Episode 5
From Trainee Underwriter to CEO: Andrew Passfield's journey to becoming ICE Insuretech's CEO
In this episode of Beyond the Desk, host Mark Thomas sits down with Andrew Passfield, CEO and co-founder of ICE Insuretech, to discuss his remarkable journey from trainee underwriter to leading a successful InsurTech business.
Andrew shares his career story, pivotal moments, lessons learned, and insights on how ICE became a key player in the insurance technology space. They also explore how ICE grew through strategic customer partnerships, the importance of trusting your instincts, and the evolving role of AI in insurance.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Andrew's early career in underwriting and transition into technology
- How playing squash with an IT manager led to a programming career
- Building ICE from scratch after redundancy
- The strategic decision to develop ICE's claims and policy products
- Pivotal wins, including the transformative RSA deal
- The role of AI in shaping the future of insurance and ICE's product evolution
- Advice for aspiring CEOs from a technology background
Connect with Us:
- Mark Thomas on LinkedIn: Connect Here
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- Watch Full-Length Video Episodes on YouTube Here
- Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn: Connect Here
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New episodes drop every Tuesday. Stay tuned for more conversations with leaders shaping the future of insurance and InsureTech. Thanks for tuning in—see you next time on Beyond the Desk! 🎧
Sponsor:
This episode is brought to you by Invecta Search, the brand new leadership search product from Invecta Group, which leads the insurance industry in building best-in-class technology and transformation leadership teams. Find out more at www.invectagroup.com
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello and welcome to beyond the.
Speaker C:Desk, the podcast where I take a deep dive into the careers of some of the most influential and inspiring leaders in the technology transformation and operations space within global insurance and insurtech.
Speaker C: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.
Speaker C:We'll explore their personal journeys, from their early backgrounds and the pivotal moments that shape their careers to the challenges they've had to overcome, the lessons they've learned along the way, and of course, the big wins that have defined their professional journey so far.
Speaker C:But it's not just about their successes, is about what you and I can take away from their experiences and the advice they have.
Speaker C:For anyone wanting to follow in similar footsteps.
Speaker B:Whether you're just starting out or looking.
Speaker C:To level up your career in the insurance or insuretech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration.
Speaker C:So grab your headphones, get comfortable, and let's jump into beyond the Desk.
Speaker B:Andrew, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker B:Thanks for coming.
Speaker A:Thanks Mark.
Speaker A:Glad to be here.
Speaker B:Good stuff, right?
Speaker B:So I always go like we're going to go right back to the start and go through your career and all that kind of stuff as usual, but just as a kind of, a kind of starting point.
Speaker B:It's always good to get a bit of an intro from you.
Speaker B:So do you want to kind of introduce yourself role company and then we'll go back from there?
Speaker A:Sure, yeah.
Speaker A:Andrew Passfield, I'm the founder, one of the two co founders of ICE and I'm the CEO.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:So let's go right back to the start before we get into much about ice.
Speaker B:So tell me.
Speaker B:I'm always really interested in like how people got into to technology and like whether they were kind of techie or like how it all started.
Speaker B:So tell me a bit about that.
Speaker B:When was the.
Speaker B:Were you into kind of tech and stuff as a kid or like what did it, what did that look like?
Speaker A:Not at all.
Speaker A:I was a kid a long time ago and that was, you know, when I was at school there was a few geeks who, you know, had ZX spectrums, that sort of, that sort of era.
Speaker A:And that wasn't me at all.
Speaker A:I was out in the school field playing football and cricket and, and whatever else it was about.
Speaker A:So it was once I got into insurance that I then got into I.
Speaker B:T.
Speaker B:Okay, so what, so what was the.
Speaker B:So what did like post school, like what the first kind of jobs that you did, did you go Straight into insurance.
Speaker B:Did you have stuff?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So I Left school at 18.
Speaker A:There was a lot fewer people going to university then wanted to.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So I was post A levels, bizarrely.
Speaker A:Had no, no friends or family working in insurance, but just had this vision.
Speaker A:I wanted to get into insurance.
Speaker B:Oh, really?
Speaker B:So you actually kind of.
Speaker B:You had a.
Speaker B:You had an idea that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Which is quite, quite unique as well.
Speaker B:A lot of people fall into it.
Speaker A:Correct.
Speaker A:18 year old looking for, looking for a job.
Speaker A:Got three job offers.
Speaker A:One with a company in Woking called Crown Life, one called General Accident.
Speaker A:Some people remember.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which was a.
Speaker A:Which was a strange interview.
Speaker A:Can't remember his name, but a claims director.
Speaker A:And I remember his desk being full of files and full of ash.
Speaker A:Two glass ashtrays full of cigarette butts.
Speaker A:I mean, and just like a walnut surround.
Speaker A:It was just, you know, archetypal sort of insurance from the sort of 70s and 80s, I guess.
Speaker A:And then a small startup which was closer to home called Preferred Assurance.
Speaker A:So they were really the first insurance company in the direct space before Direct Line and some of those set up by an American organization, but never really got the funding.
Speaker A:I saw it as an opportunity to.
Speaker A:I think I was employee number 13.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:So I was still living at home.
Speaker A:I was 18.
Speaker A:It was kind of, you know, you know, I can go into this big corporate world or actually take a chance on something a bit smaller.
Speaker A:And I chose that.
Speaker B:So what was the role?
Speaker A:Trainee underwriter.
Speaker D:All right.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So it was underwrite straight into the guts.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So they, they did a lot of, A lot of these sort of adverts in the paper with a free gift, the sort of sun and the Mirror, et cetera.
Speaker A:So we were kind of rating all of those.
Speaker A:And yeah, that was an ending to the sort of customer service experience.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was from there I got into it.
Speaker B:So talk to me a little bit how that, that transition.
Speaker B:So did you.
Speaker B:Did you kind of think that underwriting wasn't for you or didn't hunt out it or technology or did it.
Speaker B:How did that evolve?
Speaker A:It was probably a bit of both.
Speaker A:I was getting a little bit bored of, of, of what I was doing.
Speaker A:Yeah, I used to play squash with the IT manager.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And we were good friends.
Speaker A:We were, we were close friends.
Speaker A:And so we'd sort of chat away and.
Speaker A:And I say, oh, I'm a bit bored of this and not doing this and take it on board.
Speaker A:And he'd come back and it's all say, well, you know, what about, what about sort of programming?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I said, I've got a clue.
Speaker A:So they, they wanted to bring in a couple of, couple of trainees, effectively one from the business and one a sort of retrained COBOL programmer.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Sent me on an aptitude test at the NCC in Manchester for a couple of days which, when you were 20 years of age, was, was, which was great.
Speaker A:Did the, you know, cat, dog, rabbit, umbrella, what's the old one out.
Speaker A:Managed to pass and they gave me a job there as a, as a trainee IBM system 38 programmer.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:So did you, did you kind of take.
Speaker B:Because that's obviously quite a change from what you're doing.
Speaker B:Did you take to it quite quickly?
Speaker B:And I mean, what was the, what was it, was it a big learning curve?
Speaker A:It was a reasonable learning curve.
Speaker A:But I think understanding the business is still fairly fundamental even in this day and age.
Speaker A:Of course you need your techies and I still say today I understand how technology can be used in insurance rather than understanding each and every line of code.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I wouldn't say I was the most technical person in the world, but I understood what I could do with the, with the technology, if you like, for the, for the business.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I guess that kind of understanding what you're doing for what purpose as well and what the business is trying to get out of it kind of helps as well with the, with the kind of way you approach it.
Speaker A:And the guy was sort of training alongside, so he was a two year COBOL programmer, came from the Met Police.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker A:And I could see very quickly once we both grasped the sort of syntax.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I could see I was accelerating faster than him because I understood what, yeah.
Speaker A:A driver was or the relationship between a driver and a policy or, you know, whatever else it happened to be.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So, and so let's kind of go through the evolution there.
Speaker B:So you did that, I guess you did that for a bit.
Speaker B:Got kind of earned your stripes as a, as a programmer.
Speaker B:Did you, did you stay doing the kind of programming stuff for a while or did that kind of evolve into management and leadership?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean eventually gets into, you know, you either stay techy or you go into management.
Speaker B:Did you know you always wanted to change that as well?
Speaker B:Because I always think that's an interesting one.
Speaker B:Like, did you always know that management and leadership and moving up there was that kind of.
Speaker B:You always quite ambitious when you, when you were younger?
Speaker A:I think I'm a people person and I've always been a People Person.
Speaker A:So I think, and like I said earlier, I wasn't ever the most technical.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Person.
Speaker A:So I think, I think you sort of naturally fall into, into that and I think perhaps people saw a few leadership skills and, and so yeah, over time I sort of moved into a sort of development manager role and then sort of system manager and you know, there's a good old system 38.
Speaker A:You have to do a lot more on this cloud technology or sort of open source code where someone else has written half the code for you or you know, you have to grind out the code and change disc drives and floppy drives and all of that good stuff.
Speaker A:So showing my age.
Speaker A:But yeah, got into, to management and that company was growing rapidly at the time.
Speaker A:So when, you know, I was employee number 13, when I left there were 500 people.
Speaker A:Oh wow.
Speaker A:So that created opportunity for me, which was great.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:So when would, when did that kind of evolve?
Speaker B:Like what, what did that.
Speaker B:The kind of, the next part of that evolution you obviously got went into management.
Speaker B:When did the kind of transition into being kind of more business facing rather than being kind of more technology facing?
Speaker B:Because that, that's a, you, you've, you've kind of made the transition that probably not that many people do really.
Speaker B:From, from technical hands on guy to technical leadership into business leadership.
Speaker B:When did that, when what, what did that evolution look like?
Speaker A:I think it was relatively sort of gradual.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, took a leadership team leadership role in managing a bunch of software developers and then sort of wider in the business and then ultimately funny story when we went on honeymoon and so I think I was systems manager at the time.
Speaker A:So I was sort of responsible for the operations and the sort of development guys.
Speaker A:We had a head of IT, IT director.
Speaker A: I went on honeymoon in: Speaker A:My boss called me into his office and he said, how was your holiday?
Speaker A:Good.
Speaker A:You know, when you go away and nothing changes.
Speaker A:Well, that's not one of these situations.
Speaker A:And he'd resigned and was leaving like six weeks later.
Speaker A:Oh wow.
Speaker A:So I was like, you know, shell shocked.
Speaker A:But to be fair, the business gave me an opportunity to take on that role in a, in a sort of temporary capacity and then on a more permanent basis.
Speaker A:So sort of almost fell into a head of IT role.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:But that was at the point the business was really starting to, to accelerate.
Speaker B:Still the same.
Speaker B:This is still the same.
Speaker B:What was that business, what was that business called?
Speaker A:Preferred Assurance.
Speaker B:All right, okay.
Speaker A:Direct Insurance and really good times.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's the time the sort of Internet and Internet quotes started getting going long before the price comparison websites but.
Speaker A:But sort of volumes really started to sort of go through the roof.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean I've had a holiday weirdly like that.
Speaker B:I won't bore you the details but I know what that's like to come back and everything's completely changed.
Speaker B:So if we kind of fast forward that then.
Speaker B:So what made you.
Speaker B:At some point were you there?
Speaker B:It sounds like you were there for quite a while.
Speaker B:How long were you there and what made you kind of move on?
Speaker A:I was there.
Speaker A:I was there probably 13 or 14 years.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:It's a decent stint.
Speaker A:So that was a good stint.
Speaker A:I'd had some ups and downs in there so I sort of been head of it.
Speaker A:We then merged two organizations so I got to know the sort of tier products which I can talk about but just decided to.
Speaker A:To, you know, it was local to where I was living so I hadn't really experienced much of the world.
Speaker A:We'd started working with a company called CMG which is a consultancy working on the TIA products.
Speaker A:Tia.
Speaker A:They'd started marketing that product.
Speaker A:We were running our own version but they'd started marketing that product.
Speaker A:They used us as a sort of reference site and ultimately said did I want to go and work.
Speaker A:Work for them and run their sort of product center which had the appeal of being sort of jumping from insurer to consultancy.
Speaker A:And I've kind of never gone back.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But also, you know, got me working in London, got me to see a whole raft of different things and really got me out my sort of comfort zone.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Was that cmg, is that.
Speaker B:Did they get bought by Logica?
Speaker B:Did they join?
Speaker A:Yeah, I remember cmg.
Speaker A:Logica bought cmg.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Admiral and CMG merged first.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Then logicable, both of those and then that went bust and CGI bought effectively all three.
Speaker D:I didn't know that.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I remember Logico like we used to do.
Speaker B:I used my old company used to do a lot of business and when I first joined the kind of late 90s, something like that.
Speaker B:But so then if we kind of like then the, the kind of the career journey from then I guess just kind of moved into more, more kind of technology leadership roles and bits and piece of consultant.
Speaker B:I know, I know she did a you stint at kind of innovation group and, and places that.
Speaker B:So what.
Speaker B:What was the tipping point that, that you.
Speaker B:You think you kind of.
Speaker B:Well, two questions in one really.
Speaker B:When did you think that you might want to do more of the business?
Speaker B:Because I can see why you'd got.
Speaker B:You mean you started off as non techie, you went into the technology thing that there would always into that.
Speaker B:When did you start to think that maybe that might be what you wanted to do?
Speaker B:Or actually did it just kind of gradually happen?
Speaker B:Did it.
Speaker B:Was it like something you actually really had a plan to, to kind of do that kind of thing?
Speaker A:I don't think it was a conscious decision.
Speaker A:I've always been around technology and I'd like to say even today as a CEO, obviously there's a bit of focus on, on strategy and vision.
Speaker A:But I still today understand how the products, what the product can do for our customers and the marketplace and, and probably understand the product as well as, you know, as well as most people in our organization.
Speaker A:There'll be, you know, be half a dozen experts.
Speaker A:But in terms of, in, in terms of the overall capability.
Speaker A:Yeah, people still understand that.
Speaker A:So, so I don't think I've moved away from the technology but just gradually through cmg.
Speaker A:I was doing sort of leadership role in, in technology and then a whole bunch of guys went to the Innovation Group and I went with them.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So that's a group.
Speaker A:That's what took us there.
Speaker A:So there were.
Speaker A:CMG was undergoing quite a lot of changes and trying to get back to its core of, you know, and didn't really understand product.
Speaker A:It, it understood consulting.
Speaker A:You know, how many people do you want and when do you want them to start?
Speaker A:Yeah, not, not what's the product and kind of.
Speaker A:So, so Innovation Group sounded exciting and, and yeah, it was exciting, but it was a bit of a roller coaster as well.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And so let's get into kind of talking more about the.
Speaker B:How ICE came about then.
Speaker B:What did that look like and what was the, what was the kind of catalyst for you thinking that you could, you could do something on your own and yeah, just talk a little bit about that kind of journey.
Speaker A:Well, the catalyst is simple.
Speaker A:It's called redundancy.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So that was me thinking you're going to say we could do it with loads better than some other people.
Speaker A:Of course we have.
Speaker A:So the guy who I founded the company with, I worked with at cmg so you know, we'd started some of those conversations at cmg.
Speaker A:We were kind of thinking about it at Innovation Group and then, you know, Innovation Group had a, a massive rise and, and an equally massive fall.
Speaker A:We both managed to do reasonably well out of it.
Speaker A:Nothing Life changing, but enough to at least fund the company and get it started.
Speaker A:And yeah, we thought we could do things better than some of the software businesses that were around the era the Internet was around, so browser based applications.
Speaker A:So we wouldn't have been sort of stuck with any legacy, any, you know, client server or, or mainframe technology.
Speaker A:With Innovation Group making a lot of people redundant.
Speaker A:We saw some great people in the marketplace.
Speaker D:Yeah, of course.
Speaker A:So we thought, well, you know, the timing's just, just right, you know, ultimately then sort of being pushed and saying, right, we've got to go and find a job or do something yourself.
Speaker A:We, we decided, you know, we talked about it for I think six years.
Speaker A:We decided that was the moment.
Speaker B:So if we went, so what did that first business look like?
Speaker B:What was the, what was the kind of product how.
Speaker B:I'm fascinated to see how you got that kind of going and off the ground because.
Speaker B:And what year are we talking now?
Speaker A: So we're: Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:Just over 20 years.
Speaker A:So we started classically really with doing a bit of consultancy.
Speaker A:We use the network to find work for people that we knew.
Speaker A:We took people on.
Speaker A:We started with an MI products but also with a view of trying to get into that sort of claim space.
Speaker A:So claims is what we'd known through the Innovation Group.
Speaker A:There's a lot less claim systems than there were policy systems.
Speaker A:And then within the first year, 18 months, we found the first sort of customer for our claim system.
Speaker A:So, you know, they help part fund it and you know, that was a real, real high for us when you find that sort of first customer to help you do that sort of product development.
Speaker B:In essence, you were kind of building a, a bespoke kind of product for them in some ways, way.
Speaker A:No, we said we wanted to build.
Speaker A:So they'd approached us about a couple of the obvious candidates in the market and you know, they just couldn't afford it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So they said, well, how about we give you some money and you build yourself a product so you can keep the intellectual property but make it flexible for us.
Speaker A:We thought that was a great idea.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Al Robertson, our CTO got involved at that point.
Speaker A:We put some estimates together.
Speaker A:Obviously grossly underestimated the total cost.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But certainly enough to get going.
Speaker A:And that's where we started.
Speaker A:So we always had the intellectual property and we always built it with intention of built being a sort of configurable open market sort of product.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So it was always built with a plan to kind of scale up to be able to put into other businesses and stuff like that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:That seems like kind of a really.
Speaker B:I mean, I don't know how unique that situation is, but then being able to.
Speaker B:To kind of work with you, help with the product development, give you funding and so you'd be able to do it rather than having to go get.
Speaker B:Get private equity or whatever it was and get.
Speaker B:Do it that way and give away a chunk of your business.
Speaker B:You were.
Speaker B:You were able to kind of do it from.
Speaker B:Kind of bootstrap it, but with the comfort of the fact that you had a.
Speaker B:An investor or customer that were.
Speaker B:We're going to kind of work with you for it.
Speaker B:That seems like.
Speaker B:Is that.
Speaker B:Is that as unique as it sounds?
Speaker A:We managed it again with policy, which I'll happily tell you about.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:But it was great having that first customer.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Obviously you have to deliver.
Speaker A:So, you know, if we couldn't build a product and we didn't have.
Speaker A:Have faith in our own capabilities, and I'm sure there's plenty of people that have gone down that path and, and failed, but I would say they also got a product worth way more than they paid.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So there's a quid pro quo.
Speaker A:Funded it endlessly.
Speaker A:They gave us a fixed pot of money.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So when we overran, it was about us then going and finding how do you fund that?
Speaker A:Where do we go and get the next lot of money?
Speaker A:And that's when you get into remortgages and wives.
Speaker A:Conversations with wives and three young kids at home and all of that sort of good stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So that business wasn't.
Speaker B:What is ICE now?
Speaker A:So that.
Speaker A:That business is ice.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:What was.
Speaker A:It was called it Freedom at the time.
Speaker A:So we were trying to give business freedom from it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Later on we.
Speaker A:We had the.
Speaker A:At the point of the Actress acquisition, which again, I'm sure we'll talk about, they wanted to rename that business and we had to rename it for.
Speaker A:For several reasons.
Speaker A:So that's.
Speaker A:The products, though, were always ice.
Speaker A:So I stood for our insurance company.
Speaker A:So when we built the first claim system, it was about building modules that you could pin together.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But easily take one out and replace it.
Speaker A:So ICE has always been the product name from day one.
Speaker D:Yep.
Speaker A:Company name just changed.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, so let's go.
Speaker B:Let's kind of go through that evolution you mentioned about the Actress thing.
Speaker B:Let's go through the kind of.
Speaker B:What's that?
Speaker B:20 years in a kind of quick overview.
Speaker B:What's that look like?
Speaker B:Until.
Speaker B:Till Today, the kind of key landmark points, I guess.
Speaker A:So we built the claims products, continued to have success in sort of claims markets.
Speaker A:Got the opportunity.
Speaker A:One customer came to us who was looking for a policy system.
Speaker A:Went around the marketplace, didn't like the price they were charging.
Speaker A:A fabulous old guy called Theodore Agnew said to us, you tell us the story of you building a claims product with a.
Speaker A:With a customer funding it.
Speaker A:How about we do that on policy?
Speaker A:So sort of looked hard at each other and got al involved in estimating and underestimated again.
Speaker A:But we're getting better now.
Speaker A:So that built the policy system, did very well for sort of two or three years.
Speaker A:Felt we had a product, an enterprise product that, that we were getting invited to tenders with all the big sort of tier one insurers.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:We just didn't have the balance sheet.
Speaker A:So the first exit for us was to a company called Quindell.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:That worked really well for about 18 months.
Speaker A:24 months.
Speaker A:Helped us grow.
Speaker A:Secured ERS as our first big policy customer, continued to sell sort of claims and other policy systems.
Speaker A:But after about 24 months, they had their own challenges at a corporate level, should we say.
Speaker A:So that became hard.
Speaker A:But that business, then, as it was trying to reshape itself and it was selling off a number of businesses, I approached the board.
Speaker A:My partner who had founded the business with me, had left by then.
Speaker A: He left: Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I approached the board and said, look, you know, we can't sell anything because we've got a toxic parent.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I think we can.
Speaker A:I think we can sell it for as a reasonable assets.
Speaker A:They were supportive.
Speaker A:Supportive of me in terms of who we went to to make that sale.
Speaker A:So we avoided, you know, jumping from frying pan into fire without mentioning any names.
Speaker A: In November: Speaker A:And all we've done since then is, is grow from.
Speaker A:I think we're about sort of four and a half million at a point of acquisition to I think we'll be more than 20 million this year.
Speaker A:And we're now 130 odd people in three.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:So did actors just buy the Quindell part that they.
Speaker B:The part that they owned?
Speaker B:They were just completely.
Speaker A:They bought the IT Freedom business.
Speaker A:Yeah, effectively.
Speaker A:Which.
Speaker A:And that's the point where.
Speaker A:Where we needed to rename it.
Speaker A:And so given.
Speaker A:Nobody called us It Freedom by then everyone was saying ice.
Speaker A:Ice was, you know, very much the product name.
Speaker A:Hence we.
Speaker A:We changed the company name to.
Speaker A:To ICE as well.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Did you take the CEO Role on as soon as you started it.
Speaker B:Freedom.
Speaker B:So that was the kind of, that was the, the straight away you were into kind of more business leadership role.
Speaker A:Rather we co ran it.
Speaker A:So my partner was very much more let's say commercial and illegal and the financials pieces and I was always the tech and the product.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So we were just co directors for one of a better expression.
Speaker A:Neither of us, neither of us did one thing or the other.
Speaker A:Then with him exiting, then I took formerly on the, the role of CEO.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:What was that, what was that like for you?
Speaker A:It was nice to be recognized with a sort of title and know that you're the sort of person at the top.
Speaker A:But fundamentally everyone in the company knew, you know, it's one of the two of us were running it.
Speaker A:I guess if anything from having, having someone alongside you validating decisions, you're there ultimately making the decision on your own.
Speaker A:So it's sort of, it's nice from a recognition point of view but also perhaps a little bit scary from a, from a.
Speaker A:But I had great support from the team and great support from the actress guys.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:So it sounds like the kind of the, the since you joined actress things have just gone from strength to strength like that.
Speaker B:That sounds like it was kind of a fairly kind of pivotal move to do them.
Speaker B:What, what difference did those guys make in the, in kind of being a part.
Speaker B:What, what's changed I guess in the last five, six years?
Speaker A:Firstly, they're very supportive.
Speaker A:Yeah, but, but almost as much as anything.
Speaker A:As I mentioned, the previous parent had a toxic sort of history, so.
Speaker A:Or certainly reputation at the time.
Speaker A:So no one was going to buy software when they didn't know whether we were going to be closed, whether we were going to be sold, you know what.
Speaker A:So, so it was just, it was just a very unstable situation and the actress guys have given that stability.
Speaker A:You know, we very much get left to get on and run the business and you know that's, that's enabled that growth.
Speaker B:So in some ways it was more just kind of the releasing of the, of the kind of shackles of being under that that banner was actually probably the biggest changeable.
Speaker B:And then obviously changing that to such a reputable brand that had a good reputation, et cetera, et cetera, kind of gave you the platform to really kind of push on to do what you wanted to do.
Speaker A:Definitely.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And and of course they've got great reputation in the marketplace.
Speaker A:They have great connections in the marketplace.
Speaker A:So we've been able to exploit some of those and that's what they saw.
Speaker A:You know, they saw some great people.
Speaker A:I'm sure they'd say this if they were sat in this room.
Speaker A:They saw some great people, some great products but, but hindered by its parent company and, and luckily it's, it's sort of come to fruition.
Speaker B:So, so let's talk a little bit about the, the role of the.
Speaker B:You're you're doing now the CEO role.
Speaker B:What, what does that, what's the, the kind of the big focus for you in that role and what's going to I guess a kind of day, week, month in the life of, of the CEO of Growing InsureTech business.
Speaker B:What does that look like?
Speaker B:What do you spend the bulk of your time on?
Speaker A:I mean they're not typical days as you'd expect me to say.
Speaker A:And that's good for me.
Speaker A:I like variety.
Speaker A:I think it would be fair to say A lot of my time is spent in sales.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I'm almost doubling.
Speaker A:We, you know, we don't have a sales director so I double up as, as a sales director.
Speaker A:So you know, obviously the day to day running of the company, I'm still very heavily involved in the product and, and the product vision and kind of the markets we want to go into.
Speaker A:And in, in the last sort of 18 months we've got into a couple of new territories so driving that sort of change of direction and into other geographies.
Speaker A:But I would say, you know, 50% of my time is spent in sales related sort of activities.
Speaker A:Whether that's directly talking to prospects or talking to partners.
Speaker A:We get a lot more traction now with the Deloittes and some of the other sort of system integrators.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do you still like being quite involved in that?
Speaker B:Because obviously there's quite a few different.
Speaker B:Spinning a few different plates there.
Speaker B:There's the kind of sales paper which I imagine is a kind of pretty full on job and obviously in your type of business, getting business through the doors, obviously they're going to most most important part, the biggest part of the engine I guess.
Speaker B:But then still being involved in the, the operational side.
Speaker B:Is that, is that kind of.
Speaker B:You mentioned about variety, is it, is that.
Speaker B:It seems like quite a lot to do but is that, is that what, what excites you doing that, that kind of part of it?
Speaker A:Certainly the product side.
Speaker A:I mean I wouldn't say everything, every piece of it excites me but you know I'm very keen to be involved in, in the products and the direction of the product.
Speaker A:The direction of the company.
Speaker A:The sales side, I've got a great leadership team around me so people that look after the, the sort of operations, whether it's our sort of, you know, cloud hosting or it's a sort of customer services.
Speaker A:So fortunately I don't get too heavily involved in that side of things.
Speaker A:But yeah, product I'll always stay close to and sales I'll always stay very close to.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So I wanted to move it on to a little bit about.
Speaker B:So we've obviously gone through your, your career but I wanted to kind of touch on a few of the, the points around kind of like the big wins and the kind of the critical points in there and, and, and then move on to talk a little bit about kind of advice you'd give to other people.
Speaker B:But if we start with the kind of the, the pivotal.
Speaker B:I mean I can, I can already pick out a couple of things there that seem fairly kind of big.
Speaker B:But what would you say with the kind of two, two or three kind of big pivotal big wins that you've had in your, in that kind of career history that have kind of shaped the next, the next stage or the next kind of part of the career?
Speaker A:I think if you talk about, talk about the present sort of company, then two obvious ones.
Speaker A:The, the first claims customer.
Speaker A:Yeah helping to, to launch that, build and launch that claims products.
Speaker B:Is that the one that's the one that kind of part funded and did we spoke about a second ago.
Speaker A:Yeah guys, that sort of part funded it which was a, a sort of accident management company in the Northwest.
Speaker A:Then the company that part funded the policy development.
Speaker A:So that got us our two core core applications and of course we've got our sort of MI and our digital capability and all the other bits around it.
Speaker A:But fundamentally you've got those two core sort of policy and claims applications.
Speaker A:So those will always be strong in the memory.
Speaker A:And then more recently the RSA win.
Speaker A:So you know, we always felt we had that sort of enterprise system capable of getting into those sort of tier one insurers had been building up with, with customers like the aa, John Lewis, then Sky, Home Protect, so names that people are very familiar with, but perhaps not sort of what you terms as tier one insurers.
Speaker A:We got the opportunity with RSA, we got down to the final two.
Speaker A:We were told we weren't involved in the first PoC, which was obviously a little bit painful, but I made the decision that we would do.
Speaker A:We would fund the POC piece ourselves.
Speaker A:So it's a small funded POC we'd fund it ourselves.
Speaker A:And I said to the.
Speaker A:The sponsor at rsa, we were happy to do that.
Speaker A:We'd need some input from his people, but we'd limit it.
Speaker A:They didn't feel they had enough capacity to run two in parallel.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:So basically I said to our guys, right, we're going to stay in the game.
Speaker A:And I took a view on who'd been given a sort of the win of the poc, if you like, who you're competing against, who we were competing against, and felt this one could be worth staying in the game.
Speaker A:And we stayed in the game.
Speaker A:They ran into difficulties and we were there, we'd done the poc, we ticked all the boxes, we stayed involved with their people, and of course, we were up to speed when.
Speaker A:When things needed to change rapidly.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, that sounds like it's like a kind of real pivotal.
Speaker B:I mean, winning rsa, huge win.
Speaker B:We can talk a bit about the success.
Speaker B:I mean, I think most people have seen the success of that has been amazing.
Speaker B:But that, that kind of decision there, to just.
Speaker B:Just kind of stay, at least in the race, you know, I mean, kind of clinging on, really.
Speaker B:But, but do you think if you hadn't have done that, you'd have had a chance to kind of go back and do it?
Speaker A:I think you'd always have a chance.
Speaker A:But, but would.
Speaker A:You know, it's a bit.
Speaker A:It's a bit like some of these situations, you know, when you're, when you're in and digging.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:You tend to just keep digging.
Speaker A:Whereas they knew they had a second option.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so it was probably a fairly easy decision for them to pivot and.
Speaker B:Which was going, I guess, going significantly better than the, The.
Speaker B:The other option.
Speaker B:So it was like.
Speaker A:Well, actually, I guess so.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we've got an option here.
Speaker B:It's going pretty well.
Speaker B:This is not going particularly well.
Speaker B:I know what you mean.
Speaker B:The tendency would have been we're kind of.
Speaker B:We're this deep in already.
Speaker B:Let's just kind of keep going and going.
Speaker B:And that's, I guess, how a lot of these things tend up, tend to go wrong and overspend and all that kind of stuff, because it's almost.
Speaker B:When do you take the decision to pull the ripcord and.
Speaker B:And go in another direction?
Speaker A:It's a tough.
Speaker A:That's a tough.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Pulling out because you've got to say, right, I made a decision to go down this route.
Speaker A:I don't think it's right.
Speaker A:Which is what the guys at RSA did.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so step back.
Speaker A:So there's obviously a lot of, a lot of soul searching, a lot of sort of questioning going on.
Speaker A:But I think because we made that decision, because I said to the team, let's stay in this one.
Speaker A:And today my boss, you know, co founder of actress Theo Duchin will still talk about there's lessons for everyone there that, that I decided to stay in.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And it wasn't hundreds of thousands of pounds it cost us, but you know, you gotta, you've gotta stay in.
Speaker B:It is interesting.
Speaker B:Is that the first time you'd ever done that?
Speaker A:I think so, yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker B:I just wondered if that was because you mean it's, it, it's an amazing tactic.
Speaker B:But then you mean you.
Speaker B:At the same time that you mean.
Speaker B:I don't know what the odds were then, but you're probably, I don't know, 80, 20 or whatever.
Speaker B:The odds have been stacked against you because everything goes well with the original poc.
Speaker B:You're, you're kind of, you, you're out the game and.
Speaker B:But I guess you'd have figured that out relatively quickly.
Speaker B:Like if it was going well, you'd have said like at some point you'd have cut your losses.
Speaker B:But yeah, it's interesting to see if you've done that a few times before and it not gone the other way.
Speaker A:No, not particularly.
Speaker A:Don't ask me what inspired me.
Speaker B:I was going to say what was it?
Speaker B:What was it?
Speaker B:You mean?
Speaker B:We won't go too much into the competitor.
Speaker B:But I guess you did you.
Speaker B:Was it a case of you looking at it, thinking, I actually think there's a good chance that this might not work out and therefore we should still be in because I've got a gut feeling we might get another bite of the sherry.
Speaker A:And look, we had a good relationship with the, the guys at RSA and, and I met the sponsor in London and I said I was up for that and he said, you know, he admired us for doing that.
Speaker A:So, you know, you've got brownie points on day one.
Speaker B:Goodwill.
Speaker A:Sometimes you've got to go with your gut, you know, talk about advice for others.
Speaker A:It's, you know, sometimes trust your instinct, go with your gut.
Speaker A:And for me my instinct was saying, you know, this one perhaps isn't dead.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm sure this situations happened against us where we've won things and, and some people have, have thought about staying, staying in the game, but that one really worked out well.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's a man.
Speaker B:It seems like a real pivotal Moment.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:Interestingly like when that, that talk to me a little bit about that decision making process and how that worked.
Speaker B:Like did, did the rest of the team kind of.
Speaker B:Were they on board right from the off?
Speaker B:Like, did you mean like the actress, were they heavily involved in like kind of saying don't do that?
Speaker B:I mean what, what did that look like?
Speaker A:I mean the actress guys tend to let us run the business.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Ourselves.
Speaker A:So, so they, they're not involved in, in sort of day to day terms of the running of the company or the sort of sales situations.
Speaker A:I'd say the team were pretty much on board.
Speaker A:But I definitely walked into the meeting and said, we are doing this.
Speaker A:It wasn't, we weren't, we weren't debating it.
Speaker A:And, and I rarely do that.
Speaker A:I try and bring everybody on board and I like to think that's one of my sort of skills.
Speaker A:But, but this was one.
Speaker A:I said, no, we're doing it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I mean, I think there's a learning in there.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, I mean sometimes when you really as a leader, when you really know something's the right call, going in with that kind of assurance and that certainty kind of you get.
Speaker B:People will jump on the bus because of like they think, well, look, I mean if he doesn't do that, if he doesn't play that card too often when he does, then maybe we should, you know, I'm sure you've got some.
Speaker B:Next time you play it, they'll definitely, they'll definitely.
Speaker B:Have you played it?
Speaker A:Since we haven't so far, we haven't needed to say that's good.
Speaker A:So yeah, look, it's not about walking and saying, right, we're doing this and walking back out.
Speaker A:Of course you then explain the logic and explain the reason and say, look, and sometimes timings are good on those things.
Speaker A:And you know, we weren't, we weren't overly exposed on it.
Speaker A:But, but they all understood the reasons, they saw the value.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, for us to get that first tier one and now, you know, there's one big win we've had last year we can't talk about yet.
Speaker A:But when that comes out, you know, I think that's off the back of us then doing that sort of first tier one insurer.
Speaker A:So, you know, one thing has led to another and another.
Speaker A:Not every play works but, but that one did.
Speaker A:When the training ground works, it works.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, what, what did that, what's.
Speaker B:Without going.
Speaker B:I mean, I appreciate we can't talk about the, the other ones but what's that done for your business in regards to kind of the win and the kind of positives out of that?
Speaker B:Like what is it?
Speaker B:Is it, is it had a drastic change?
Speaker B:Has it been a big.
Speaker B:As big a deal as it kind of certainly seems that, I mean, look it outside looking in.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean our competitors are the sort of obvious guide wires, eis, duck creeks.
Speaker A:And I think to that point we were, we were always like perhaps the fourth player in this sort of equation and a challenger.
Speaker A:Great word.
Speaker A:Now I think since that, that time people have got the visibility of ice, they'll certainly have the visibility of ICE when they see the next one.
Speaker A:And you know, we get on those shortlists all the time.
Speaker A:So rather than having to work hard to get on those shortlists, I think we're now in a position where, you know, we're almost automatically on them.
Speaker A:And I won't say we get on every single one, but you know, it's elevated us significantly and that, you know, just takes a bit of pressure off and then it's, you know, everyone to their own.
Speaker A:But that's the key, big difference I think is getting on most of the lists now.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So you're kind of in the game from the off and you can focus all your time and effort to actually delivering a good proposition rather than just spending your time getting even, getting in the door and giving the chance.
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Speaker B:So and so again, let's talk a bit, go back into the other side.
Speaker B:I want to focus too much on the negative and the failure stuff, but there's normally some, some, Some positives to come out of it.
Speaker B:What, what are the kind of the, the big things, lessons learned kind of things that maybe didn't go quite so well that you've.
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You've learned from, in your career.
Speaker A:Certainly starting a business and.
Speaker A:Yeah, and you're just starting a business.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So, so you'll see these.
Speaker A:I always describe to, to friends, the, the highs are really high and the lows are really low.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think that's the thing to sort of watch out for and try and if you do well and you have some success, you know, tuck some money away and, you know, there will be some lows and, you know, I've talked about us getting the estimates wrong originally, but that's fine.
Speaker A:You find ways of doing a bit more consultancy and remortgaging and, and whatever else.
Speaker A:Those things work.
Speaker A:Well, talk about loads.
Speaker A:I can.
Speaker A:My most famous low is.
Speaker A:Is we had a customer called Rock plc.
Speaker A:They were a building company, did a lot of repairs and management on behalf of insurance companies had bought one of our customers in sort of.
Speaker A:In the early days, I was driving up the M6 about 7 o'clock.
Speaker A:Well, in fact, listening to Five Live at 7 o'clock in the morning and they said, you know, the Prime Minister's done this, the war here is going somewhere else and Rock PLC has gone into administration.
Speaker A:So I think I did pretty well to stay on the motorway.
Speaker A:But we've had three customers go into administration.
Speaker A:That was by far the worst.
Speaker B:And what.
Speaker B:They owed you a lot of money.
Speaker A:At the time, they owed us a reasonable sum.
Speaker A:And certainly as a small company, it.
Speaker B:Was a lot of money.
Speaker A:And, you know, you sit there and think, well, it's a plc, you know, it's going to be safe, it's going to be.
Speaker A:So, you know, that's interesting.
Speaker A:And that.
Speaker A:That journey on the M6 still haunts me to this day.
Speaker A:And that was.
Speaker A:That was 15 plus years ago.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:One of those things that just will never, probably never, never leave.
Speaker B:What you mean there's.
Speaker B:I think there's certainly.
Speaker B:There's always a few lessons learned.
Speaker B:I mean, would you say there's kind of two.
Speaker B:You spoke a little bit about advice and stuff like that.
Speaker B:What, what are the kind of.
Speaker B:If you've got two or three kind of really pivotal lessons that you've learned or bits of advice that you Think that like, kind of like you would give back to your kind of younger self or someone who's doing it, doing it right now.
Speaker A:I think it is.
Speaker A:You know, I mentioned the highs and lows, so be prepared for those.
Speaker A:Don't get carried away when the highs.
Speaker A:And if you get two highs in a row still don't get carried away.
Speaker A:And I don't mean we did.
Speaker A:I think we were, we were pretty measured as an organization.
Speaker A:So, you know, you can get kind of get through those lows.
Speaker A:I would say sort of if you really think you're doing the right thing, then back yourself.
Speaker A:And that's pretty much what we did in the RSA example.
Speaker A:But I think some, some early examples where, you know, could have been easier to sort of say, you know, are we doing the right thing?
Speaker A:Let's just go and get a job and.
Speaker A:Or let's just fold this into something else.
Speaker A:You know, we felt we were doing the right thing.
Speaker A:Got a bit hairy at times, but we backed ourselves.
Speaker A:So, you know, if you think you're right back yourself.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And be prepared for, for some highs and some lows and be prepared for them to be very high and very low.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's interesting actually.
Speaker B:I saw an interview this morning on the way into London actually with Gary Lineker.
Speaker B:Actually was me and Thomas Frank, the Brentford manager, and he was saying he's got.
Speaker B:Which I thought was really kind of pertinent, certainly for like kind of starting your own business or just he has a 24 hour rule.
Speaker B:So if like he can, he can be annoyed that he's lost for 24 hours and he could be really happy that he won for 24 hours, but it's 24 hours and then he kind of like gets his head back in the game and just kind of moves on to the next one to try and keep it.
Speaker B:Like, I think football management's probably a bit different because at a game probably a few days later, but I think it kind of rings true for like not to get too high, not to get too low.
Speaker B:You've got to try and stay as celebrate the wins, but don't go too crazy.
Speaker A:Same with the Tiger woods story that he gives himself 10 seconds to think about a bad shot.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Is that what it is?
Speaker A:Okay, I have to go.
Speaker A:I like my golf and I can happily, happily chew over a bad shot for three or four holes.
Speaker B:Well, the worst thing is you've got a whole walk to the next one.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's just kind of like you've got plenty of time to think about it.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:If you're only like me, you think about it three hours later probably.
Speaker B:So I wanted to kind of talk about like looking forward now.
Speaker B:Like I want to talk a little bit about more generally in the insurance market.
Speaker B:Obviously AI is massive at the moment.
Speaker B:Everyone's talking about that.
Speaker B:I've done a, certainly recorded a few podcasts that aren't out yet, but at talking like I'm doing a bit of a series on Chief Data Officers and like AI and insurance, but kind of broadly speaking, what do you see kind of the, what's big for the next kind of few years and, and, and, and, and, and how do you see the kind of state of the market now and what, what needs to, to happen to kind of evolve and get up to speed?
Speaker A:I think it is all about AI.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I think anyone says anything different, they're not sure what's going on.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think the frustrating thing for me there's been a lot, you know, when, when the term AI came out three or four years ago, there was a lot of hype.
Speaker A:Anyone with a decision engine in their product was using AI and all of this sort of stuff.
Speaker A:So I think what you're now seeing is some, some true use cases that are really making differences to business and I think the, the pace and the number of those use cases is just going to accelerate and accelerate and I think that's what, that's what the industry needs to, to sort of look at, work out those, those that are going to make the difference and, and probably not bore the ocean with, with AI, I think it's very easy.
Speaker A:You know, we, we talk a lot about it.
Speaker A:We see it in sort of two halves for us both, you know, sort of what we call internal or operational.
Speaker A:So sort of co pilots and things that help us with our service desk, etc.
Speaker A:And then obviously things that we're doing within our application and partners that we're within, we're using within our, within our application.
Speaker A:But don't bore the ocean.
Speaker A:You know, I think it's very easy to sort of say right, we need an AI strategy.
Speaker A:Whatever the goal is, you know, we need to take x, X amount of cost out the business.
Speaker A:Just start small, do something, get some wins, build on those wins.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Are you like more Because I, I totally get what you mean about that.
Speaker B:I didn't really think about that before is that you've obviously got two angles.
Speaker B:Angles with AI you've got to think of like how you're embedding it into your product and Therefore what you can, you can offer clients into in regards to kind of how you sell ice's product and then there's the, the operational kind of AI savings for you as a business.
Speaker B:But like are you seeing.
Speaker B:Because certainly, I mean I was out the market for four months on garden leave and stuff.
Speaker B:But, but, and, and that seemed like the pace that kind of changed in that period of time was huge as well.
Speaker B:But the.
Speaker B:Are you seeing many insurers actually kind of doing like.
Speaker B:Because it seemed to me before I did that kind of middle of last year that there were lots of kind of little kind of mini projects or like people in the side room kind of playing around with it a little bit and figuring it out.
Speaker B:But naturally risk averse insurance businesses weren't kind of doing anything kind of groundbreaking.
Speaker B:Certainly is.
Speaker B:Are you seeing that kind of being put in more into production now like through the clients that you work with and then doing, actually starting to use it properly.
Speaker B:Okay, interesting.
Speaker A:I think, you know, there'll still be some behind the curve.
Speaker A:There'll be, there'll be plenty ahead of the curve.
Speaker A:But I think you're starting to see some real stories coming out now and, and for me they're the ones to sort of follow and kind of follow those ideas.
Speaker A:But it is just accelerating and it's going to get faster and faster.
Speaker B:Are you seeing any pattern as to where people are using it, where they're leaning into?
Speaker A:I guess I think it varies a lot of, you know, there's, there's a lot of talk around sort of chat bots and, and pieces like that.
Speaker A:I think AI in the call center.
Speaker A:So supporting the agent, trying to deal with things more correctly and more quickly.
Speaker A:We're seeing quite a few sort of use cases in, in that sort of example, a bit in the claim space perhaps in the, in the sort of more in the supply chain rather than the sort of pure data side of things at the moment.
Speaker A:So yeah, bits and pieces and I think it's only kind of come faster and you know, we're not trying to reinvent the wheel here.
Speaker A:We're trying to work with partners trying to use our data and deliver solutions that the customers can flex to what they want.
Speaker A:So not, not forcing anything on them but trying to, trying to give them the capability.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:What about the future for ice?
Speaker B:What's the plan for you?
Speaker B:I guess the, the kind of vision over the next next few years.
Speaker A:I think for the next few years on the back of the success we've recently had and we've talked about RSA and kind of where we're going next, we're expanding geographically so we put a customer live in New Zealand back in June last year for both policy and claims.
Speaker A:So still English speaking.
Speaker A:But if you can cope with the time clock in New Zealand, you can do anything else in the world.
Speaker A:It is as far as you can go.
Speaker A:We're doing an implementation for another sort of tier one insurer in moment.
Speaker A:So we're starting to see more success in those English speaking territories and we're starting to look at what other territories that should we focus.
Speaker A:So I think you'll see some growth in geographies in terms of where ICE is operating.
Speaker A:I think you'll see hopefully some continued big insurers understanding that ICE can deliver sort of quicker, faster and give a greater return on investment than perhaps some of our competitors and the market we still haven't really sort of mastered.
Speaker A:And I'm not sure too many of our competitors have is the whole commercial space and I think there's an opportunity in that commercial space as well.
Speaker A:So yeah, that's where I expect us to be going over the next few years.
Speaker B:Is the US an option for you guys or is it kind of, I mean it's a, a, it's a big beast to tackle, isn't it?
Speaker A:But it's a big beast and you're kind of going into the, to the back garden of your competitors.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I wouldn't say it's, it's off the agenda.
Speaker A:Certainly as a group we've gone big into Canada.
Speaker A:Yeah, ICE hasn't at the moment, but we've gone, gone big into Canada.
Speaker A:So, so naturally I think there'll be a, a desire to move down into the US from there and you know, we'll try and piggyback on that success.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And what about ice?
Speaker B:Is the, from a product perspective?
Speaker B:Is, is, is the kind of product set.
Speaker B:Pretty set now where, where it is and then it's kind of evolution of that and evolving it, bringing new tech into it when, when you can and evolving what is already a pretty good.
Speaker B:But it's obviously a good, good product already.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think, you know, we had no underlying legacy.
Speaker A:We've always got technical debt that we're trying to work on.
Speaker A:We're trying to make things faster, smoother, quicker, better.
Speaker A:But I think the big changes for us over the next two or three years will all be in that sort of AI space.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And what about you kind of personally career wise?
Speaker B:Like you mean CEO obviously.
Speaker B:You mean when you when you're CEO, you don't kind of tend to move, move jobs or anything like that.
Speaker B:But how do you see your kind of career going over the next kind of five, ten years?
Speaker B:Are you, you got any other future ambitions or things you want to do?
Speaker A:I think, yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, my next ambition is, is being on a golf course more often.
Speaker A:So I'm definitely at the end of, or towards the end of my career, not at the end of my career.
Speaker A:So, you know, I'm keen to see us grow and, and kind of build from here, but inevitably over time, you know, I won't be doing this forever.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And so we need to start sort of thinking about that sort of transition at some point.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I don't see myself doing, doing another full time role for anybody.
Speaker B:Do you still have a, you have a stake in ICE as a business?
Speaker A:In, in the wider group.
Speaker A:So yes.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker A:Actress.
Speaker A:Incentivize their sort of, all of their staff, to be fair, across, across staff, sort of management teams.
Speaker A:And so all of our, all of our staff are incentivized and in various degrees have, have sort of ownership.
Speaker D:Yeah, ownership, yeah.
Speaker B:And the last question I wanted to ask just before we get into a bit of kind of quick fire.
Speaker B:So it's a bit fun at the end really.
Speaker B:But so like, I think you're the first person I had on the, on the podcast that went from being a technical person to a CEO.
Speaker B:So if there's anybody listening and like lots, loads of the people that listen will, you know, I've had, I mean, funnily enough, since the turn of the year, I must have had four or five people in my business who are in technology focused roles who have ambitions of being a CEO.
Speaker B:That's when I asked them that question, which is kind of what I always ask.
Speaker B:Didn't used to hear that five years ago, put it that way.
Speaker B:But someone who was kind of on the CIO track probably wouldn't necessarily have ambitions of being a CEO.
Speaker B:I think that's partly because now technology is becoming more front and center.
Speaker B:So you could see that being a more obvious route.
Speaker B:But what was there?
Speaker B:Is there any advice you would give someone who's looking to do that or like, what would you kind of say is the kind of key things, the learnings you need to get under your belt in order to take that on?
Speaker A:That's a difficult question, I think.
Speaker A:I'm not sure there's one or two key things, certainly understanding the business.
Speaker A:So I think you're right.
Speaker A:I think, you know, technologies Playing sort of front and center in any businesses and, and certainly in any business transformation, whether it's sort of core systems digitization, now it's AI.
Speaker A:So you know, 20, 30 years ago when it reported into a line that then reported into, you know, might report into the CFO who then reported into the CEO.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's no longer the case.
Speaker A:So I think for me having that balance of understanding the tech and what it can do for a business, but understanding the business and the business operations is fundamental.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Are you seeing that more often now?
Speaker B:Because I think that there's that kind of, I don't know what the stats are, but there's the kind of massive percentage of senior people in insurance that are going to be retiring over the next kind of 5, 10 years or whatever the numbers are.
Speaker B:Are you seeing a more of a trend in the businesses that you work with in the sense they're getting more people that are technology kind of, at least technology savvy into those kind of more business facing roles.
Speaker B:It seems to me like from an outsider perspective in the CEO role, for example, I mean they're probably not thinking about vast volumes of people anymore.
Speaker B:They're probably starting to think about how AI and automation and stuff like that can limit that.
Speaker B:So the days of having massive call centers and stuff are kind of probably not dead quite yet.
Speaker B:But you could see a world at five, 10 years down the line where that would be the case.
Speaker B:Are you seeing people trying to move senior guys?
Speaker B:Maybe not quite CEOs but it, but people are more technically savvy into those roles.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think, you know, in the same way that the technical people need to understand the business, business people need to understand what technology can do for them.
Speaker A:So there's, there's, you know, and we're all a lot more, you know, I talked about, you know, when I was at school and, and there were what you'd call the geeks and everybody else.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, no longer is it like that because we all like a, a dabble to a degree with our technology and we've just done a big house renovation and you know, I put a lot of smart tech in there because I'm into my tech and it's kind of fun and all future proof and all that sort of thing.
Speaker A:So I think, you know, just in your day to day life everyone's involved in technology, not just, you know, understanding what a sort of mobile phone is but, but you know, everything is technically, yeah, technically more enabled now.
Speaker A:So I think, you know, I agree, I, I think you're seeing those, those sort of business people be more tech savvy and I think that sort of coming together and perhaps blurring of lines between what's the CIO versus what's the coo.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You're certainly not seeing as many.
Speaker B:You mean.
Speaker B:Because I think a lot.
Speaker B:You had a lot of CIOs reporting into COOs.
Speaker B:I think that's gradually, gradually moving away, isn't it?
Speaker B:Like a cio.
Speaker B:And even the CDO now seems to have a.
Speaker B:Have a seat at the table.
Speaker B:Certainly.
Speaker B:I imagine that CDO thing probably changing a bit over the next five years.
Speaker A:And that's a role that didn't exist 10 years ago as well.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:But shows the importance of sort of data and people starting to understand, you know, what are the different sort of constituent parts of their business and where's the value in the business.
Speaker A:And you know, data without doubt is certainly insurance.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:This is where that value is.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right, so we're coming towards the end now, but I do a bit of a quick fire round at the end, so I'm just going to fire a few, A few questions at you.
Speaker B:So which brand or company do you most admire and why?
Speaker A:It's probably a boring answer, but I think Apple.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Are definitely up there.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think they've continued to innovate.
Speaker A:Quality in everything they do.
Speaker A:Something we strive for.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, you just look at imitation is, is a great thing and you just look at all, you know, there's nothing I don't buy off of, off of Amazon now that isn't packaged in an Apple type way, you know, where it sort of unfolds nicely unless it's very cheap and cheerful from, from.
Speaker A:Whereas, you know, five, 10 years ago it was just sitting in a box sort of thing.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'd say, I'd say Apple were right up there.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's funny you said when we took like.
Speaker B:I spent a lot of time on garden leaf kind of doing websites and branding and all this kind of stuff that I didn't think would take very long.
Speaker B:It was actually a lot more difficult, I thought.
Speaker B:But the, the, the Apple pretty much invented the whole unboxing kind of thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like you, I know what you mean.
Speaker B:Like you get any product now, it's always like kind of folds out.
Speaker B:It's like a bit like origami or something like that.
Speaker B:I mean they pretty much invented that and they.
Speaker B:But when you go on there, we use their website as a kind of.
Speaker B:To get some ideas from.
Speaker B:But the Branding and the way they productize stuff and it's, I mean they literally never, they never make an error really, do they?
Speaker B:It's good the way they do it.
Speaker B:So the next one is, what's the one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you first started?
Speaker A:I think going back to that sort of trust your instincts, you know, I was far less confident at the start of my career than I am now, which obviously comes with experience and knowledge.
Speaker A:But I think, you know, trust your instincts has worked many a time well for me.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker B:Next one.
Speaker B:If you could swap jobs with someone for the day, who would it be and why?
Speaker A:Obviously, dead easy, Rory McElroy.
Speaker B:That's right up there for me as well.
Speaker A:Certainly I certainly wouldn't swap jobs with the Prime Minister.
Speaker A:Although sometimes we all think we can do a better job.
Speaker A:But yes, playing golf, you know, earning a living, doing what you, you love doing.
Speaker B:I always think that would always be a golfer.
Speaker B:Most people always ask me, but it's after off camera normally I always think it would be like I'm a massive golfer, so like golfer for me.
Speaker B:But I'd quite like to be Donald Trump just for a day, just to see what actually goes through.
Speaker B:That guy said like, wow, the way he said it would be a good one.
Speaker B:The next one, best kind of business or kind of self development kind of book that you've, you've ever read.
Speaker B:You're a big reader.
Speaker A:I'm not a big reader actually.
Speaker A:I'm not a big reader of books.
Speaker A:I read a lot of articles, you know, sitting on my iPad, watch a lot of presentations.
Speaker A:So I'm a bit of a believer in, in sort of, you know, no one's got a silver bullet otherwise, you know, it would have sold the rest out.
Speaker A:So, you know, I'm a bit of a believer and, and you know, what works for one is not going to necessarily work for everybody.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So I try and pick the bit, I think, right, that will work for me and yeah, that will work for me.
Speaker A:So, so I, I get a lot from sort of watching presentations, you know, listening to podcasts, watching, watching YouTube, reading a few sort of business articles, reading some of the insurance articles, just thinking about sort of looking at competitors, product documentation and where it can go.
Speaker A:So I, I think I sort of make up a bit of a sort of matrix rather than, rather than that sort of single read.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I'm the same.
Speaker B:To be fair, I'm trying to read a bit more, but yeah, it's Not.
Speaker B:It doesn't come naturally to me.
Speaker B:Best career decision you ever made?
Speaker A:Starting ice.
Speaker A:Yeah, without doubt.
Speaker A:Starting ice.
Speaker A:Having the sort of conviction to follow through what we talked about for five or six years, I think.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Although I would say my very first job was.
Speaker A:Was.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I had those two sort of boring opportunities and then, and then the sort of preferred one which was, you know, taking a risk, but they had a.
Speaker A:It was run.
Speaker A:I got interviewed by their CEO, lovely Irish guy called David McConnell.
Speaker A:We spent 45 minutes talking about golf and football.
Speaker A:He was an amateur golfer for Ireland.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:And I walked out there and I thought, well, he's, he's not asking me much about me and my exams, but.
Speaker A:But came back and offered me the job and yeah, that was, that was a good decision to take that one.
Speaker D:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I got in really early as an.
Speaker A:As a company really grew and, and you know, that's great in life to see.
Speaker A:To be part of a growing organization, particularly if you want to be part of that, you know, it takes a bit of character.
Speaker A:You've got to change and grow with an organization.
Speaker A:But that was, that was probably the second best one.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker B:You learn a lot from being part of a kind of startup like that, don't you?
Speaker B:As well?
Speaker B:Like, you mean, you just kind of.
Speaker B:One minute you're building a desk or something like that.
Speaker B:Next minute you're kind of involved in something like being.
Speaker B:Getting rolling your sleeves out, getting your hands dirty.
Speaker B:I think it's, it's exciting.
Speaker B:And then the kind of penultimate one.
Speaker B:Who is the famous person you admire most and why?
Speaker B:Can I guess what I think you might say?
Speaker B:But I thought you're gonna say Tiger woods, but.
Speaker A:No, no, I think you'd have to say Elon Musk.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:Again, it's probably a.
Speaker A:A fairly safe choice, but just the way he's gone across industries and, and just what he's done time after time after time.
Speaker A:You know, you can talk about Steve Jobs and what he did at Apple or this, but you know, you look at, look, look at what Musk has done.
Speaker A:I'm interested to watch what the next next few months on the edge a.
Speaker B:Little bit at the moment, but he's.
Speaker A:He'S best friends with our.
Speaker A:With a new U.
Speaker A:S.
Speaker A:President, so yeah, we'll see where that goes.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:And he's obviously very vocal, but I think just if you step back and look at what he's done and how he's, you know, had again, in sort of conviction to sort of follow his beliefs, you know, so believed in, in the electric vehicles.
Speaker A:He's going after the space industry, you know, believes in things and, and he pumps a lot of money in so very easy after that first one just to you know, sit back, say well I've got pots of money now.
Speaker A:I'll, I'll just retire off to the sunset.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean I'm actually listening to his book on audiobook at the moment.
Speaker B:I'm about, I'm about a third of the way through and I mean I, I didn't, I mean I knew was involved in PayPal but I didn't know the anything really before that.
Speaker B:And like is the early stage of his, his life is pretty, pretty kind of crazy as well.
Speaker B:I mean there's some like amazing stuff that he's done.
Speaker B:So yeah, I mean anybody who's that kind of ambitious and outspoken will do some kind of crazy stuff that doesn't necessarily everyone agrees with.
Speaker B:But you have to say that kind of talk about pushing the, pushing the needle.
Speaker B:He like he does it.
Speaker B:He's possibly the best entrepreneur I mean certainly of our lifetime I think.
Speaker B:But don't think there's many that compete with him.
Speaker B:Final one.
Speaker B:I ask everyone what's the best thing about working in insurance?
Speaker A:I think right now it's the sort of pace of change, you know, go back to, to the 18 year old Andrew and I'm not sure what got me into, into insurance but right now the pace of change over the last, you know it's, it's known as a slow moving industry but, but not right now and I think it's been like that for a few years and I think that's, that's, that's what I, we, you know, we take on a lot of graduates and that's what I say to them.
Speaker A:You know it might sound like insurance is, is boring but you're learning, you're learning some great core skills.
Speaker A:It's a sort of industry.
Speaker A:You understand the principles because you buy insurance.
Speaker A:But right now the rate of change is, is phenomenal.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, I mean I totally agree.
Speaker B:I think it's a great place to.
Speaker D:Be at the moment.
Speaker B:Well, what a great way to finish.
Speaker B:So thank you so much for taking the time to have a chat.
Speaker B:Been really interested.
Speaker B:I, I could talk to you about it for hours.
Speaker B:But look, I'm sure there'll be people that want to get in touch whether it be kind of hear more about ICE or come and work for you or whatever.
Speaker B:So what's the best way if someone wants to kind of connect?
Speaker B:Is it kind of LinkedIn connect me.
Speaker A:On LinkedIn yeah, I'll happily connect up with people on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:Message me or find my email address on sort of LinkedIn as well.
Speaker A:So reach out with it whichever way possible.
Speaker A:Possible.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:Well look, thanks again and let everybody keep listening.
Speaker B:We've got plenty more episodes coming up, so we'll see everyone again soon.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker C:And that's it for today's episode of beyond the Desk.
Speaker C:I really hope you enjoyed hearing from today's guest and that you've taken away some valuable insights to fuel your own career journey.
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Speaker C:If you're hungry for more stories from the leaders 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.
Speaker C:Thanks again for tuning in and I'll catch you next time for another inspiring conversation.
Speaker C:Until then, take care and keep pushing the limits of what's possible in your own career.
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