've made.

Mark Thomas:

I think, as I think more about it, what's helped me get through all of that is the people and my network.

Mark Thomas:

So I think there's a decision around how you leave places and do you leave them on really good terms, and that's totally possible to do.

Mark Thomas:

How do you keep your network vibrant and alive?

Mark Thomas:

And how are you helping your network out?

Mark Thomas:

Because you'll need to call on it for help at times and be nice to people on the way up, because you'll be on the way down at some stage as well, and it's not straight lines.

Mark Thomas:

So the best career decisions, I think, are probably around investing in your network and your relationships.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

Okay.

Speaker C:

And then the final one is, who's the.

Speaker C:

Who's the number one person you.

Speaker C:

You admire or your role model?

Speaker C:

Who's.

Speaker C:

Who's the person that springs to mind when you.

Speaker C:

When you think of that?

Mark Thomas:

I think I've just had a bunch of really good leaders as I've gone through my career, whether that was actress in rm, in rsa, in Open GI and where I am at Brown and Brown now.

Mark Thomas:

So it's the leaders you choose to follow.

Mark Thomas:

And I make my career decisions now about the people I'm working with as much as anything else.

Mark Thomas:

Look to your boss, look to your leaders at the moment.

Mark Thomas:

And go, are those the role models I want to follow?

Mark Thomas:

And keep questioning that.

Mark Thomas:

And if they are, fabulous.

Mark Thomas:

If they're not, find someone who is.

Speaker D:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker C:

Great bit of advice.

Speaker C:

So I always say, look, we're right at the end now.

Speaker C:

Look, thanks for your time.

Speaker C:

It's been amazing.

Speaker C:

Time's flown by.

Speaker C:

I always ask everyone the last question before we finish.

Speaker C:

What's the best thing about working in insurance?

Mark Thomas:

I think if you go back to, why are we here anyway?

Mark Thomas:

What does insurance do for people?

Mark Thomas:

So.

Mark Thomas:

So if your car, your home, your business, your life has been hit by some kind of adversity, we're here to help you through it.

Mark Thomas:

That's the best thing about insurance.

Mark Thomas:

We help people when they need it most.

Mark Thomas:

Keep that in mind and keep focused on.

Mark Thomas:

That's why we're here.

Mark Thomas:

Everything else will follow.

Mark Thomas:

But when you see some of the stuff we do, when we pick people back up again and we go the extra mile when they need it, it.

Mark Thomas:

That's the best thing about insurance for me.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker C:

To be honest, I don't think the industry celebrates and publicizes those successes well enough.

Speaker C:

I think there's often a bit of a negative context about insurance, but actually, if they.

Speaker C:

The odd one or two bad experience like there is in any industry, if they.

Speaker C:

If you just compare that to all the problems it solves and kind of digs people out of seriously deep holes, it's.

Speaker C:

It's.

Speaker C:

Yes.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it's great.

Mark Thomas:

It's a great place to be.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, it's a great place to be.

Mark Thomas:

We're helping people live their lives and pick themselves back up from adversity and carry on.

Mark Thomas:

That.

Mark Thomas:

That's an awesome thing to be able to do.

Speaker D:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

What a great place to finish.

Speaker C:

Well, look, thank.

Speaker C:

Thank you so much.

Speaker C:

Look, that story is amazing.

Speaker C:

There's some brilliant bits of advice in there and I really appreciate you taking the time to.

Speaker C:

To speak to us.

Speaker C:

I'm sure there'll be some people that want to reach out and connect with you.

Speaker C:

Is LinkedIn kind of.

Speaker C:

Are you open for people to kind of.

Speaker C:

To reach out and say hello and.

Mark Thomas:

Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Thomas:

Send me.

Mark Thomas:

Send me a LinkedIn Connect or a LinkedIn message and go.

Mark Thomas:

Go from there.

Mark Thomas:

Like I said, the network's important, right?

Speaker C:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker C:

Well, look, there's.

Speaker C:

There's plenty more episodes to come, so, like I say, thanks again for your time.

Speaker C:

Connect with myself or Giles, if you're interested in having a chat and we'll catch you next time.

Speaker C:

Cheers.

Mark Thomas:

Thanks very much, Mike.

Giles Baxter:

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

Giles Baxter:

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.

Giles Baxter:

If you liked what you heard, don't forget to hit like and make sure you subscribe so you'll never miss an episode.

Giles Baxter:

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.

Giles Baxter:

It really helps others find the show.

Giles Baxter:

If you're hungry for more stories from the lead shaping the future of insurance and Insuretech, 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.

Giles Baxter:

Thanks again for tuning in and I'll catch you next time for an another inspiring conversation.

Giles Baxter:

Until then, take care and keep pushing the limits of what's possible in your own career.

Giles Baxter:

This podcast is sponsored by Invector Search, the brand new search solution to guide you in finding the best insurance leadership talent globally.

Giles Baxter:

Find out more at www.invectorgroup.com.

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About the Podcast

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Beyond the Desk with Mark Thomas
THE Insurance Careers Podcast!

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About your host

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Mark Thomas

Mark is the host of Beyond the Desk and one of the UK's leading insurance-focused technology, change & transformation headhunters.

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