I had the honour to be CEO and COO at Real Insurance in Sydney for three years.

Real Insurance is a lovely, innovative challenger brand selling car and home insurance using direct distribution methods, that had encountered some difficult circumstances – some related to purpose, some to growing pains and some deriving from antiquated IT.

I took the reins, reorganizing the senior management team and organizational structure and cutting superfluous costs and improving procurement practices. Products were simplified and core processes streamlined including a re-design of the company’s flagship Pay As You Drive policy. With internal processes under control and with a focused senior team, I devised with them a differentiated strategy that appealed to our direct customers as well as our B2C partners with whom we had several critical arrangements. I involved the entire staff in the creation of a new, positive internal culture under the umbrella of ‘The Personal Touch’ – a voluntary programme that literally codified each employee’s personal commitment to our quality standards. Last but not least, in one of my personal-favourite exercises, we put together a leading-edge internet strategy coupled with an entire line-of-business system replacement that delivered a new lease of life to the company removing ‘drag’ and improving usable data at a stroke and leap-frogged the company to a leading position from which point it could go into the future and flourish.

The number of problems eliminated, innovations, performance improvements and technical improvements are too numerous to list but they touched every aspect of the business and brought with them rapidly-increasing growth and profitability, lowered acquisition costs, improved claims handling performance and savings, internal harmony and an enhanced brand image in the public sphere with Real Insurance being the recipient of many prestigious awards for quality and customer satisfaction.

Go Mad Thinking is a first-rate UK-based management consultancy specialising in business improvement programmes to help organisations improve their productivity and effectiveness by transforming the way people think and engage in the workplace. The Go Mad thinking framework is of universal applicability and is in daily use in around 40 countries world-wide, in numerous industry sectors. As an executive in various countries and contexts myself who understood the life-changing nature of the insights the Go MAD thinking framework provides, I regularly used the company to train my leadership teams and to establish a common solution focused language and approach. I myself am an accredited Go MAD coach and have delivered programmes in several cities worldwide from Hong Kong, to Barcelona, from Brussels to Milan, Sydney to Paris and further afield.

Continuing this long association, I am now Non-exec Chairman and in this role I was delighted to be able to help out in designing a new business model and strategic approach particularly following the disruption caused by the Corona virus crisis.

We have been working on innovative products and delivery strategies for some time but it is fair to say that the arrival of the Corona lockdown accelerated the company’s move to enhance its predominantly face-to-face delivery to also include digital-based and licensed product systems.

In difficult circumstances, Founder and CEO Andy Gilbert and his team have taken on the challenge head on to ensure not only the ‘safety’ of the company during the crisis but also improve its prospects into the future. In line with the values of Go MAD a mammoth physical and intellectual effort has been undertaken and, I have been proud to participate giving my strategic insight into the markets and identifying fertile new territory which is capable of being occupied by the Go MAD brand. This includes so-far-undeveloped niches from mass market to specialised industrial, and I have given advice and recommendations about suitable products, pricing, KPIs, marketing, licensing and Information Technology aspects and even entirely new lines of business to match market opportunities. 

My Outstanding Enterprise Model

In 1994 I had the idea of introducing direct insurance to the Italian market. Supported by Royal Insurance (later Royal & SunAlliance) the company I founded went on to be one of the most exciting and influential insurance companies of recent times becoming both a ‘Superbrand’ and a ‘Marketbuster’ in only a few years.

The strategic opportunity opened up with the liberalization of the Italian motor insurance market and new pricing and segmentation techniques made possible by advances in technology gave the company a significant competitive advantage at launch. However, Royal Insurance was architected in such a way that it completely changed the rules of insurance in Italy. It brought new distribution initially in the form of the call centre, new segmented pricing, an entirely new product concept - unlike anything at the time in the country - which was highly favourable to good drivers and a new communication concept incorporating a high-profile branding strategy as well as ground-breaking marketing and PR approaches.

Furthermore, Royal Insurance was a world pioneer in selling motor insurance by internet and by utilizing the technology to make distribution agreements with intermediaries and banks, it also was the first to develop relationships with non-traditional distribution such as major supermarket chains, online aggregators and car dealerships which amplified its reach without adding cost. It’s safe to say that Royal’s competitors were constantly playing catch up trying to match our leadership in every aspect.

The organisational design of the company ensured it was always evolving and capable of delighting customers despite stratospheric growth. In order to preserve both the operational leadership and unassailable customer service standards, I introduced the first corporate ‘bill of rights’ in Italy (Carta dei Diritti) which set out in black and white the exact standards of service a customer could expect and, in the event of our failure, what cash penalty payment they would automatically receive. What's more, adherence to this standard was audited annually by a delegated group of customers themselves.

Happily, very few penalties ever needed to be paid out as this combination ensured that Royal Insurance was not only the most profitable motor insurer in Italy but had by far the highest level of satisfied and loyal customers and incomparable employee engagement. Royal Insurance was the winner of numerous awards for quality and standards as well as for technical innovation before it was purchased by the Direct Line group – the company which more than any other had inspired me to create it in the first place.

The ‘experiment’ with Royal Insurance in which I instigated online motor insurance sales has led to my deep involvement in many types of ebusiness, digital strategies, online products and services as well as IT and technical innovations in the world of insurance and beyond. Some projects I have developed include:

In 2002 the Royal SunAlliance Group plc faced a global major restructuring challenge. The crisis had been precipitated by a number of concomitant but critical factors like capital, regulatory matters and business performance in various parts of the globe.

A massive restructuring project began which, as Strategy Director then subsequently Director for Planning Change and Control, I was delighted to have a prominent hand in. Leading the talented RSA strategy team and working with groups of advisers from McKinsey and Accenture, I determined the processes to interrogate and assess the business plans made by the Group’s Regional Directors in USA, Canada, EMEA and the UK and work with them and the Board to ensure the highest level of confidence in the outcomes.

The project simultaneously addressed matters such as financial analysis, corporate structure, staffing, market segments, business lines, offshoring, core vs peripheral activities, technology, risk management, profitability targets and cost saving initiatives.

Working on the ground in a positive way with the regional teams ensured maximum buy-in to the process and, as a result, the desired transformation was achieved including significant efficiency improvements and cost savings as well as the sedimentation of a new, robust and effective  planning and control system.