Performance People Podcast

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English (US)

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Leadership to me is about showing someone where you want to go and how are you going to get there and giving them something there. They're inspired by it, but by God, it's about leading. It's not good enough just to show people on the go or giving the vision, then sitting in some ivory tower.

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David Howden, CEO and founder of the Howden Insurance Group. I'm delighted to have you on my Performance People podcast in partnership with JP Morgan. Um, there's so much to talk to you about, whether it be sport or performance or business and the whole of the that sort of meshed in together. I want to start, though, with the place that we always come back to, which is the defining moment, because there'll be many moments, I suspect, over the course of your life and career, which have been sort of, you know, moments and points that you can look to that have changed the course and the direction of everything but the first one.

What does it all sort of start? Where does it all start? Yeah, Fun. I think it starts with a sad moment. I think it starts with the death of my father, aged. I was only seven and he died very suddenly. And it was a very it as well as being a sort of obviously a loss of a father, in many ways it was a change of lifestyle.

And because it was unplanned and actually it was those days. It was the day of the labor government when there was 90% death duties between husband and wives. So we lost everything. It all went the government, and we had to sell up in the South. And my mother was very, very she built real resilience and she sold the house in the south.

We moved to Yorkshire because there it was much cheaper to be able to live there. And, and she went to work as a teacher. And it was a really defining moment as a kid. I remember actually, I grow up very quickly, very suddenly. I was a sort of like the, you know, you feel protective. Yeah. My, my eldest, my I had a sort of half brothers had grown up and left.

Then my older sister was two years old. And you're the man of the house. I remember actually, when we were leaving the old vicarage. I remember the guy literally snatching the keys of my mum, and then I was getting in this car and you never quite know, remembers which are the ones you really remember which the ones put in.

But it was a pretty defining moment. Yeah, yeah, it feels like like you say, it's not just about the loss of a loved one and all the things that come with that which are, you know, hugely complex and challenging in their own way, but also the fact that the life that you've known that's made you safe and feel safe is suddenly no longer there.

Yeah. So, like you said, your mum was super resilient and tried to put that straight back into you. She's still alive at 99. I can only imagine. Wow. As you know, if you know my wife, she's still pretty tough. My mum is legally blind. And so she says, well, why don't you get a haircut? It's awful.

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She can't say that about your hair. You got the best hire in the business of any business. Um, so. So what does that do to your character? How do you think it kind of shaped your character moving forward? The idea that that man who's taking the keys to your family home and you've sort of been off, you go into a new sort of life effectively.

What does that do to you? I think it makes you hungry. I think it makes you hungry. I think it makes you think about, you know, things that I often think that, you know, it's one thing to to not have something. I think there's perhaps even more about having had something, I lost it. It's like even at the age of seven, even at the age I think.

So I think it gave me a drive and a hunger. It gave me an independence as well. To be honest with you. Um, and I think that creates in you a desire to, you know, I'm a business builder, and I think that desire to build something, create something to get something back was for the foundation's right back then.

And they got then later accelerated. I think my second defining moment. I, you know, I went to school, went to boarding school in the South, went to Radley, and then I unfortunately broke my back playing rugby and a rugby injury. And, you know, I had to have a spinal fusion, I had to leave school, I had a spinal fusion and I failed, which wasn't great, you know, because when you're, you know, 15 year old and you're crashing on it, you know, pretty unpleasant being looked after by nurses the whole time.

And it's not a great place to be. And I recovered well from it. But I never then really went back to school after that. They they felt that really my academic career wasn't that strong and it was probably my sport they wanted me for. And so I and my mum again, you know, although she'd remarried by then and I had a wonderful stepfather, you know, she sort of basically said, well, look, you know, if you're not going to go to school and you're not going to go to university, you got to get a job, you got to get a job.

So I think, again, that was another defining moment. I had to go and earn some money and get a job. I remember going I went three interviews and I went one was with the Army and I met a man called Colonel Fane. The booze and rolls. He said, now tell me, young man, what's your private income? I said, I don't have one, I said.

That's why I'm here. That's what I want. That won't do at all. Now you need to find that that job was then written off, and then I had a job interview with a state agency and didn't want that. And then I went into. There was a firm called Alexander Heldens, which had been a family firm many, many moons ago, but was now a public company, and it was a London Insurance.

But I didn't know what it meant at all. And so I got an interview there, and I guess because of my name, they knew there was no connection. They got me. I was 16 years old and that was a yeah, that was the start of my career. And when you talk to people who are around you, who've known you for a really long time, they all say the same thing.

I've been doing my research. They all say the same thing. They all say he just sees insurance completely differently to everybody else. What do you think they mean by that? Well, to me, you know, when I started in insurance, I knew nothing about it. And then I suddenly got into this job. And very early on, I left Howden because I just didn't think I could build a career fast enough there.

And they then actually got bought by Americans. We'll come back to what another sort of defining moments were, cancellation. And I went to work for a very small firm called Nelson Marsh. And they were pioneers, really in sort of liability and insurance. And it fascinated me, actually, how insurance really it was an enabler.

So most people think of insurance. Okay, I got a car. If I crash my car, then insurance will pay. Yeah. Or something goes wrong. I like to think of insurance another way around that. Really. I used to say it's the oil in the engine. Now maybe say it's the battery in the Tesla. You know, it's what makes things happen if you go right the way back, joking about to the Industrial revolution, you know, steam boilers, they were blowing up all the time And actually, you know, they were very dangerous.

It was the insurance industry that came in and regulated steam boilers and made them safe, and therefore really allowed the whole revolution to take off. And I think of that, that the insurance is a way that we can develop our economies of peoples lives, businesses, and therefore all the time, really, how can I help people have better lives or better businesses?

It sounds quite grandiose, but I'm quite serious and I'm where does insurance play that role? And I think that's the that's the power of it. And if you can try and do that differently and listen to people what their issues are, rather than try and sell them an insurance policy. I mean, you know, insurance is not bought.

It's sold. No one wakes up on a Monday morning with a bad hair day saying, I need some retail therapy. I'll go out and buy an insurance policy. I'm sure you know, George, I think I'm sure you'll retail therapy customers. I mean, that's what's cool. David. Yeah, cool. David I'm definitely an insurance policy.

So, you know, it's about listening to about what people really want and what issues there are. That's so interesting because what you're describing there is really big Sky thinking, like you called it grandiose, but it's big. It's big Sky thinking you're looking for the white space. When we think of insurance, we think of detail.

We think of dotting i's and crossing t's. But I suppose that has to be part of it. You have to have that level of detail there. But it's sort of a bigger attitude, thinking, isn't it, that is that what you're trying to sort of purport across not just you, but anyone that works in the company? So if you think about it, you often take in particularly in the global north, we take insurance almost for granted.

Totally. But you will come on to risk. And in building a business you take risks and you really want to minimize those risks. And, you know, for some of them are financial risks. The banks help women that lend you money, you know, they'll give you capital, investors will give you capital, you know, if you need it.

I think of insurance is okay. What are the risks? We can take off the balance sheet of either people or banks or private equity houses, or indeed governments. And you know that what climate change is doing. So it's about that. It's actually how can we actually take risks away and put them into the insurance market that allow people to do stuff that they wouldn't normally do.

And you famously sort of described the setup and the starting place of Howden as sort of three people and a dog, and that's kind of what it was. I mean, just describe what, looking back, you know, what success looked like for you. Then we'll talk about it now and later on. But what did it look like for you at the time?

So that's where, you know, I went when on a walking holiday with the dog with with flight. And I sat on a mountain and I thought, you know what? I just don't like the company I'm working for. I don't like the culture of it. I don't like anything about it, really. I'm going to go and set up my own business. My first wife had left me.

I was with fees and I'm now I married to. Well, I said to her, we don't need to be together. Well, I'm going to leave a world and start my own company and and, you know, go and do that. And I took the dog to the office, and there was three of us. One. Louise is still with the group now. Came on Ma pangborn, and we just had this idea that we could create something that was about the people, and it sounds very corny to that, but literally, I just knew I didn't like the cut of the bass.

They were focused. I wanted to create something that was about the people in the business and where we were owners of the business, and we actually quite liked each other. And, you know, we were three people in a tiny little office. And success then was probably just staying alive. You know, it was in our first show we had no, I remember we wrote a letter saying, unencumbered as we are by any other clients, we think we're ideally placed to serve you.

You can imagine most times when I feel that part of a successful group, you know, so but they were staying alive, its success was, you know, basically surviving, I think, as you build businesses, the probably most valuable thing you can have is resilience. Yeah, because that's really what it's about.

You and you will make endless mistakes all the time, and the only way you're going to survive that is by being highly resilient. And that comes back to you at being that seven year old kid. You had to get resilient really, really fast. So then there's three people in a dog and you're starting to build a client base.

And then when you realize as you're expanding that you've got a higher other people to help and support this mission. And I'm interested to know what the mission became, because it can't always stay in the places of where where it started. But how do you make sure you maintain and and keep that thinking and that culture?

Because it must be in the people you bring in. But the minute you open it up to people other than three people in the door. Yeah. What does that then? How do you do that? How do you retain that? So yeah, I always say to people who are going to come, you know. Come and join us. Said don't come and work for us. Come and help us build a business.

And the reality is, it isn't for everyone and that. And I mean, that's from everyone. It could be the receptionist. Don't. Don't be a normal, just receptionist. Come and help us be different. You come to our offices. It's full of passion. It's full of people energy. You get the best espresso from Chris.

You know who's doing the coffees? Yeah. Come be part of policy. Build somewhere. And that doesn't suit everyone. So we sort of end up self-selecting a bit. Those people who just want to do a job properly. I say to them, if you love it in our competitors, you'll probably hate it with us. If you hate it there, you're probably not.

So we sort of Substack and you know, we're in 56 countries. We employ 25,000 people. Is everyone in our in our group perfect? No it's not I'm not naive, but I think if you start off with that pervasive philosophy that the culture is the most valuable thing we have is that people often say to me, how do you retain the culture.

And I said, well, because it's the most valuable thing and it's what we work on all the time, and we have this mantra that look after our people. They'll look after the clients, the money will look after itself. And it sounds very simple and, you know, these days will be coming. Honestly, it's how we run the company and other people will do it the other way.

And they start with the money. They worry about what the margins are. I don't I just don't think you can build what you can. But it's not the company I want to build. That's interesting. So effectively, like you say, you're self-selecting on whoever's coming through the door because of the way in which you you guys run the show anyway.

Yeah, we have to buy into it. They have to run. And we talk a lot about empowerment. You know what? Yeah. What's an incentive ization. Yeah. Ownership. You know, 6000 of our people are equity. They're only their owners. And that's sort of those original three people. We very early on made the decision that we wanted to spread the equity far and wide, because I really thought that, you know, if people own a business, that they're going to be a lot more committed.

They're going to actually really want to build a success. And it's interesting because in this day and age, you know, I've got a startup company and you're always thinking protect the equity. Protect the equity. But the other side of that is, like you say, everyone can come on that journey with you. Yeah.

And it can feel really, really all encompassing and quite special. It feels like a team. Yeah. It does. And you're right. You know, early days, if you dilute too quickly, people will say, well, I regret it. I don't regret the dilution at all. Not particularly. Not the dilution into the the working people because it's it's built a very big business of real scale that people really care about.

And I think if you do that, you'll have a much better chance of building a culture that people will want, want to join. You know, we have this big thing around empowerment. So we empower people, you know, come in, come and build a business. Come and get in. We got people to start ups all around the world. You know they're empowered.

Powered, but the other side of a hammer is accountability. So don't come in and be empowered. And they're not being accountable. And part of what they're accountable for is being custodians of the culture. So don't love being empowered yourself. Have all the joys of that. And then micromanage your colleagues because that that that isn't Howdon, you know, and sometimes it takes a while to get it out of people, and sometimes even people will join.

I was just doing my lovely new regional CEO, Rohan, in Hong Kong yesterday and he was still saying, look, I'm still finding it weird how much I just told to get on with stuff before everything had to report back to the East coast to someone. I mean, yeah, it's like, oh my God, I don't care. You make the decision around, you know what with that.

So that's huge amounts of trust from your side and from the leadership that is required to do that. And presumably sometimes it will go wrong. So you've got to be comfortable with mistakes I love mistakes I think mistakes are fantastic.? You sound just like James Dyson. Exactly what he does. Failure is great.

How could you possibly. If everything's going well, you're not pushing the boundaries. You know anyone who says to me everything's great? Try harder, you know. Because you've got. You can't possibly build it. We've grown roughly 25% compound for 31 years. You can't grow at that pace without making mistakes.

The critical thing is not to count them as that, just to say, actually, they're just lessons you're going to learn. And what's really done is not to learn from them. Yeah. And that includes, I'm afraid, with the wrong people. You know, people say, David, if your people first business, why sometimes do we move people out of the business?

I say because we're people first business, not a person first business. Same thing with Covid. You know, after Covid, I wanted people back in the office and people said, well, maybe, well, you may want to work from home, but your colleagues don't want you to work from the young. Can't learn from you working with him.

So yeah. So being a people first business doesn't mean that you hold on to people that are wrong in it. So I think making those mistakes, whether it's in decisions or M&A, we you know, we buy businesses and we get to just change it quickly. The working from home debate is a really interesting one. It stirs the pot massively.

I mean, there's such polarizing versions of what people think about that. Um, and I suppose also it may be a generational shift as well, because there is a young group of people coming through who have been used to, like you say, Covid and remote working, and that's part of it. So is your policy like, actually, do you know what?

This is what we want to do. This is what we are about. Yeah, either do that or don't do that. No, they are being very blunt. Generally there are some roles in our group where probably it's fine, it's fine, you know, and you know, and they probably like working at 4:00 in the morning. That's what they do. And they're gamers.

And I get that. So it's not. But the vast majority of people in our business. Yeah, we're a people business. The good thing about insurance is it's still very much a people business. We need to train young people up. You cannot do that remotely. So you've got to get people in. You've got to get people, you know, who want to come back to it.

It's not a job at Howden. It's building a business. You can't build a business remotely. You can't manage your business remotely. You can have, you know, you can do all that. But if you really want to grow and grow fast and you want to develop, you've got to have people in there. You know, when we took into office in London, we took these amazing new offices in London in 2019 just for Covid.

I kept thumping great holes on the floor. I put out and I said, why are you doing that, David? You're spending millions putting smiles. And they'll never use them. They all use them. No one uses the lift. People go up and down the stairs. They bump into each other. They talk on the stairs. We've got this wonderful coffee shop called Bochy with the terrace overlooks.

We get people in there. We have the pub that opens, we have the how to get community going. That's how people terribly think we're, you know, we're social animals now, but you're growing like you said, there's been this rapid growth and you're still growing exponentially and maintaining that culture, which is hugely admirable.

What does success now look like? What's the motivating factor now for you and the business? You know, compared to all those years ago when it was three people and a dog? It's exactly the same. It hasn't changed actually. It really hasn't changed. The numbers change, but I'll come back to it. The numbers just say they never really mattered is not true.

But for a long, long time it has not been about the numbers. And I often with my investors, I often say that. I say, you know, come and invest in me, you know, you'll be raising zest for. But I am building a business. I'm not building short term returns, you know. Yeah, I talk about building. I'm an industrious.

I'm building over the long, long term. What does that mean? That means you're focused on building something you're proud of. Yeah. Build something you want to build. Build something there where people want to work. Build something. When you look back in 5 or 10 years and said, you know what? I was proud of that.

I was part of that. That's what matters. If we look back and say, well, highly successful, we made a fortune. We floated the business. But actually the culture and the business is awful. People don't like working for us. That's failure, in my view. It's not. It's about building. I often say to people, I have the mirror test.

You know, I talk to people about, you know, culture's not something you were up in the world. You can't write culture and say, oh, you know, whenever I do that and I sort of almost puke up and go, oh my God. You know, they've got like, culture on the wall. You know, it's not like that. You know, we have people first, but the fact that you have to do that is.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So culture's way, you know, you've got new offices, how we behave when someone joins us. They'll see what God is like. And you. Therefore, everyone needs to be the custodian. That if you. It doesn't mean you can't have a bad day. We all can have some bad days. But generally you've got to treat people with respect.

You've got to, you know, actually treat them in a way that you would want to be treated yourself. And I say to people, you know, do the mirror test in the morning. We talk about someone's being Avengers. When we get people together, they're either on Avenger working together or if you're apart, it's not well, look in the morning.

Are you an Avenger or are you just a thinker? You know, and they know. They know. They know what they are. It's it's that cold thing that I made them do that, you know, Avenger or whatever. So I think it's about behaviors. I was gonna say like, what's your morning like skipping into skipping into the office on a daily basis.

I do that,

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you know. Yeah. Luckily I have with the Hulk every morning,

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every time avenging people do it, you know, you all know. But do you skip into work every day? Because I can't believe. I mean, what on earth. You like having a bad day? Because I can't imagine you ever having a bad day again. I think there's two types of people in the world. Yeah, there's those people. Energy into the room, and then there's some who suck it out, you know, like drains and radiators.

Yeah. And I think in building a leadership to me is about showing someone where you want to go and how are you going to get there and giving them something they're, they're inspired about. But by God, it's about leading. It's not good enough just to show people on the go or giving the vision. Then sitting in some ivory tower, I want to be on the floor out there at the front doing it, and I get my energy from the people in the business.

That's what I love, you know, I love meeting. Can you drive off? Yeah, that's what it is. And again, because every does every new deal, like you said, regardless of the numbers, like if the challenge is a great one, do you celebrate it in the same way that you sort of always have done when you manage to get something over.

You know, so funnily enough, the thing I love. I mean, I love clients, Tony classes and of course I love you class. I have one class, but the thing I really love, I love people watching successfully building businesses. Now we've really got people who've done start ups. You know, they've gone off, you know, a guy called Matt Baker in Australia I spent a lot of time with recently because we had the Lions down there.

You know, he 2019, he did a start up nothing. He's now employing 500 people. And I think that that keep coming back to it. I love insurance I really think it's valuable. But what I really love doing I love building the business. I love seeing what people can create and how can they do that. I often say, you know, an investor would invest in 2012.

And when they invested, they said, we knew you were entrepreneurial, David. We didn't realize you were an army of entrepreneurs. And that's that's and that's when that's back to your earlier point about who joins us. We want people and that can be in different roles. It doesn't have to be in the front end.

You can. You can build something special. We have amazing entertainment. You know Ryan, who runs our cooking. Everyone loves Ryan. And we have some of the best food at Ascot when you come there. And it's food from cornbread, you know, and it plants love it, you know? So it doesn't have to be just about building a business from client side.

It could be proud of everything in the business. No wonder you love sport. And no wonder you've got this sort of passion. Now for putting the Howard a name on some great sporting properties, because this is completely who you are. I mean, you obviously had a deep love for rugby growing up and horse ownership and everything else, but it feels like team sport for you is is really relatable.

Would that be right? It's totally relatable if you think, you know, coming back to resilience, I wonderful chairman I had years ago Richard last sadly channeled his dad and I bought his company back in 97. And I was moaning one day about traveling and he and we had international business. He said, David, remember, you could have anything you want in life, but you have to have everything that goes with it and it's a very good expression.

I say it to my kids. They grow in a bit when roll their eyes a bit, but and I think it's the same in sport, you know, if you really want it in sport, you've got to put the hours in. You know, it doesn't matter how talented you are, you've really got to do that resilience. You know it's not always going to go well. You know you're going to have some bad days and you've got to pick yourself up from those bad days.

You've got to get good people around you. Now, I've built my business really around getting more talented people than me to come and join me. Same thing in sport. You've got to build that spirit. But it's no good having superstars. If the culture is bad, it'll kill a team within a second. The same thing. You know, I talk about building a business that I'm proud of and I want people to love.

Pardon? Teams need that. If they want supporters. Their supporters have got to love, love that team. Why did I love the Lions so much? Because they're loved. You know, everyone loves the dance. Even the Australians love that, you know.

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I feel like though, for you who's like this rugby Super Rugby fan and have played rugby as well. Like watching the Lions run out with your name badge on here. What is. I mean there must have been just describe that feeling when they first did that. And you're watching and you're thinking, oh my God, it was pretty bad.

The first time was in Dublin in the warm up game of the game against Argentina, and I was with Brian O'Driscoll and I was reading, we had quite a few pints already actually down and that's I know. So I had a few Guinness's inside me, so I was quite emotional as it was actually. It was absolutely amazing, George.

It was just the feeling of pride. And I was with some of my family and it was just it was just a sea of red with Howden on. It was incredible. And when we won, uh, in Melbourne in that last second, it was incredible. But you know that thing about sport, isn't it you? I actually, funnily enough, when the Australians then beat us, I was actually very happy for them in a way.

I would never say that at the time, the team. But you know, you need to get people to pick themselves up again. And then they went on to actually beat the South Africans who won one of the games. But I think that sport for us is about connecting with sport, where we we think we can talk about earning the right to be on the jersey.

I don't think you should sponsor something if you just want to slap your name there. Yeah, it has to be authentic. Yeah it does. It comes back to that every time. Otherwise, no one buys into it anyway. I think almost the opposite. I think the fans go, what are you doing? You know, associated with my team. So are you.

Very. I mean, of course, you're strategic about your choices with regards to sports sponsorship, but, you know, you're you're on the Lions Ascot. Um, SailGP now. Yeah. You know, those are all different sporting properties, but they all have common ground. They all have. They all have a lot of common ground for us.

And one thing we do with all of them is we don't just do the sort of high level. We want to get into the grassroots. What you need to be passionate about. You need people in your business not always made, you know, sailing is more other people. People are passionate about it and want to really actually engage.

And so with the rugby, for example, we did all of the grassroots for the clubs, particularly the legends clubs where, you know, Lions had come from, the Lions come from all of the Howden offices around the country had football boots on them. You could do exchange programs. You've got to get. We did the sevens.

You know, both Melrose

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and the school sevens. So it's about, I think, connecting with the community because that way not only your clients, but critically, the people in the business feel connected because you don't just want, you know, we've got 10,000 employees in the UK. We want them to feel part of it. And so you want something as asked, for example, we have every Christmas.

We have the Howden Christmas weekend. It's our Christmas party. 10,000 people have applied from our group, have applied for tickets to come to us so they get to show at Ascot so they may not be there, the Royal Ascot when we're done. Okay. But are there we all? You can bring your family along. It's a really fun it's a chance meeting.

It's really fun. And I think engagement, both in the grassroots for our clients, but also for our people and partnerships. Sponsorships need to be that. They need to be something that, again, our people feel proud of. And also the women's lions. Yes. Wow. So that's coming as well. It was it was genuinely when it first came across my dad's, I was excited obviously, but it was knowing there was going to be the first women's thing that really thought that, that, that, that, that that is brilliant.

Why is that? What was the thing that made you think, oh, that's that's the cherry on the cake? I think it's because going back to I said,

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inclusiveness to me is very important, not because it's a box we've got to take that, that, that that's not important. What's important is that people do You feel actually valued and they do feel they can have a voice. That's why I talk about empowerment. You can make a difference. Whatever your job is around, you can make a difference.

So having a sport where you know half the population don't play, it isn't really the great thing about the setting. There's always a woman on the boat. You know, you've got to have it in that way. And I like that sort of fact that you, you want everyone in your firm to feel inclusive, and that's what it's about.

So to me, it was very important to have a sport that you think about horses. You know, it's the lovely thing about that. It's one of the I'm passionate about eventing. What do I love? One of the things I love most about eventing is it's it's I think it's the only Olympic sport where men and women can be treated as equal.

Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. It's amazing. I agree, it's completely brilliant. So it's about feeling good. It's not about. Oh, I've ticked that lovely box of inclusivity. It's about actually people. You especially care about that when you've got daughters. Yes, yes, yes. Because you do. Because you want them to have that.

Yeah. I got three daughters. Yeah, I got three at all. Exactly. Then you want to have those options And and I think to me, you know, sport,

00:30:32.560 — 00:34:04.750

it's about feeling good, isn't it? I mean, I know there are bad days. Of course there are. But people do it because they want to be passionate. Yeah. And I'm passionate about the business. So we want people to feel with the sponsorship we've done. Yeah. Even more passionate and care whether that's our people, whether it's our clients and therefore that connectivity is very important.

And we've got a big sports business us we, we ensure a lot of sports. We've got big sports entertainment division. So again, if you can try and connect those bits, you say not only do we love, you know, the entertainment and the branding also, but actually we can help. Back to your earlier question. Insurance is really important in sport, particularly tragically around injury.

Yeah. Let's be honest. You know, it's really important that, you know and a lot of very dangerous into my daughter's an event is not not a dangerous sport. Rugby we sport you know so I think the role insurance has got to play is very important in sport as well. As well as connecting with it. How are you dealing or embracing or managing or looking to how you're going to make the best of AI?

I mean, everyone's obsessed with AI at the minute. It's, you know, everywhere. So what are you doing in that space and how do you maintain, like you say, that connectivity of your people and use your people as best as you can with all of this new technology that's. So you've done exactly what you already said, people.

So what we've done, we've got a great CEO, David Shoulders, who came in and what we've really done with AI because, you know, you talked about earlier, the insurance has a lot of contracts, a lot of paperwork, etc. but the trouble with AI is it's not the elixir for all evils. And if all you do with AI is think, how can I make my processes simpler?

You're not really doing what I can really do, which is actually transfer your processes. You know, there's two different things. One is just, oh, we need more efficiency. Which is great. All for that. But actually what you really need to do is completely think about things new way. The only way to do that is to get everyone involved.

So what we've done is we've built, you know, working with the big providers, you know, basically secure, safe networks. So all of our people can get on and can use it. Our data is within our own band, which allows them to play around with it and come up with their ideas, because I think those companies that don't embrace it.

But that means getting everyone to embrace. It's not a few intelligent people to really get out there and invest very heavily in it and say, okay, think about how. And I say this to people, don't you know that thing? Don't say what can you know, the company do for you? Think of what you can do for the company.

So AI isn't something we're going to come along and give you some wonderful solution? We don't know. You tell us, you play around it. See? See how it is. We've got wonderful stuff coming out. Grassroots. Yeah. grassroots. And also, like you said, that autonomy and accountability and all those things you've talked about that are so important for that individual person to to sort of grab hold of, where do you go next?

I mean, it's like the moon and back. Where are you going next with all of this? Where does Howden go next? Yeah. So we've just become, you know, a global broker by our entry into the US. And I guess the US is the biggest market in the world for insurance is nearly 40%. It was also the strongest market for our competitors.

So you know that what kept you away for a while? You never attacked your competitors. That's wrong, you know. You know, so that's why we we built the business globally. We're in 56 countries around the world now. And we deliberately waited. So we're now really the the next frontier

00:34:05.830 — 00:36:31.130

is the US. How does that feel? Because is it the is it sort of a, um, very exciting but also, um, defining moment for the, for the brand. It's a good word there. I think it's definitely a defining moment, you know, and ultimately we a bit like sort of many sports, you know. We're very proud of our roots here, but we love for the fact we're international.

So we're very proud. We're British business. Yeah, we started in British. We're not. And I think we're the only, you know, British business in that top ten global brokers. The rest are all Americans. So to give you some idea. So there's there's one Brit versus nine Americans. You know, I find something I like this classic underdog story, even even at a serious level of business is still the underdog story.

Yeah. Um, yeah. And actually quite important to be an underdog. It is. But joking apart. It's, you know, it's not easy. We know that entering the US has been the graveyard of many. I was going to say it's dangerous. Yeah. So what we're doing, how are we doing it? We're not building a British business. We're building American business.

Of course we are. Like we've done all around the world from the very first days. I never sent a brick in a rain mac to run a country, you know, so you won't find any of our CEO. And all the CEOs are like, it's gone in India. The guy in Singapore is Singaporean. You know, all our CEOs are from their countries. Because to me, why would I send an Englishman?

It's madness. I mean, they'll be out there helping, supporting, etc. but that was a cultural difference for us right from the start. Most prominent international, I think. Oh, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll send someone from our country to go and run it, because that makes sure that they, the locals, behave properly.

You know, we never did that same thing. So, Mike parishes, I'll see you there. He's a fantastic guy. Built a great business in the U.S. for looking to build an American business that'll be around the Americans. Will be for them. Supported by the group globally, just like we've done elsewhere. And that's that's that comes right the way back.

It's I always say to someone, if after you've joined either as an individual or as a company, if you don't feel this is your business, I've failed. It's their business. It's our business. It's not my business. And it's really it's really important that and that pride. Yeah. I'm feeling this is my business.

I'm building. If you. Mike was here, you know, he wouldn't think this is a British thing. I'm building this business. And that. That's the secret sauce of us make. It feels that I feel like I want to come and work for you. You're very welcome.

00:36:32.850 — 00:36:39.810

When can I see you? I have got a new tagline for you. Performance insurance. Performance insurance.

00:36:41.770 — 00:36:57.490

I like that one we had for the Lions. We had insurance greatness, you know. Yeah, but performance insurance. I'm an insurance business. You can live up to that time. So one last thing I got to say though, because I it's a nod to I think

00:36:58.770 — 00:39:10.800

the other side of what insurance can do is be founded with a really good guy who's working for you. Try Langdale. We founded a charity called Humanity Insured and Humanity Insured basically is very cool because it's providing insurance. You think about, we take it for granted, but with climate change you can debate what's happening.

And I'm not going to get political here, but it's happening. There's no insurer that doesn't need climate change. Not happening. Why is it a matter of debate? But most people are suffering for that, don't actually have access, and they find it very hard to access capital, whether that's insurance capital or bank capital.

So humanity is there to really provide insurance policies to these predominantly farmers, but it can be other communities. In India, it's people against heat who are working in sort of severe conditions. What does that do to them? It gives them advocacy. It allows them to make choices and it allows investment to come in.

So for example, if you have with Miranda a farmer, he's insurance because the whole back half is seed. Now if he's got an insurance, if there's a drought, he plants all his seeds. What happens is productivity is up 25%. So actually he can borrow some money and can buy some land. And that's how people get. And that's really back to in a new way.

And we've been showing millions of people now we're getting to already finding this. We've just done the first policy ever for refugees in a while. We've been insured refugees in Malawi. So and that goes right back to my roots of don't think about insurance as something you have to buy because it's a requirement.

Whatever. I think about it. I mean, how can it actually help people build their lives, build their communities, whatever else, given that that takes you right back to the beginning, I guess also, that's a source for huge pride. I mean, like you say, you've got these extremes. You've got the Lions running out on their jerseys.

How have you written, written in blazing letters across the front. And then you've got stories of Malawi and Rwanda farmers really benefiting from a grassroots sort of initiative like that motto, innovation, innovation one. One community was having real problems with their melons. So they were killing elephants because the elephants eat their melons.

So what we did is I tell you what will ensure, yeah, against the elephants. You're eating them and eating them. Yeah. And we're also pay an

00:39:11.880 — 00:39:32.519

additional amount for any that's not killed. So now the farmers actually protect the elephants. We put some things up and suddenly you get an advantage. And I say it's things thinking about just outside the box. Yeah, outside the box thinking, that's amazing, isn't it? That's cool. Will we ever get you back on a SailGP boat ever again?

Oh, definitely. I want to come away with really stormy. I want to. I

00:39:33.680 — 00:40:02.920

wasn't ever safe. I was ready to sort of. You know, it's just like right here, man. Yeah. It was a little bit safe out there for you today. I have to say, I loved it. It's fantastic. You know, look at the innovation that like, who thought would have thought, you know, boats were going up on hydrofoils. Like it's cool.

It's really. It's huge. It's hugely exciting. And you're absolutely the perfect partner for Emirates SailGP to have, as you know, on the boat and in partnership with couldn't be better. Thank you for coming on. Thank you very much indeed.