[Music] Hello and welcome to Beyond the Dess, 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 insure tech. On your host, Mark Thomas, and every week I'll be sitting down with industry trailblazers who are driving innovation and modernisation within the insurance sector. We'll explore their personal journeys from their early backgrounds and the pivotal moments that shape their careers. So the challenges they've had to overcome, the lessons they've learnt along the way and of course the big wins that have defined their professional journey so far. But it's not just about the successes, it's about what you and I can take away from their experiences and the advice they have for anyone wanting to follow in similar footsteps. Whether you're just starting out or looking to level up your career and the insurance or insure tech world, this podcast is packed with valuable insights and inspiration. So grab your headphones, get comfortable and let's jump into Beyond the Dess. [Music] Jarls, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing? Morning Mark, yeah, very well, thanks. Good stuff. Right, so I always think we'll go through the whole career and stuff like that. But I guess just we'll probably go right back to the start and work our way through it chronologically. But before we 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. and we'll go from there. Yeah, very good. Jarls Baxter, CIO for Europe for Brown and Brown. So we're a large US-based insurance broker and I run technology for our operations across Europe. Good stuff. How long have you been there? A year now. So I started at the beginning of this year, so just coming up to the end of my first year. Who has it gone? Busy. Yeah, definitely busy. It's been great. Really enjoyed it. It suits me really well. And it's quite nice. It's nice at this time of year to just reflect on the year that's gone by, look forward to the year ahead. We've come a long way. We've got a lot of exciting stuff ahead of us. So I'd like to say I'd like to go all the way back to the start. So my first kind of question really is, how did you, what did it look like? We were talking just before about your kids being at university and stuff like that. What did that look like for you? Were you always into tech right from a young age or was it kind of a gradual evolution? Yeah, so 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 milk ground, applied to a whole load of different people. And the one who could help me pay my debts off fastest and ashamedly was Anderson consulting at the time. So I took the job there. They send your first six to twelve weeks of learning what you're doing. Set me in front of a computer and said, we're going to teach you to code. I wasn't sure I was expecting that. So a bit of an accident to be honest, but I enjoyed it. I got on all right with it and had a great time with Accenture. So that's how I fell into it. Did they do anything through that process to figure out whether or not that would be what you would be good at? Because I guess if you were into chemistry, you weren't, you weren't overly tech savvy before that or into any specific techs, related stuff computer wise. No, I mean they took a really broad range. So you start with 30 of you. Right, okay. And called it a start group. And we were from a broad range of subjects. We had English students, history students, some very sharp mathematicians, a few scientists. So we were all over the spectrum. So and it's great. I mean interestingly we met up on our 30th year anniversary as a start group. Just earlier a couple of months ago. Still in contact with them. We all started together. We all went through our training together. And it starts building that network. But it's amazing to see what people have done as well. So some still with Accenture as it is now. Others out in industry, others doing completely different careers. But actually all quite successful in what they're doing. So so they seem to do quite well at picking out people who who had energy, who were driven. I think was the main characteristic they were looking for. Yeah, I mean they certainly had, you mean in my line of work, like you mean you always used to think people that went into to kind of Accenture and stuff like that in the early years. They used to kind of churn out really good people whether they stayed at Accenture or not. So that's they've obviously got something a kind of a method to bring in. But that's interesting. So how did you how did you find that? How did you obviously took to the the tech world relatively quickly and stuck with it? But was that was that kind of easy to pick up for you? Or is it something that you had to work at? They were very structured in in how they developed you. Right, which was great. I did best part 10 years there. Yeah, think I've probably got about 20 years experience. So they do work you very hard and long, but in a very structured way. It was very up and out at the time. Yeah. But you get a load of exposure. So that was great. 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? So that that's almost your first career choice for me was going, I wouldn't be more managerial than technical. And then you go from small teams to teams of teams to leading jobs to managing the relationship with the customer, structured and a great and accelerated career path. Did you stay there for how long were you there for them? They did do that because it sounds like you went up through the levels. Why are you there? About 10 years actually. Oh, wow. Yeah. So good old stint. So I learnt my craft in depth, 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 exact table, how you present ideas, how you how you think and structure your work, and particularly as your scaling being able to scale how you structure what you do, that's really important. And that comes right back from those kind of early days that going through a structured environment, I think. Yeah. So talk to me through the so when you left that kind of 10 years in, what kind of position and role were you doing them? I get a do you have you evolved from the hands-on code and stuff to doing something more senior kind of leadership stuff there? Or was it further than the line that you kind of took on the more leadership type positions? Yeah, I kind of got my pigeon, what I became known for if you like was big difficult programs. Right. Typically under a little bit of jurace. So there were always kind of two or three programs going on with an extension 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. So you kind of fall into a sector in the beginning, my first customer I got sent to happened to be an insurance customer and then you you fit within the insurance vertical and round you go, but I ended up on the big scale program. So whether that was Scotch, Legal and General, Perl Assurances, it was the big transformation programs and you just run bigger and bigger teams. In solution delivery, so software development typically. So I'm more of a software than an infrastructure guy. Yeah. Typically I'd have kind of the architects reporting direct in but then runs squads and tribes of people across that. Yeah. So what was the kind of catalyst after 10 years for you to move on from there and what did that look like when you did? It was kind of the first wave of internet really. Right. So lots of start-ups, 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 an internet start-up a go? And an opportunity came up so I thought now we'll never. Good point in your career. Yeah. So as well. So I hadn't fully settled down yet, had the ability to go and try something different. So I thought, yeah, it's the right time for me. I want to do that so I went and joined an internet start-up. Okay. So what was that company and what was the role? So that was actress. All right. Yeah. Yeah. So it was the start-up team actress. Okay. So they had funding, they had an idea they had a design. They roughly knew the software they wanted to deliver and who we're then needed somebody to be their development director. Right. So I came in and ran the development of the actress product delivery for the first two releases. Yeah. Okay. Which was again pretty cool. Yeah. And again, it's been changed as well. Yeah. Massive. Massive. Massive. It was good. I think there were about 20 of us when I joined. Right. Well, we had our software engineering offshore to South Africa. Yeah. And again, you'll see a bit of a theme emerge here. But the actress alumni for the start-up team we met last month as well. So we got our pre-Christmas drinks in. Nice. So that team that started it up incredibly tight, again, all doing different things but successful in what they do. Yeah. Yeah. But a very small, very focused, very driven team to get
that software out was a great time actually. - Is that just because of the bond you think you build in like a kind of a startup type environment? Like you hear, like you mean I listened to quite a lot of podcastes around you here about the, I was recently listening to the story of Netflix actually, like the book and the bond those people got from kind of putting late nights and all that kind of stuff is something, it's kind of almost a kin to kind of when you go to university with people and stuff like that. Is it that kind of thing? Is that really what you want it having come out from a big firm like Accenture? Because that must have been a real kind of culture shock coming from like a huge business like that to something that's a lot more, a lot more kind of smaller startup, a lot less structured. - Yeah, it is very different. - Yeah, very different. But you are a highly capable team, you do pull some incredibly long hours together and you're all in it and fully into it together. I remember performance testing. - Yeah. - So the way we performance test the first release of the software is we'd get the whole organization in. Eight o'clock in the evening, we'd all hit the quote button at the same time and watch the application fall over on the floor. But you've got the whole office in. There's all of you there, you're all tight, you all know exactly what's going on. We did a lot of traveling to South Africa together because that's where the software was built. So you're spending a lot of your down time with people as well. So you build a real trust respect type bonds with people. - Yeah, and they've been in the strip as well. - South Africa, a couple of trips there as well. - Yeah, it was Joe Berg not Cape Town. So you had to be a little bit careful. But again, we have the story about eating kilo steaks when we were out there because that was like your right of passage to join the team. And typically when we meet up, we'll go out to steakhouse and the old stories will come out. And you've just got those shared stories together that are really powerful and bond you together. - So how long did you do that for? - I think that was three years. - Okay. - So a year and a half to get the first release out and then get the second and the third release out. So that was then all about just scaling the application. - Okay. And so what was the kind of jump, I guess jumping forward, when did it evolve then into being a CIO leadership? Is that at that point where you kind of thinking that was what you always wanted to do? And did that just all organically happen? I mean, did you always have your eyes set on the overall leadership role in tech? - Yeah, I think I did actually. So that formed up kind of post-acturist time was going, well, I do enjoy tech and I enjoy the leadership side of it. So, well, what's the role where you have all of the leadership and you're making the final decision on the tech and well, that's the CIO role. So I thought, I'd like to give that a go at some stage. So I did a bit of research around it. There was a paper, the DNA of a CIO and what are the different skills you need to have to do it. And it just gently helps guide your career to go, well, 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, your communication stuff. You know, there were 10 things. And as you go through your career going, well, how are you working each of those muscles? And I think it's all right to be a bit spiky as well. I think by the time you get to it, everyone's a little bit spiky, right? But as long as you're aware of it and you hire a team around you that help fill in your spikes, very so that helps shape kind of what I needed to get there. And then my career choices from there have gently taken me in that direction. So where did you get, which role did you land the first CIO role? So I was at RSA. Yeah, okay. So from Actress, I went to a small consultancy called Project One, Project One, put me in RSA. I used to do this, I used to actually do some work with them years ago. They used to do this kind of the way they paid people was quite unique, wasn't it? They used to pay based on kind of how they, how they, how many, how many, you want to utilize Asian, this kind of stuff. That's right. And I think at, again, I've probably hadn't done my due diligence quite enough to understand that wasn't a great model for me at the time of my life, I was in. Right, just to talk about, I'm just a big, full consultant, but they were great. Again, sending out typically fixed on-fail projects, one or two people, very, you're on your own, you're in it, you're accountable. So you grow up pretty fast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you learn to be self-sufficient. And again, you're doing, you're in, in front of customers. So that was great. I'd imagine that I'd been quite a good fit for you, is that because from what I can remember, they did use to do the kind of big, challenging programs that were sometimes not going particularly well or stuff like that, so that would have fit with your mold that what you were kind of used to with the Accenture and stuff like that, I guess. Yeah, it did. So that training that you've had for Accenture helps that kind of start-up mentality helps. Yeah. But then you're really on your own. Right. Right, you're in in ones and twos running programs in a client. Yeah. And the program I ran was, one of the programs I ran was for RSA. I really enjoyed them as a business. I was working directly for the group CIO at the time. Yeah. They seemed to like what I was doing. And so I joined them. Yeah. OK. And did you join as a CIO straightaway? Or was it a different role in an evolution? Because I think that's a-- I mean, we can talk about this a little bit 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, third, and the fourth one becomes easier every time. But I'm theory. But I think most people struggle to get that first one. So what did that look like for you? Yeah. So I joined I ran IT strategy and architecture for the group. OK. Which was great. So I got massive exposure right around the group, right? Yeah. From the start. The group reorganized it, reorganized into UK, international, and emerging markets. And on the day it reorganized, the new CIO for emerging markets is always open. Pop my head around the door and said to him, hi, Paul. Congratulations on your new role. Big job. Good luck in emerging markets. And he went, thank you very much. Who the hell are you? And what do you do? So we sat down, had about 15 minute chats. He said, look, I run strategy and architecture. Give me a call if you ever need a hand. I'll see what I can do for you. 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. It's like, right, that's going to be interesting. I need it today. So we got that working for him. And then the phone kept ringing more and more. OK. And so I ended up going out and doing-- just starting to look at the technology around emerging markets. After about six months of doing that, and that ended up being all I was doing, I went, do you know what? This is silly. I had been searching for a CIO role. You're kind of doing it anyway. Do you want the title? Amazing. And that's how I got my first CIO role. So I was kind of early to mid 30s at the time. Yeah. It's quite young for doing that. Quite young. Bigger job than I realized at the time. Didn't know what I was doing. So if I look back on it, they took a real risk on me. Yeah. But which was great. And RSA was very, very good about that. Again, developing talent, taking a risk, wrapping the right support network around it. And he was a great mentor and leader. He didn't know much. He wasn't a deep technologist. But he knew when I didn't know. Yeah, yeah. OK. So if I paused when I was talking to him about something, he'd go, you don't know the answer, Jars. Do you go away? Be sure. And then come back. So he managed me very well at a personal level around whether I was confident in what I was doing in tech. So they were brilliant. And then the Matrix report was to the group CIO, who gives you that technology slant on it. So very big matrixed organization. And that worked well for me. Yeah. I mean, there's a real lesson in there, isn't there? Like, basically, be inquisitive, be helpful, be friendly. Do you know what I mean? That all stemmed from you, kind of, go put your head around the door and just kind of put yourself out there basically to try and help someone. And it's kind of evolved into you getting probably the catalyst to the last 10 years of your-- or the next 10, 15, 20 years of your career, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I think about that moment quite a lot. Yeah, it's a real nice thing to do. It's a really good one. As I look back on it, knowing what I know now, would I have made that move? I've known quite what he was like and how big the job was and all the rest of it. And so that, for me, was a real turning point of just taking a risk by putting your head around the door when you could have just walked past, having a little conversation, following it up. And it's almost start-up mentality. We talked a lot back to the Atreast days about start, think big, start small scale fast. - Yeah.
Think big you've got this big role in mind start small so those little conversations Yeah, and and then out of that jump on the opportunities and scale yourself fast. Yeah So what did that evolution from then? It's obviously we'll touch a bit more on on some of the the CI rod And I definitely want to get into the kind of the changing of industry stuff But you're at RSA for quite a while then went to Gallagher's for a bit what What was that? Yeah, and and it looks like from Certainly from what I've seen of your profile is that you you kind of evolved into Biggest CIO role was that that went on so kind of divisional CIO to more kind of what broader remits to group CIO Was that just did that just kind of get like I guess you you liked the CIO role You know it was a challenge and you and you and you kind of wanted to take on more response really You kind of found your feet in that where I'll after after doing that Yeah, so I think not not super planned in terms of the good definitely directionally. Yeah for me every move I've made has needed to directionally make sense So if you do the the RSA thing I went from Strategy and architecture for the group to CIO for emerging markets. So I then went out was C.O.O Yeah for Asia Middle East lived in Dubai for a year and a half Wow, which which was quite fun. Yeah Then came back to the UK and that was the scale job running tech and change for the UK Yeah, and broadly those are kind of two to three-year gigs each. Yeah, so it's building the team is setting the strategy Building the team and getting the delivery runs on the board But then when it moves into it's operating it's running its steady state It's a bit less me. Yeah, I guess some of that kind of again plays back to the start up thing. I enjoy the change I enjoy that Energy at the beginning and putting energy into the machine and growing a team and setting the strategy So by the time I did four years as UK CIO We set the strategy we had it up and running It was time for something you for me Yeah, and that's that was the move to Gallagher. Yeah, so that was out of out of carrier and into a broker Again, we'll talk about kind of all we've talked already a little bit about kind of your network Yeah, again, how did that role come about through through my network? Okay, so I got a call from people are in doing work with Gallagher the group CIO with Gallagher was Ex Accenture we had a conversation it clicked really quickly They just gone on the by lots of brokers in the UK So the UK had been there heavy investment and it was how do we bring all of that together? How do we rebrand it as Gallagher? How do we Bring everybody on to platform and start to build proper presence in Europe So that that was the role there again hard high degree of change. Yeah, like that Strong network. Yeah, made made sense because it was still leveraging the insurance connections And guess what I've been I've been a customer of actress at RSA I was a customer again Gallagher so you know never never wind people up on the way out, right? Because you never know who you're going to come up against again and it becomes increasingly small in the insurance world, doesn't it? Yeah, so the moves moves make sense. Yeah, so you mean I think the again jumping on a little bit from that Like I mean there's there because I definitely want to go back to that and And understand the differences but what What did you find in the in the differences from going from a carrier to a broker was that was there? I know that I mean in my mind they wouldn't necessarily be that was it was the differences in the industry space or was it more the type of role and the stuff that you were doing? Or was they said? Well, roles fairly similar the businesses are very different. Yeah, so for a carrier is It's scale. It's running on thin margins. Yeah, you're carrying the risk. Yeah, so you need to be a lot more sophisticated about how you're managing the risk for Broking it's more of a commission business. Yeah, so just the economics work slightly differently Brokers are with Gallagher and with Brown and Brown you're doing you're acting a bit like a carrier as well than MGA business So there's a lot of similarity there But we do more we're more commercial bent with more specialist bent as opposed to RSA at the time It did a lot of personal lines. Yeah, which is volume. It's heavy analytics. It's fraud detection So it's it's at scale the the budgets were bigger. Yeah, there the the infrastructure was bigger the scale was bigger Where's what we found in in the brokers and particularly that the consolidators, which is where we are? You've got a lot of fragmented technology that you're bringing together. So it's a big consolidation play right Or integration simplification play. Yeah, 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. Yeah, so by the time your technology journeys underway That's okay. It's can you win hearts and minds to get people to want to come onto your platform? Yeah, to want to use the services you build to trust that you can deliver a service for their Them that they can get from that the guy who's sat in their small business for years and years so they're just different cultural challenges I think was probably the main thing. Yeah, okay I want to jump forward to there to the more more recent past because I think when probably when we got to know each other You had just moved to to RM which is obviously totally out of there and we spoke about it before but I'd really like to get into the mindset of that So tell tell tell tell tell us a little bit about what that that look like why you did that made that move what the what the role was and etc Yeah, so after after Galagher I did did a bit of time Kind of wondering around here sure we're insured it's right wondering around sure ditch looking at all the startups and and educated me on that a bit I was doing a little bit of Fractional work and what I what I really wanted to do was Not do something in insurance, right? Okay. So I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't just an insurance. Yeah Right, because I do think the skills are transferable. Yeah With the right mindset and I wanted to prove that to myself So I wanted to do something different I wanted to do something with a bit more of a socially worthy badge on it. Yeah, if you like to give back a little bit more Yeah And I did a small piece of work for for RM Again array almost back to the kind of project one day is going there a project wasn't working very well I did some work for them pro bono because I was in a giving back phase and that was important to me and What do RM do like what's their what's their business? So they they they were born out of research machines They play play into into education. They're an ed tech. Yep And at the time they did three things so they run technology for schools. Yep for three thousand schools cross the UK Easiest way to describe it a mini Amazon to schools so they provide that the story is if you turn the school upside down and shook it Everything that falls out except the teachers we could provide you. Yeah And the third thing they did was mark GCSEs and a level papers So half the a levels in the UK were marked on RM software So we'd collect all the papers in scan them distribute them out manage that whole marking of right of papers So I and I did a piece of work for them again. They liked what they saw they said wow We're kind of looking for a creep CIO Would you do it for while I said I'll do it for two years for you. Yeah Loved it really enjoyed what we did there the first question from my kids was I'll dad you mark all the a levels do you? Does that mean? No, absolutely no, but it was great I went out I visited all the schools that we we supported in in our in my local community So got quite connected in with the community a whole load of safeguarding going in for children which was great to see And but really nice for for me to be involved back in the education process. Yeah The big move there was again moving a lot of the infrastructure into cloud Right what that ended up doing for schools was take a whole load of their infrastructure out of the school that allowed them Just freed up more space in 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 Yeah, so the model really did feel win win Yeah, and I I was there when covid hit All right, so I was actually due to leave When covid hit and and it hit just as I was about to leave to go to to brown and brown I said to open GI. I'm actually going to need to 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. Yeah, yeah, so It actually went surprisingly smoothly because we'd been on that cloud journey The infrastructure was out of the schools already all we had to do is make sure 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 Had some in a few years earlier that would have been a shocker Would have been a shocker and and a lot of schools did still we find it difficult Right, but for us we could get those schools up and running overnight As long as the kids had their devices and that was almost the part I played in in covid I felt great about that and it was it was really nice to be part of it, but again
it was a bit, we had a couple of weeks that felt a bit start-up, he liked where everyone was in the whole time just making sure it all went smoothly. But again, a bonding experience, a great experience. I've got some friends and some people I stay in touch with out of that great experience. What did you find, I'm sure there's a whole heap of differences, but going back to what you said about the transferable skills, did you find that it was transferable? Or was there they're kind of a steep learning curve? How was the change? 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 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. So what was that like? So you think there are a whole bunch of things that are transferable? Yeah. How you structure your thinking, how you structure your team, how you manage the commerciality of your function. All of that still works. There are some real differences in kind of the products and the technologies that we're deploying. So you need to get into that, I'll give you an example in a second. And the next one is and your customer base is radically different. Yeah, of course. So you have to get out in front of your customers. So for me it was really important. I went out, I spent time in the schools, I spent time in my kids schools who we haven't provided services into that was that was eye opening seeing it from the other side. But you've got to be curious about that stuff. So you've got to be curious about your customers. It's vitally important. You've got to be able to build trust with them. Working again, working that muscle or wanting to do that, you need to do that wherever you go. It just happens to be you're learning a different set of customer priorities and what's important to them. So that that's something. The other bit was the technologies were very different. So I know we all talk about AI at the moment, but if you go back to the timer at RM, we were doing some pretty cool stuff with machine learning. 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. Right. Okay. 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 quality control across the top through that kind of tooling. So again, a very different set of products we were using to create that within a within an education environment, but the architectural skills of plugging stuff together, assessing the right products to fit, are all very transferable. So the skills are transferable, but you have to be curious about the environment you're deploying them in. I think that that words you use a couple of times about being curious. I think that's that's that's quite common in lots of people I've interviewed on podcasts about kind of just the way that you should be really in like handling those kind of code of situations, but it's interesting that you so like I don't think most people would necessarily when they think of innovation and stuff like that would necessarily think of education as where where there would be lots of technology innovation, but when you actually talk about that kind of there's a whole heap of stuff that can be done there to modernize isn't that like in comparison to so it's so yeah, I bet it was quite an interesting journey, but what was the what was the catalyst then for you wanting to kind of come back semi into insurance because I know you left there and then came into a software provider so it's probably similar to the actuary stuff although maybe a bit bit bit bit bit bigger business this time. Yeah, I said I'd do two years. Yeah, so I did my two years and said it's important you find somebody who's going to take I've kind of moved you up a gear I've done a time for you to find somebody else and I had a phone call from OpenGI. So again, similar space to what I've kind of known for a software product company playing into insurance brokers, private equity backed this time so I'd always wanted to do a PE gig that kind of tick to box for me and moved there in COVID completely remote in terms of the whole onboarding interviewing process six months before I even met anyone physically from OpenGI, but again a very interesting point in their journey where we had a bunch of heritage products 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 PE 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 need somebody who's going to give you a good chance of doing it and so they they looked around they couldn't find anyone so they phoned me up so but so yeah so it was great I'd had again a lot of interviews with the PE house as well as the leadership team at OpenGI and then we ended up bringing thought works in to help us do that so again selecting top draw partners to help us not only build the software but to rebuild our engineering capability in a very pure agile way so we had cloud native micro service API enabled built with very pure cloud we used the Spotify model engineering and and it worked really well so so that opportunity to do something transformational for them and build modern software for an industry that's not typically known for modern software yeah that that was a real cool opportunity for me so that that was a no-brainer yeah you mean and then and then the final one to take you to where you are now 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 but what made you what made you move back into the kind of core insurance world so again for brown and brown they've been on an acquisition trail across Europe yep there are high growth broker very high quality business right I've always looked at them and thought they're interesting I wonder how they do that and they had they've been on an acquisition spree across Europe grown incredibly fast I mean I think if you go back to 2010 they'd have been you know 10 million in the UK if you go forwards to where we are now 50 times that and on a massive massive growth curve so we did four billion as an organization at the end of 2023 and have publicly stated we want to double yep and we'll double by bulking up in Europe yep so that we've bought a bunch of stuff already and we've not rebranded it as brown and brown and brought it onto platform okay that's kind of step one but then step two is very much continue that growth and acquisition trail and you've seen that we we announced when was it first first of November I think it was that we've acquired a 700 person brokerage out in the Netherlands called Quinter's again a very high quality business we're starting to have scale in Europe not just the UK yep and that's a super exciting journey to be on this podcast is brought to you by Invector Search building best of class leadership teams in the tech and transformation space and insurance is hard you know you need something more than your internal talent team or your typical PSL recruitment agencies but you also don't want to deal with the traditional exec search firms who charge sky high fees and take months to deliver that's where Invector Search comes in powered by Invector Group we combine top tier market knowledge with cutting edge psychometric and organic testing to secure you the best candidates in under four weeks from brief to offer we also include a six month placement guarantee is standard and deliver all of this at a much more transparent and cost effective price point compared to the typical exec search firms so no charge and you want to first deal with bonus or anything like that hiring your leadership team in technology and insurance really doesn't need to be this difficult it can be much easier for more information ping us an email at
[email protected] or drop me mark tomas a dm on linkedin all links are in the show notes now let's get back to today's episode what's the what's the kind of the big kind of challenge for you now then like what what made you apart from obviously the business side of the thing what what was the what was the kind what's the kind of big technology challenge for you over the next few years so I think the first challenge is bring those businesses together and bring them onto platform yeah common security there yeah common infrastructure layer in the cloud yeah so this year we brought two and a half thousand people onto our cloud platform okay two and a thousand teammates onto our cloud platform so that's a scale provision of infrastructure and then what we're looking for is around our three main business units so retail mga wholesale what's what's our application strategy around each of those around simplifying the application strategy so you buy every business it comes with a policy admin system you enter
up with tons of them, how do we consolidate that? So we've got simplification journeys running across all three of those businesses. Then as you roll forward, we've talked about how do we change the mix of where we're investing our change money? So the mix we talk about is run change, innovate. So we go back to that innovation point we talked about earlier. If you talk about, we talk about bringing people onto platform, whether it's our security platform, our infrastructure platform, our core admin system platform, that for us is a part of our run investment. So as we go forward into next year, how we're shifting our mix into change and transform. And that's much more around the data platforms that we're building, much more around the customer journeys and portals that we're building. And then you go beyond that and start looking at sales leadership and CRM. So shifting the mix, that's the important bit for us and being able to free up money out of the kind of running of the business into changing and innovating for the business. Interesting. So I guess I wanted to, one of the things that I was interested about, you've obviously had lots of different CIO roles over a decent chunk of time. You mentioned about that, the DNA of a CIO. Do you think that's, what do you think the DNA of a good CIO is now comparison to what it used to be? Oh, that's strange. I asked a good question. Yes, I think it has. So I think a CIO position now is, it's a lot more core on the exact leadership team than it would have been at the beginning. Right. Okay. All right. So for me, if you go back to the beginning, it was more about just make sure when we turn the taps on the water comes out. Yeah. Right. One of the things I love about Brown and Brown is we talk about, we've got five pillars as to how we're going to achieve that strategy of doubling our business. Organic growth, inorganic growth, customer, people and our teammates and our talent and then using technology with purpose. Right. Right. So I think technology is very much because it's a key pillar in how new businesses are tech business now. Yeah. Right. And the CIO has a proper seat at the table. Yeah. And that's the type of business I look for that recognizes that where you're you are the business, you're part of the business, you're driving it, you're commercial. I just happened to run the technology function. Yeah. Yeah. So actually my view of the CIO is he's increasingly business savvy, increasingly being asked to help drive the business forward less about just make sure that the data flows and the water comes out the taps when you turn them on. Yeah. And I think that changes how you need to be and present as a person. You need to be part of that business and energised and trusted and respected. And so that's important. So I think more of the softer skills, you need to come through the technology skills and into the softer people skills. Yeah. I thought that was what you say. I mean, it's an interesting one because one of the things that I mean, lots of people that listen to the podcast will be people that are aspiring to be a CIO, right? They might be in that kind of architecture role like you before. Do you think it's now even more important that people understand how the business works and they they want to and I guess they're just focusing a bit more on on how technology can drive growth and stuff like that rather than like you said, keeping their lights on and just keeping things working. Is that is that kind of critically important now, do you think? Yeah, I think it's vital. So I'm through my first year and a big part is the changing kind of mindset within the whole team in technologies, 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. So understand the work you're doing and understand how that work creates value and if the work's not creating value, why are you doing it anyway? So that constantly questioning how am I creating value through technology is really important. It's not about creating architecturally pure ivory tower solutions. It's about how are you producing solutions that business want to use that creates value for the end customer? How are you developing yourself and bringing all of yourself to work and enjoying your work because if you're enjoying your work, you'll want to do it, you understand how it creates value, you're progressing, you're enjoying where you're working, all of that stuff is vital. Yeah. I guess that kind of segues quite nicely on to, like I'm always really interested in what the kind of two, three, four key snippets of advice you would give to someone. So if you were to kind of look at your previous self or someone that was aspiring to get their first CIO gig, 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? So I think we've taught BQRIS a lot. Yeah. Yeah. That's really important. BQRIS understand the business, understand how the business makes money, delivers for customers. So understand your customers, understand your business, BQRIS engage. 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. Yeah. So you've got to be able to act well on that interface and translate. That's important. I think we talked about that turning point around, let me just pop in my head around the door and taking that risk. So do take risks. Yeah. What's the worst that can happen? So take risks. If I go back to the early days of my career, I used to think it was all about delivering the results and it wasn't so much about the how you delivered them, but your results would speak for themselves. Right. Yes, you've got to deliver the results, but the how is really important as well. Okay. So it's not just the what, it's the how you do it. When you say how, give us more context than that. Simple thing. Do you smile when you come into work? Yeah. I silly thing. Do the business seek you out and ask you for your advice? Yeah. I don't want to talk to Jarls. I never can wear more confused than when I left. Yeah. Yeah. If I talk to Jarls, does stuff get done as he cares about? Does he understand my business? Yeah. So that being not only respected for that that you can do stuff and you know your subject matter, but trusted at a personal level as well goes a little back to the great teams you worked for and the fellowship you create. But trust and respect. So be be respected and trusted. Enjoy going out for a beer or a glass of wine or whatever that relax and enjoy the company of the people you work with when you've cracked that and you've and you take a few risks and you're curious and you're delivering great results when you've cracked it. I mean, I think that relationship things often underestimated isn't it? Like the relationships with the people that you're actually working with and delivering to seeing more senior team, etc. is that the people part is it's really key isn't it? Like if you don't get that right, then I think you're always going to struggle at least if then if you make mistakes, you've got people on side. Yeah, and we can have a rep. Can't we? It's a technology. It's always a bit of a black art, a dark art. Don't come here. Don't worry about it. We'll fix it all for you. But I think making it transparent and understandable is very important. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Because the guys, they invest heavily in their technology. It's really important. They do like to understand where the money is going and how it's creating value and feel like they've come away from a conversation lifted up rather than, I feel even more in the dark than when I started. Yeah. And that's really important. What about you and maybe it kind of sits under the kind of B curious kind of banner. But what about the variety? Because I think that's one thing that really is noticeable about your career is that you, I appreciate lots of them in and around insurance, but you've taken risks in the roles that you've gone to as well to kind of stretch your knowledge and your experience and stuff like that. Do you think that's really important and do you think that variety in the part in your past career has been a benefit to what you've ended up doing now? Yeah. So it's important for me. Yeah. You're right. I've always, there's a theme. There's a story you can tell from the journey of the direction it's going in, but it's not in straight lines. I think we talked about that earlier and 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 work better when I'm, when I'm learning, when I'm approaching tough challenges, when I'm doing new stuff, I perform better. Yeah. So that works for me. It keeps me engaged, energized, active. It's also great for the team. Yeah. Because you're pushing the boundaries, you're doing new work. We don't tend to use bleeding edge technologies, but we'll use modern technologies. Yeah. So we're doing, we're doing a lot around data mesh at the moment, for example. And that's, that's great for our data guys. Yeah. Like they're learning new skills all the time. They're becoming more employable. Yeah. People will approach them and go,
"Oh, you don't get stuff over there." And you go, "No, why would we want to move? We've got a great environment here. We're doing great stuff." So I think that it's been important for me to do different stuff. It keeps me active. It gets me to bring my best me to work. - Yeah. - And the interesting debate I have at Brown and Brown, which is great. We can have this debate that open. It's also that you need to keep me active and challenged and engaged. And as long as you can do that, I'll stay and love working here. So we've got a really healthy relationship around that as well, which is great. - What should you on the insurance experience as well? Because that's the kind of thing that is a fairly common theme, isn't it? 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 et cetera. But the insurance industry does generally have a reputation for hiring within and keeping within the ecosystem. What were your thoughts around that? - I think there are some roles where that helps. - Yep. - 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 a bunch of the characters in it, that just helps build confidence. But I give you an example. When I turned up, we had a big program. We were running in the first month that was leaderless. I went out through my network and I pulled in a program manager who I'd worked with RM. Never worked in insurance before. Brilliant program manager. I put through the interviews and he met a bunch of the business guys. I went, "Yeah, but he doesn't know insurance." "Yeah, but you know insurance." You don't need an insurance guy. You need somebody who's really hot at running a program out scale and bringing confidence into the program delivery. It took about six weeks and they came back way, absolutely the right decision. - Yeah. - All right, so I think you get the right skills for the role we can teach your insurance. What are the outcomes we want? How we create, so what's the work that needs to be done? How is it creating business, a value for the business? And then what are the skillsets we need? - Yeah. - Rarely insurance skillsets. - Yeah. - Now if I've got a business CIO in my retail business or my MGA business, yeah, it helps if they understand that business. They'll come up to speed a lot faster. But it usually goes on the advantageous rather than essential skill sets. 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. But I'd like somebody who's got really deep data skills. I'd like somebody who's got really deep agile delivery skills. - Yeah. - We can teach them in insurance stuff. - Yeah, it's an interesting one. I think, if anyone follows me on LinkedIn, I harp on about it quite regularly. But yeah, I think sometimes people, lazy is probably the wrong word, but it's maybe their easier option. It's the kind of root of lease resistances, and it's a higher someone because actually they can get up to speed more quickly. But there's a whole world of great skills that are out there that, like say, if you're intelligent, switched on, I think you're probably picking insurance up pretty quickly, especially in some of those more technical roles, where maybe insurance is 10% of the job, maybe. If you've seen throughout your time working insurance, it was at multiple different roles now. Is there really a willingness to take more risks on people from outside the industry now? Do you think that's changing? - I don't know. I'm fortunate. People have always been willing to say, "Chance, just hire the right team." - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - "Get the right skills." And actually bringing some different thinking in helps. And the guy runs data for us at the moment, we bought him, he's done some work for the UN, on how do you get food to aid stations in an optimal way? - Right. - Pretty cool stuff, not terribly relevant to insurance, but it's a way of thinking and how do you get your models working and bringing that kind of skill in, and he's landed well. - Yeah. - So again, I think, as long as you've got people who can interact well with the business, I have that conversation up front with the business. It goes, "Well, these are the skills I expect you to bring. "This is the outcomes you're expecting me to deliver "will get you the right person." I think we're all, I'm certainly all up for bringing external skills in. We talked about being spiky, earlier on in a leadership style. So how am I very cognizant of where I'm spiky? And I don't need everybody to have the same spiky. 'Cause otherwise we end up as a very one-dimensional leadership team. So how comms might not be my strongest point. 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 out. So how is a leadership team when we're balancing all those different skills out? - Yeah. - Similarly, I almost don't want a team that's full of insurance experts. I want a broad basket of skills who help us go faster. - Yeah, yeah, okay. 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 I'm always interested in lessons learned. So like you've obviously had, we've spoke a lot about the risks you've taken. Generally, it sounds like they've turned out all right. But were there any things along the kind of big lessons that you've learned and any examples you've got of things that went wrong and the lessons that you took from it? - I think there's often you learn just as much from things going wrong. It's probably more than you do are the things that go right. - Yeah, we're, maybe let me do two on. - Yeah, yeah, great. - So one is, as I look back on the year, I do it every year, I wish I'd gone a bit faster in certain areas. - Yeah. - Right, so you always wish you'd done more. And it's the decisions you don't take when you're in 10-I or you're gut's telling you you need to make a decision and it's usually a people thing. So have I given someone enough time, have I given them enough coaching, have I worked out that role's not working for them. So they need another role inside or outside the business. And that's okay a conversation to have. So there's tough conversations that you know you should be having that you kind of put off. - They're kind of overanalysis of that thing, yeah. - Don't put them off. - Yeah. - So always listen to your gut. - Yeah. - 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. - Yeah, of course. - That's really important to check you've got it right and to hold myself in check. That's important. I think the other one, the group CIO, Chuck or Gray Nester, I spend a lot of time with him. He's great when I came in. He said to me, "Jarls, worry about your time "and where you spend your time." So, and we've broken it down to four buckets. So time with your team, time with the European, exec and leadership and business. The third one is time with the US team. And the fourth one is doing work. - Yeah, I've been spending some time doing some work. That would be nice. 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. So I've neglected to spend time with my team because I've over indexed on spending time out in the business. - Okay. - 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 and my mental and physical wellbeing. 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. That's important. So if you take that back to the where I've got things wrong, it's where I've got out of balance and where I spend my time. - So how do you make sure you keep that kind of all in balance? Is it kind of regular, kind of take yourself out, check in kind of mindset, kind of reevaluation of where you're at? Do you tend to kind of do that regularly? - Yeah, so I do tend to check in at the end of the week myself and I'm fortunate. I live in central London, I can walk to work. I'm incredibly lucky. I don't lose time on the train or commuting. So it's half an hour in, it's half an hour back and I use that as a think time. Just to check in on myself and go, how am I feeling? How often do I get to the gym or go for a run this week? And it's okay to go a week or two, but then are you pulling it back on week three? Am I spending enough time with the kids, enough time with Sabine my partner? And she's great and she keeps me balanced and she pulls me up on it as well. So again, I have a good network, it's a great support at home. My kids tell me if I'm not home enough. They tell me when I'm home too much as well sometimes. So that's great, that really healthy relationship and work on the CIO, Gray, my CEO, called Mike Bruce again, is brilliant. They keep me in check and we keep checking in on that stuff and it's just a super open, healthy relationship. Yeah, interesting. I don't think people talk about that quite enough today. It's just keeping it balanced, keeping making sure you've got a nice structure and stuff like that, I think becomes more.
important, that's interesting about the walk in and thinking time. I think that's people, I'd love to think I use that for my commute, but it's normally kind of trying to find a seat or something like that. But, have you always done that? Do you think you've always managed to keep that level there? Was that something you've kind of grown into? Yeah, I mean, I did a lot of sports, kid. Yeah. So that kind of sticks with you. I've definitely noticed that, what we do is attritional, it's hard work, and you do work some long hours. And if you're not fit on healthy, you can't bring your best self to work. I do notice it, if I haven't, if I haven't been down the gym or haven't been for a run, and so I make myself do it, and when I'm doing it, I do actually enjoy it. I find if I spend an hour out on a run, I solve a few problems because you kind of get into a rhythm, you think stuff through it helps, and you not only have kind of helped cleanse yourself physically, you've cleared some mental blockages as well. So it is important for me, and I do make time for it. The other thing that's lovely is, again, we talked about Sabine, but she runs as well, so we'll do that together. So again, you can knock this off together, you have some nice time together, and that's one of the things we value you're doing. Yeah, I mean, I got quite into that, I've just had a period of garden, even I kind of made a promise to myself, I was going to do 10,000 steps every day, and I used to listen to stuff like podcasts and whatever, but I started, I did a few where I forgot headphones, and I just saw an ending, actually, just started doing that, because you mean, like you say, you've been mad at good thinking you can do, you don't really, I think you quite underestimate how much time you spend just kind of thinking about stuff or listening to stuff, you know, so then much time, just kind of free do it. So I think that's a really good bit of advice. But the other nice thing you say to those, you say you do it every day. Yeah, so you're forming a habit. Yeah, yeah, right, and once you've formed the habit, they're hard to form. Yeah, but once you've formed them, it just becomes part of your natural rhythm in the way you sort your day out. Definitely. And then it just happens, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm struggling a little bit now, I'm back working, but I'm trying to keep to it. So I guess the kind of final point before we get onto some kind of quickfire question I want to talk about, it's just more generally kind of the view on insurance now. You've obviously been around in the insurance sector for quite a while. You've seen lots of change and evolution. What should kind of view on where the insurance industry is at from a tech perspective now and what I guess more specifically, what the big challenges are for the industry over the next few years and how you see that panning out. Big question, sorry. Yeah, and I think it depends about what part you're in the industry, whether you're seeing there as a start up and there's a super exciting, although some of those are going through a tougher time at the moment or whether you're at the scale end with a carrier, different challenges. I think the thing that's similar across it is we're using tech more than we ever have been. 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. So I think it's a really exciting time to be part of it, whether you're part of it as a start up, as we've known to have been fortunate I've done some of that or right at the scale end or anywhere in between. You keep focusing on how you're 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. I don't think there's ever been a more exciting time to be a CIO and within the insurance industry. Another kind of set of words that our group CIO goes, "Technology's never moved this fast before. It'll never move this slowly again." What an amazing place to be. Yeah, I mean the, I don't see the other day that someone said about AI, they said like the the AI used today is the worst AI you'll ever use so it's kind of the same kind of thing isn't it? It's evolving really quickly. So right we're coming towards the end. I always do a few quick fire questions at the end just for a bit of fun. So my first question is which brand or company do you most admire and why? Well, there's Tuffy actually. So I said I came here on a line bike this year. Yeah, I've got a love-hate relationship with line bikes. Again, I think they're disrupting how we travel in London but they're paying the back side when they're left all over the place. But I think that anything that's disruptive is I like unicorns. So we've got a lot of fintech unicorns. Whether it's the the Challenger Banks and I bank with Challenger Banks. So I enjoy those brands. So I'm not so much a big brand. Although again, I'm very impressed with what's such in a delas done around Microsoft and how he's reinvented Microsoft over the last 10 years. So there's a whole bunch of them out there but I think more for me it's Challenger brands. Yeah, okay. The next one is what is the one piece of advice that you wish someone had given you when you were kind of first starting out? I heard someone else asked 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. Which I think is the Buddhist thing, isn't it? But I think that's really important. So the advice I'd give is enjoy every moment of the journey as you're on it. And it goes back to some of the stuff we talked about being curious. But enjoy it along the way and bring your best self to work every day. That would be my advice. I thought you were going to say always put your head around the door and talk to someone. That's the most poignant thing I've noticed for this is like if you do that a few times you never know. You can kind of create your own luck, right? Yeah, you never know when the opportunity is going to present, right? Yeah. The next one is so if you could swap jobs or lives with someone for one day, who would it be? Oh, where would I go? So my partner works in guys hospital and she works on the in the cancer wards and doing stuff around cancer pathways. And she comes home at the end of the day and we say, I've had a bit of a rough day and she just gives me that sideways look and goes really, really, Jarls. So she keeps me amazingly balanced. I would love to do her job for a day and understand what hard really looks like. So she goes for incredible lows and incredible highs when they've diagnosed somebody and seen them come through quickly. So what job would I like to do? Something that's really on the front line of health and helping people get better and that I think is incredibly admirable. Do you think the, I know it's not exactly health but education is it is kind of in that more public service kind of space? Do you think at some point in your career you go back to doing some stuff like that? So I really enjoyed that time and I'm pleased I did it. Would I go back and do it more towards the end of my career if it's in an advisory role or it's helping out? I'd love to do more stuff around that again. So I've done work through my career whether it's been, I just went for the Dame Kelly Holmes Fund for the 30% club which is helping coach women into the top leadership roles. So I think doing that is a stream alongside what you do where you're giving back every day and through the year. He's really important and particularly is I've had a bunch of people who've supported me to get where I am. Giving back is really important and we'll start talking more and more about kind of apprenticeships, you know, summer jobs in turns. 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. It is incredibly important. So whether I do that as a role or I do that as part of my role, yeah I'd love to do more of that. The next one is what is the best kind of business or nonfiction related book that you've ever read? So I'll answer slightly differently. So Paul Brown, I'll see you, Avid Reader. Right, okay. All right, so I went into a business review after six months with him and the rest of the op-code and how you doing in six months? What's your strategy? What's your plan? How are you getting on? The hour and a half under the spotlight and at the end of the time I'm going to send you a book, Charles. Right. And about two weeks ago. I can't read it. Start-up nation. Okay. And it talks about creating a culture of innovation at a national level 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 and this nation then has more start-ups per capita than any other just because of the way that's built into your culture. So it's all about cultural journeys and building innovation into cultural journeys. So I'm enjoying that at the moment. So you still what you still on it? You know, I'm still on it. Definitely need to finish it before I see him next. But I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it. 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. And I think as we talked about that that's what sparked it off for him. Yes, interesting. Right. Well here's how we build a culture of innovation. Our culture's really important and making it innovative and making it from the grassroots up. It's not all about driving
it down, it's about allowing it to bubble up as well. Yeah, I'll have to check that out. That's quite relevant for some of the stuff I've been doing more recently. The best career decision you ever made. It's almost the accident that have happened. Yeah, okay. So we talked about how did I get into IT in the first place? Well, that was a bit of an accident. How did I get my first CIO role? That was a bit of a risk. 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. I've been quite fluid about the decisions I've made. I think as I think more about it, what's helped me get through all of that is the people and my network. So I think there's a decision around how you leave places. Yeah, yeah. And do you leave them with on really good terms? That's totally possible to do. How do you keep your network vibrant and alive? And how are you helping your network out because you'll need to call on it for help at times? Yeah. 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. So the best career decisions I think are probably around investing in your network and your relationships. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then the final one is, who's the number one person you admire or you role model? Who's the person that springs to mind when you think of that? I think I've just had a bunch of really good leaders. Yeah. 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, so it's the leaders you choose to follow. And I make my career decisions now about the people I'm working with as much as anything else. Look to your boss, look to your leaders at the moment and go, are those the role models I want to follow and keep questioning that? And if they are fabulous, if they're not, find someone who is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great bit of advice. So I always end up with right at the end now. Thanks, thanks for your time. It's been amazing, times fine by. I always ask everyone the last question before we finish. What's the best thing about working in insurance? I think if you go back to, why are we here anyway? Right. What does insurance do for people? So if your car, your home, your business, your life has been hit by some kind of adversity, we're here to help you throw it. That's the best thing about insurance. We help people when they need it most. Keep that in mind and keep focused on that's why we're here. Everything else will follow. 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, that's the best thing about insurance for me. Yeah, I agree with you, Ron. I don't think the industry celebrates and publicizes those successes well enough that I think there's often a bit of a negative context about insurance, but actually if they odd one or two bad experience, like there is in any industry, if you just compare it, compare that to all the problems it solves and kind of digs people out of seriously depolts. It's great place to be. We're helping people live their lives and pick themselves back up from adversity and carry on. That's an awesome thing to be able to do. Well, great place to finish. Well, thank you so much. That story is amazing. There's some brilliant bits of advice in there and I really appreciate you taking the time to speak to us. I'm sure there will be some people that want to reach out and connect to you. Is LinkedIn kind of, are you open for people to kind of reach out and tell them? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So meet some of your LinkedIn connect or LinkedIn message and go from there. Like I said, the network's important, right? Yeah, exactly. Well, look, there's there's plenty more episodes to come. So like I say, thanks again for your time. Connect with myself or Charles if you're interested in having a chat and we'll catch you next time. Cheers. Thanks very much, mate. And that's it for today's episode of Beyond the Desk. I really hope you enjoyed hearing from today's guests and that you've taken away some valuable insights to fuel your own career journey. If you liked what you heard, don't forget to hit like and make sure you subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. 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. It really helped others find the show. If you're hungry for more stories from the leaders shaping the future of insurance and in short tech, be sure to stay connected with me on LinkedIn where I'll be sharing upcoming guest info and more behind the scene footage from this episode and all the others coming up. Thanks again for tuning in and I'll catch you next time for another inspiring conversation. Until then, take care and keep pushing the limits of what's possible in your own career. This podcast is sponsored by Invector Search, the brand new search solution to guide you and find the best insurance leadership talent globally. Find out more at www.invectorgroup.com.
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