Insurance grew up in a very product- and channel-specific sense, but that changed, and customer expectations have changed. People don't work that way anymore. Especially the emerging generations don't want to do that. So we have to be more digital in how we work with customers. My name is Len Genovese and my background has a couple of themes. I've spent most of my career in a combination of consulting and working at large organizations, generally with the theme of transformation. As I went through that and progressed with those transformations, we started to see technology take even a larger role. New technologies come into play, around the internet that really had a major impact on how companies worked. So I shifted my focus to digital capabilities and technologies, worked at Metlife for about 11 years, focused on transforming how we worked and engaged with customers, leveraging digital technology. So specifically your time in the insurance world, what would you say is your take on it now, the environment that we're currently in? Insurance grew up in a very product- and channel-specific sense. And what do I mean by that? Some insurance companies would develop a product with an intent to deliver it through a certain channel. That was great in a time before digital. But that changed, and customer expectations have changed. Insurance used to be a very in-person business, and there still is a lot of that. Your father's insurance agent came to you and sold you insurance, but that's changed. People don't work that way anymore, especially the emerging generations don't want to do that. So we have to be more digital in how we work with customers. We need to bring the technologies into the organization that let us focus on the customer and deploy capabilities quickly. A lot of that is doing things like quick pilots, getting out there, understanding how it works and changing. That's a different approach. A very different approach than sitting down, collecting a lot of requirements, spending a lot of time on that, building a business case, and then building a large system to meet that need. Let's shift that focus to one that's more agile from a methodology perspective and also from an approach perspective, where we can say, we see a need, and let's build platforms and put platforms in place that let us deploy something quickly, test, learn and then expand. How do you properly gather requirements of what's necessary and then make sure every stakeholder is getting what they need? What we tend to do now, especially with the digital capabilities, is actually to start with the customer, what are their needs, and who represents them? Marketing? Distribution? Product? Okay, let's make sure we understand those customer needs, and also understand what are the business objectives? What do we want to achieve? So that starts to now define who the stakeholders are, it's important to have the right mix of people. People that are very grounded in the existing, people that are more focused on the emerging, and then people that very much understand the customer. That's good, and certainly, a lot of people are involved, right?! So how do you go about gathering what they all need, and then boiling that down to something that you can actually go and find? The good and bad is, having the right people involved makes it work, but that also means there's a lot of stakeholder management that has to happen. If we all sit there and say we have the same North Star that we're heading to, now we can start talking about how, and what are the priorities. We have a pathway, we think we want to take there. Now let's start bringing capabilities out. Sometimes they are smaller but released more frequently, so we can start understanding that. There's a set of foundational capabilities we all need to agree on, and that foundation is gonna be grounded in what that business strategy is, and then we're gonna start saying: Okay, let's prioritize a release, get that out, learn from it and build on that. The key there is having the right foundation, the right technologies and capabilities that enable that. I'm wondering how much you guys use outside help to get a gauge on where the market is. I would say, we use external resources in the selection process to help us scan the environment, understand some of the new capabilities and products out there, understand some of the basic comparisons, and then we tend to bring it in-house because now we know our business needs deeper, and then we start to map the capabilities to our business needs. It's really important to have an external focus, especially in insurance. That companies have a long history and deep culture. It's important to look outside, and then that fits into taking this approach that is very platform-centric and say, we want a platform that lets us do certain things. We've now come to the point in your journey, where we've defined a North Star, we understand that there's outside pressure, we've defined a strategy, a North Star. What are the expectations from a team like yours? I think the first thing is, let's make sure we're keeping that external focus and customer focus. What's happening in the marketplace? What are our customers demanding? And from a digital perspective, we often have to maintain a very open-minded viewpoint. There's a lot of legacy in insurance. So we have to say, how can we function in a world that breaks out of some of the models that we've put in place, some of the constraints that we've had in place for many years, and then work in a very collaborative way with business partners, other IT partners, other stakeholders in the organization to start to think about how we're gonna progress to that North Star. And maybe, by the way, adjust as we learn as well. How important is it to match a potential vendor with the ability to do something small and potentially grow as your needs change? It's critically important. If you look at insurance, may bring in a platform that lets us deploy product information very quickly, deploy quoting tools and needs assessment tools very quickly, and, by the way, deploy it, put it to market, gather user feedback on it, and improve it. So it's almost like you look at deploying, gathering feedback, improving and scaling. How important is the philosophy of a vendor to be amiable with other solutions in technology: legacy and new? What's next? How important is it for a vendor to have that point of view? It's critical for a host of reasons. To enable digital, as we said before, you need a platform approach. But there's an ecosystem that we're working in and there're some point solutions, there's the legacy environment, there's a data environment, there are many technologies that help manage the customer experience so you put all that together. The philosophy of the vendors from a digital perspective is to be nimble, to work in an ecosystem, to integrate is very important. It's sometimes the deciding factor in products. We're not looking to bring in completely vertical siloed solutions. There are often solutions that are very important that provide point solutions or provide solutions for particular product areas or functional areas. They still need to play nice in the sandbox and work with the other vendors. Earlier, you mentioned your experience with rolling out large global platforms. Maybe you can touch on a few lessons learned, things that you would certainly do differently? There are a lot of lessons learned. I would say: Focus on the business and customer. That has to be almost the foundational point that grounds all of the decisions. Understand the customer, understand the business needs, make sure they're clear and that everybody is aligned on that. Collaboration, I can't overstress how important that is. Raising issues and concerns early and honestly, and take some of the risks out of the process, and then as we start to think about, and talk about that platform approach and some of those foundational capabilities, I think one of the big lessons there is, let's make sure we have a platform, that people understand why and what it can do but it has to also be flexible enough to meet business unit and local needs. It sounds like the need for that nimble and flexibility and connectedness is even more apparent as you look at a larger scale. It's a really hard balance. Enterprise scale, enterprise capability or platform, but being flexible enough to meet very local needs. Len, I've certainly enjoyed our time, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us. Mark, it has been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for the opportunity. A lot is happening. It's an exciting time. Companies are really bringing new capabilities to a lot of the established carriers in the business, working together with other technologies to really transform how we work with our customers. It's very exciting.