On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Mike Gulla, CEO of Adaptive Insurance, whose team is redefining what it means to be resilient in an era of climate uncertainty and operational volatility. We’ll explore why now is the time for parametric and adaptive insurance, what inspired the creation of Adaptive, and how emerging technologies like AI, big data, and cloud computing are transforming the insurance landscape. KEY TAKEAWAYS          Mike started Adaptive in early 2024 to help businesses build financial resilience against climate change, using parametric-style products and unique data assets. Starting a business comes with many challenges – revenue planning, product selection, and insurance. Our focus is helping owners understand how environmental factors like extreme weather or business interruptions could impact them over time. Power outages show that even with backup systems, grid failures can cause major disruptions – from dark streets to reduced customer traffic. As climate shifts, populations are moving into areas with new weather risks. My focus is on creating innovative insurance products that turn these challenges into opportunities for good BEST MOMENTS ‘The consumer needs knowledge to understand what the things are that are ultimately going to impact their business.’ ‘Speed is huge, which is why we use parametric products, a business owner needs to be able to make a decision very quickly after an event occurs. When you combine knowledge with speed it helps them make a better decision for their business.’ The insurance industry has suffered from how fast things have changed.’ ‘Parametric insurance products are similar to streaming services in that they allow the consumer a new opportunity to have access to a different type of coverage that specifically focusses on something that might impact their business.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Mike Gulla, CEO and Co-Founder of Adaptive Insurance, has over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry and is passionate about transforming how insurance works by leveraging technology and innovative strategies. His career is marked by a commitment to making insurance more adaptive, efficient, and customer focused. Mike’s leadership at Adaptive Insurance reflects his vision for a smarter, more responsive industry—one that meets the evolving needs of clients in a rapidly changing world. Known for his forward-thinking approach and dedication to excellence, Mike continues to inspire teams and drive meaningful change across the insurance landscape. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.   Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/  

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sterling Parker, Senior Vice President of Global Solutions and Services at Ivanti. Sterling is a recognised leader in workplace technology and digital transformation, with deep expertise in helping organizations of all sizes – from global enterprises to fast-growing startups – navigate the evolving world of work. On this episode we dive into the finding of Ivanti’s latest report which gives insights into how leaders can build workplaces that are not only more efficient, but also more human, flexible, and future-ready. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ivanti’s latest “Technology at Work” report reveals a striking insight: while 73% of office workers and 83% of IT professionals consider flexible working “high value” or “essential,” only 23% of employees say their current job is highly flexible - highlighting a major flexibility gap that organisations must address to attract and retain top talent. The study also explores the widening flexibility gap, the rise of shadow AI, and the critical balance between optimising technology and empowering people. Leaders need to hear the feedback from their teams. In terms of what’s preventing them – whether it’s perception or reality – from having flexibility in their day-to-day job. If you’re trying to address something without first hearing what your team demands, in terms of flexibility, then you will have a hard time marrying the demand to the business objectives. That’s a delicate balance. If you’re not defining what success looks like for an individual, how are you going to be able to measure, as you pivot to more flexible work, whether or not that is really leading to the outcomes you need as a business to continue to invest in that flexibility. To redefine flexibility it comes down to what are the mutual benefits involved in the definition of ‘flexibility’ to individuals. From what I’ve seen it happens from a team level, especially when you’re working to different objectives. BEST MOMENTS ‘Lack of investment from businesses is leading to this 23% feeling like they don’t have any flexibility.’ ‘There’s real cost in time spent with family, there’s real cost in the commute and people weigh those options.’ ‘Since covid individuals are more willing to leave businesses for flexibility. Refusing to adapt will increase the likelihood of losing skilled employees which will cost the business. ’ ‘When top talent leaves, or isn’t being attracted, then you’re going to have an innovation stagnation.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Sterling Parker is the Senior Vice President of Global Solutions and Services at Ivanti, where he leads the company’s worldwide support, services, and solutions strategy. With a deep background in IT operations and customer experience, Sterling is responsible for ensuring that Ivanti’s clients—ranging from large enterprises to small businesses—can securely and efficiently manage their digital workplaces in an era defined by rapid technological change and evolving workforce expectations. Discover more about Ivanti’s most recent report here. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sam White , CEO of Stella Insurance. Sam is not just a leader in the insurance industry; she’s a trailblazer, entrepreneur, and advocate for creating a fairer, more inclusive world. In today’s conversation, we’ll dive into Sam’s incredible journey as an entrepreneur, her vision for Stella Insurance, and how she’s challenging the status quo in a traditionally male-dominated industry. We’ll also explore her thoughts on leadership, innovation, and the future of insurance. KEY TAKEAWAYS We didn’t realise, when we set Stella up, just how revolutionary it was because we had an entirely female management team all in our 20s and 30s, very spirited and high energy, going out and doing business in a very male-dominated marketplace. There are gender differences and I think we come at things with a different perspective, women do business differently, approach things differently, and have different needs and risks that they’re exposed to. What I love about the concept of insurance is the idea that a group of people come together and put money in the pot so that if one of them is vulnerable they can be supported. That community ideology is very appealing. When you look through the lens of women, you see a set of circumstances where my general experience when it works well with a large group of women that are all aligned on the same goal and support each other is magic. In terms of building good relationships, the principles apply. Firstly, you can’t build a good relationship with somebody who hasn’t got a good relationship with themselves and isn’t prepared to accept, acknowledge or work on that. My first business was launched from my sister’s conservatory where I picked up the phone to brokers and asked if they’d let me handle their claims. The benefit of that is that you don’t need to get funding and you can do it your own way, you’re learning on the job and experiencing direct feedback. The downside is that the foundations you’re building on may not be ideal. BEST MOMENTS ‘I was diagnosed with dyslexia as a kid and I think that creates a different type of mindset in terms of problem solving as well as resilience.’ ‘I like complicated problems, and insurance is one hell of a complicated problem!’ ‘Imposter syndrome is much higher in women than men, they second guess themselves continually. Most women are educated to not back themselves from the age of 7-8 and societally we also questions women far more than men.’ ‘The irony is; the process of the ‘do’ is the thing that gives you the confidence to keep on doing the doing. But, you have to do the first thing and make it through your first really big challenge.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Sam White is a dynamic and visionary entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in building and scaling successful businesses. As the CEO of Stella Insurance, Sam is a trailblazer in the insurance industry, known for her innovative approach and commitment to creating meaningful change. Under her leadership, Stella Insurance has become a trusted and award-winning brand, recognized for its customer-centric ethos and dedication to empowering women in a traditionally male-dominated sector. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amélie Breitburd, the former CEO of Lloyd’s Europe, and a leading voice in the movement to rethink how we insure against tomorrow’s biggest shocks – from climate and cyber to the long-tail risks the industry still avoids. In today’s conversation, we’ll unpack her journey to Lloyd’s, explore the institution’s evolving role in a risk-saturated world, and dig deep into the bold ideas behind her latest work. KEY TAKEAWAYS Every day people should focus on their specification and should be reminded of it. When I see syndicates doing business only in the US, they could do business in Europe almost for free because, from a capital perspective, diversification helps. We’re here to help people. People wouldn’t do anything: Take a bike, drive a car, fly to Mars without insurance. It’s a key enabler. As leaders in the insurance industry I believe we can show a great sense of purpose. There was a period during which companies were mainly looking at buying, and this was killing teams. I think now we’re definitely in the partnership era which is great for startups because they can work for different companies which increases diversity and has people learn from each other. Insurers have a lot of data but it’s a bit outdated. Risk is evolving because the automotive industry, for example, is moving towards autonomous cars, now data about car behaviour is not as important as it used to be, now the software and batteries that will be in cars is more important so we must build another set of data. Then there are things like flying to Mars and carbon capture where there is no data because we don’t know how we’re going to be doing it. BEST MOMENTS ‘Risk is at the heart of what insurers do and risk is about diversification.’ ‘The statistical aspect is that when you are together you’re taking risks together and lowering the cost of capital.’ ‘the journey today is like moving from paper to pdf, but the next change perspective is moving to more digitalised exchanges between various parts of the company.’ ‘Coopetition is the idea that if we work together as competitors we can access a market which is currently inaccessible because it’s not affordable, we can price the risks differently to make them more accessible.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Amélie Breitburd is a strategic powerhouse in Europe’s insurance and risk management ecosystem, driving a bold agenda to double the size of the continent’s insurable market. With a sharp eye on the protection gap, Amélie brings an unflinching perspective on how to future-proof European economies—through syndication, public-private partnerships, and radical coopetition. A thought leader who thinks beyond tradition, Amélie fuses financial acumen with game theory principles to challenge how we scale solutions to climate risk, cyber threats, and long-tail systemic exposures. Her work on the Digital Insurance Exchange Market (Euro DIEM) envisions a next-gen insurance infrastructure—anchored in data access, distributed underwriting, and multi-layer diversification. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Geetha Sham, MD and President of CamCom in Europe, and Sathes Singam, innovation scout and programme manager at ERGO Group. In this episode we will explore how ERGO’s Venture Client model turned a promising pilot into a production with great capability, then we will investigate what it really takes to deploy AI in regulated multi-market environments, and how governance – if used right – can become a growth accelerator not a roadblock. KEY TAKEAWAYS During initial discussions with our first insurance customer, we realised the process of inspection was time consuming, human heavy, subject to human fatigue resulting in expensive, long cycles and inconsistency. This gap is now filled by our AI model which provides a machine vision eye, using a mobile device accurately capturing images of vehicles which leads to damage assessments, reducing false positives. We want to democratise image capture, hence we have built our product in such a way that it can operate on any type of forum, and mobile devices made since 2016. That makes us a leader in our own area, staying focussed without scattering in the name of trying to do everything ourselves. There has been global adoption of AI – although what it does and how it is used varies – because every industry is seeing the value add. The standard way of implementing it is simple: It has to be aligned to the businesses and should not hamper the existing business or processes that exist within the industry/group. Edge cases must be addresses in a different way and modified so they are not completely controlled by the standard feedback learning. BEST MOMENTS ‘Startup collaboration, in my experience, should become top of management agenda.’ ‘It’s crucial to have someone locally who knows the culture in their particular country, and knows the people that need to be addressed.’ ‘It’s all about involving all relevant stakeholders in clear and transparent communication.’ ‘Each country has local laws, so there’s not only customisation, there’s also localisation that has to addressed. That’s where the governance model comes in handy.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Geetha Sham is MD and President of CamCom in Europe. She is a seasoned technologist and scale-up strategist who has held senior roles at Oracle and Mindtree and is now building out CamCom’s European footprint from Dusseldorf. Sathes Singam is an innovation scout and programme manager at ERGO Group. He is the lynchpin behind ERGO’s deployment of CamCOm across the Baltics, Europe’s first testbed of this solution. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Joel Agard, Group Head of Innovation at Zurich Insurance, who has been driving bold, transformative startup collaborations across 40+ markets. His work has reshaped the way a global insurance giant works with startups, proving that innovation isn’t just about flashy tech – it’s about building real, meaningful partnerships that deliver results. From navigating the early days of Zurich’s Innovation Championship back in 2018 to scaling the program during a global pandemic – and now leading the charge into the future – Joel brings passion, strategy, and a touch of risk-taking to every conversation. KEY TAKEAWAYS The football World Cup in 2018 inspired us to piggyback on the concept of a competition to try and raise awareness of corporate/startup partnerships. Back then, working with startups in our industry wasn’t the norm, we were working with big technology companies. We asked ourselves; how can we show the art of the possible and show that working with startups can really work? This is when we invented the Zurich Innovation World Championship. In the beginning the pace that startups wanted to – and could – go didn’t always resonate with the pace Zurich wanted to go. We had to align expectations and create a safe environment where we could test fast and where it was OK to fail. I’ve fallen in love with cool technologies so many times, and I still do: I’m a geek. But, we had to learn that if these shiny, amazing technologies don’t really solve a problem for our customers or internal stakeholders, it’s not fit for purpose for us. It might be that it’s too early or is not a good fit for us. BEST MOMENTS ‘We at Zurich bring our reputation, brand, and insurance expertise from 150 years. Startups bring agility and speed because they are born in a digital world.’ ‘Failing in a big corporate often doesn’t have a good image. We’ve proved that failing fast and cheap is something we can achieve and is beneficial for the startups. It’s now a normal part of our process.’ ‘The Covid pandemic accelerated digital transformations, there were a lot of opportunities out there to accelerate our initiatives, so increased the number of startups, pilots.’ ‘It’s crucial to understand the gaps and problems you want to solve because we’d be wasting each other’s time otherwise.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Joel Agard is Group Head of Innovation at Zurich Insurance. With a career dedicated to fostering groundbreaking solutions, Joel spearheads Zurich's Venture Client Startup Engine, a program that drives innovation across 40+ markets worldwide. His work focuses on bridging the gap between startups and corporate needs, enabling Zurich to leverage cutting-edge technologies and solutions to stay ahead in the ever-evolving insurance landscape. LinkedIn Zurich Innovation Championship ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Gregor Gimmy, founder of 27pilots, a company dedicated to helping companies build and scale Venture Client units and allows them to benefit from startup innovations faster at large scale and significantly lower cost and risk than traditional corporate venturing methods. On this episode we will explore how this Venture Client model is shaping corporate innovation, the strategic benefits it offers, and how companies can adopt this game-changing approach to stay ahead in a competitive world. KEY TAKEAWAYS When I joined BMW in 2012 I was surprised to find out the small number of startups that it was leveraging to improve its technology landscape across its value chain. I told them that CVCs were investing in 2.8 startups per year. This is not nearly the number needed to solve all the technology challenges that we have, we need more like 100. My initial idea was not to invent a new model but to improve the current one. I was told that if they invested in 50 startups per year they would have around 250 startups in 5 years whose equity state we would have to manage, which is impossible. I concluded that VC isn’t scalable, but it didn’t solve the problem BMW had either, which was accessing, adopting, and transferring cutting edge technology fast because it’s about investment not technology transfer. These are two totally different business processes. We needed to look for a new approach: becoming a Venture Client. Accelerators and CVCs are indirect models – like using a third party’s battery technology in the cars you produce – you first make the investment and then do the adoption of the technology. The different in the Venture Client model is cutting out the middleman. If you want to be good at something you need a dedicated unit. If you do it part time it will only work partly. If you make it a department you can have more time you can dedicate to it, you can have a dedicated budget, you have a more solid KPI structure. BEST MOMENTS ‘More than getting into the world of Venture Client Modelling, I invented the world.’ ‘A Venture Client is a company that adopts startup technologies through procurement and M&A.’ ‘A corporate cannot compete against a good startup like Palantir or Oracle when they were startups.’ ‘The Venture Client model will displace Corporate Venture Capital to become the standard of corporate venturing.’ ABOUT THE GUEST As captain of the 27pilots endeavour, and the visionary behind the Venture Client model, Gregor GImmy focuses on advancing Venture Client knowledge and growing the global community through 27pilots’ corporate clients and academic allies. Gregor is deeply engaged in researching, publishing, and lecturing on the Venture Client model through leading business schools and top business engagements. Gregor is also a frequent speaker at startup-relevant conferences such as Slush, Web Summit, 4YFN and DLD. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks about the launch of a new series of podcasts exploring the Venture Client Model which is turning corporate innovation on its head. Instead of merely investing in startups and crossing fingers, big companies buy from startups to drive innovation – today, not years from now. Imagine a world where a major fortune 500, an automotive manufacturer, an insurance giant or a bank can plug in a cutting-edge startup solution as easily as adding a new app to your phone. The questions Sabine tackles include: What if your company’s next breakthrough isn’t built in-house, but bought from a startup in an early pilot? And what if being a startup’s customer is more powerful than being its investor? KEY TAKEAWAYS At its core, a venture client is a corporation that purchases and uses a startup’s solution to gain strategic benefit. No equity stakes, no controlling shares – just buying the solution early, when the startup is still a venture. The company becomes the startup’s client (often the first or an early client), giving the startup revenue and feedback, while the corporate gets to solve a problem with a cutting-edge product. Insurance is traditionally conservative – heavy on compliance, cautious with new tech – slow, one might say. But that’s exactly why venture clienting is so powerful here: it creates a safe sandbox for insurers to experiment with startups. – Zurich has no corporate VC arm at the group level, so everything they do with startups ends up as a venture client relationship or partnership. That means all the effort goes into tangible pilots and deployments, not minority stakes in startups that might not align with the business. It’s a bold approach, but clearly paying off. Imagine car insurance: traditionally, if you buy a policy in many countries, an agent might physically inspect your car, or if you have an accident, an adjuster needs to assess damage. CamCom replaces a lot of that with a DIY solution – the customer can just take a video of the car, and the AI will spot scratches, dents, cracked windshields, you name it, and even estimate repair costs. That means faster claims, smoother policy underwriting, and less hassle. BEST MOMENTS ‘The Venture Client Model flips the usual script: instead of investing in ten startups and hoping one succeeds, you pay a startup to solve a problem and start benefiting immediately.’ ‘This isn’t just theory. It’s happening now.’ ‘The model turns the corporation into what I like to call an innovation magnet – attracting the best startups because the word is out: “This company loves to buy new tech”.’ ‘By the end of this series, you’ll know the ins and outs of the model, from big-picture strategy down to on-the-ground tips, like why having a one-page startup contract can save you months of headaches, or why “impossible” should be banished from your vocabulary.’ ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. ⁠Twitter⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠ ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠Facebook⁠  ⁠TikTok⁠ ⁠Email⁠ ⁠Website⁠ This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

Sabine VdL talks to Lou Smith, a true trailblazer in the world of financial services and insurance. In today’s episode, we’ll dive into Lou’s incredible journey, explore the vision behind Neuron, and discuss the key takeaways from the latest report that insurance providers need to consider.    KEY TAKEAWAYS We all have moments in life where the last thing we want to look at is out credit rating and history, but those things can affect how you access financial services in the future. Lou was part of the team that delivered the first end-to-end mortgage renewal online, started to break down investments and getting it to the hands of the many rather than the few. Everybody says insurance is behind the rest of the financial services industry, and it’s a funny statement. It doesn’t matter. What I’m seeing in insurance in the last 5-6 years is that this conversation has circled around about what do we do? But in the last 12-18 months I’ve seen a passion for how do now think about using digital, distribution models, digital, analytics and AI and thinking of all of those things together and deliver distribution models that start to move industry forward. The challenge is always in leadership, culture and change adoption. This is because it’s really difficult to step into an unknown and think it’s going to be better than what you’re doing today. You want to power people with the data and capabilities so they can do what they’re brilliant at, which is focusing on the best product and position for their client. Neuron and others enable brokers to do that. You also want to attract a new generation into the brokering sector, but rather than have them focus on the admin of that sector, they should be having great conversations with clients. All the work we’re doing enables brokers to do that.   BEST MOMENTS ‘When starting my career I had a real passion for how to make the services we were offering more successful for clients and customers.’‘We care about the customer and making financial data accessible to you through the narratives we use.’‘I’d love to say this was all planned out, we didn’t call it anything or know what it looked like, we just started to bring data and technologies together to build ‘workflow’ and that’s now become cool.’‘We want to be the easiest, most predictable and consistent broker to work with.’   ABOUT THE GUEST Louise (or Lou) Smith is a trailblazer in the financial services and insurance industries, with a career spanning leadership roles across digital transformation, data, product innovation, distribution, technology, and operations.  Her journey has been marked by groundbreaking achievements, including delivering the UK's first steps into digital distribution at Barclays, leading the digital transformation of the Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest) during its turnaround to profitability, and becoming the first-ever Chief Digital Officer at Lloyd’s of London.  Currently, Louise is at the helm of Neuron, a transformative initiative aimed at redefining the insurance and financial services landscape. Through Neuron, she is driving innovation, collaboration, and growth, focusing on creating a more connected and customer-centric industry. WTWCO LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to James Birch, Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance—the first fully algorithmic syndicate in the history of Lloyd’s of London. In today’s conversation, we’ll explore: James’s journey from VC to algorithmic-underwriting pioneer, what a “director of strategic technology solutions” actually does day-to-day inside a digital syndicate, the partnerships, cloud architecture and data streams that let Ki quote in seconds, the biggest trends shaping Algorithmic Underwriting 2.0—and what they mean for brokers, capacity partners and the wider market, and practical take-aways for anyone who wants to thrive as the next wave of automation rolls through speciality insurance KEY TAKEAWAYS Ki is a growth stage business, not an incumbent, we’re trying to fight our way to win business and ultimately to grow. We have to do something different from everyone else to try to position ourselves differently and find competitive advantage where we can. That’s something I’ve carried over from the VC space. We started out looking at what the digital model of the traditional model, where was the toil in the value chain and the broker’s work plan process and how can we simplifying it and make it more efficient using digital capabilities that we saw in the VC space, in FinTech and other financial service industries.  Lloyds of London is a heavily regulated market so we need to abide by any of the regulations that any carrier or underwriter do in that market. Our approach from day 1 was to engage with the regulator early, explain what we’re trying to do, be transparent, open and honest about where the gaps are if we’d not got to a certain level of maturity, don’t overstate the algorithm. We take regulation very seriously, which has helped because Lloyds has been highly supportive of us and our growth and have allowed us to grow as the market has grown. The main cost-save of the algorithmic underwriting for brokers is they don’t have to have loads of brokers running around the Lloyds of London building to find 2% on a slip or something, the broker negotiates with the lead underwriter, come onto the Ki platform for the follow, and then spend their time on new business and client opportunities. BEST MOMENTS ‘Any business should evolve as the market evolves and the marketing dynamics changes, you’ve got to react to those and be thinking 2-5 years ahead.’ ‘We still trip up on ourselves, even now, because we sometimes try to over-complicate things.’ ‘Speak to the customer, hear their problems, understand what’s not working for them, try to make it a simple transaction for them, and then they’ll use your products.’ ‘I’m a big advocate of the partner model because if you get 2, 3, or 4 like-minded companies as partners you can build something great together because you’re all strategically aligned.’ ABOUT THE GUEST James Birch is the Director of Strategic Technology Solutions at Ki Insurance, the market-leading algorithmic syndicate that’s redefining how Lloyd’s of London does business.  Blending a venture-capital mindset with hands-on operating rigor, James has spent the past decade helping innovative companies move from bright idea to breakout scale. Passionate about demystifying insurance for the next generation, James is a sought-after speaker on topics such as data-driven risk selection, the future of algorithmic capacity and what it really takes to scale a regulated tech business.  Whether mentoring founders or road-testing the latest ML models with his engineers, he’s driven by one simple goal: use technology to make risk transfer faster, fairer and radically more efficient. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Mark Stern, founder and CEO of Custom Box Agency, an award-winning boutique specializing in bringing digital offers to life through innovative offline ‘box experiences.’ Today, he’ll share how he made the leap from corporate to startup life, offer practical tips for integrating physical touchpoints into a digital world, and discuss the secret sauce behind building high-impact customer journeys. I can’t wait to dive into his wealth of knowledge. KEY TAKEAWAYS When I mixed physical and digital together with my publication called ‘Entrepreneur Elements’ I people started posting unboxing videos, which a digital-only product can do. Everyone who received the product became an ambassador and lots of organic traffic was being created as a result. During Covid the virtual event game became bloody red, in terms of competition, because everyone became a virtual event expert overnight. But the boxes, and how we were approaching this to get results faster, was an unknown, exciting realm which  I went 100% in on and the business skyrocketed from zero to a million in the first year just by pivoting and focussing on this opportunity. What we include inside our boxes is a welcome note, a getting started guide – which, for me is the most powerful sales pieces to orient people on the journey that they’re about to start and see your universe, a journey map – a visual depiction of the recipe that’s going to get you the result, then all the tools and resources. This isn’t SWAG (Stuff Without A Goal), think of it a product development and who we can truly get into your programme and give people the incentive structure to want to take one step at a time. I love data, so I can engineer feedback loops to say, once you’ve hit a certain milestone, how can I get you to provide me with the information I need so 1, I can celebrate you, but 2, it also gives me good intel to make the product you’re making better. BEST MOMENTS ‘In the online space done beats perfect. I approach the standards of the online realm in a corporate way; the client’s either ready or not ready at all.’ ‘If you have a digital product, you have to compliment it with something physical because physical can tap into other modalities and senses that digital can’t.’ ‘It’s not about you, it’s truly about your customers and their needs.’ ‘Boxes can be a tool to take what you’re already talking about/teaching, or the service you’re providing and making it easier for people to have the breakthrough in the tangible way the a digital-only product just can’t.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Mark Stern is an accomplished serial entrepreneur and the visionary behind Custom Box Agency, an award-winning experience design firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. Leveraging his background as a top-ranked strategy consultant at Deloitte, Mark has guided major retail and lifestyle brands through transformative growth initiatives. He holds an MBA from Duke University and has been recognized as a Forbes Next 1,000 Entrepreneur, as well as featured in Joey Coleman’s bestselling book Never Lose an Employee Again.Mark’s passion for merging the physical with the digital underpins his signature approach of crafting “offline-meets-online” experiences. By moving beyond standard swag and focusing on strategic box campaigns, Mark’s team has successfully launched 100+ direct mail initiatives—boosting conversions, slashing churn, and extending customer lifetime value. As a mentor at SXSW, sought-after keynote speaker, and champion for innovative entrepreneurship, Mark remains dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes adopt experience design as a powerful lever for growth. Email ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Colin Hirdman, the antidote to automated mediocrity. As a lifelong entrepreneur and co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, he has spent two decades scaling SaaS tools, digital agencies, and now Rainmaker – a ‘white-glove’ service that ethically automates LinkedIn outreach to turn connections into revenue. Colin discusses Rainmaker’s ‘Authentic Engine’ framework: 10-30% connection rates, campaigns tailored to micro-audiences, and why human-driven strategies still dominate AI in B2B growth. As well as why he targets 25 people/day — and how even solo founders can replicate this, the ‘criminal justice grad’ who turned entrepreneur, accidently and sold his first startup days after college, and LinkedIn’s automation guardrails: What’s ‘ethical’ vs. what gets you banned. KEY TAKEAWAYS          I’ve done a lot of growth hacking through email and LinkedIn, but I got better results through LinkedIn and ended up building out a software and process for myself. Rainmaker was born through me making it available to other businesses. But, you don’t need me or rainmaker to do any of the things we discuss on this podcast, you can do it manually. You have to be authentic on LinkedIn, both as yourself as well as the brands you represent. You should also have an educational mindset – no one wants to be sold to on LinkedIn, but almost everyone is willing to be educated – and an experimentation mindset, trying different features and functions of LinkedIn, stack the things that work and set aside the things that don’t. Understand the pains an barriers that you prospects are trying to overcome and know what it is that you can teach them. Growth hacks: LinkedIn Events – if you have a direct competitor, industry or organisation putting on a LinkedIn Event that your business solves for, if you attend that event you can see everyone else who attended that event and create a prospects list. Use people who are big in your area as proxies – use people’s open connections to see all first connections to her, second connections to you and is in your area, and begin connecting to them Building out your first connections is critical. I reach out to 15 people per day Monday-Friday during normal working hours. That gives you 500 people per month, which is below LinkedIn’s limits. Typically, you’ll get a 20% connection rate. Within 30 days of sending an invite, and they haven’t connected, withdraw the invite. It’s good hygiene, but after 3 weeks you can reach out to them again. Everything you do after that only gets better and has bigger possibilities as your audience grows.   BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s lots of opportunity to engage with you prospects on LinkedIn in ways that are valuable for relationship building and set you up as a thought leader.’‘People undervalue the value of being a first connection, when you’re a first connection you can see all kids of information about them, direct message them, and use other features and functions to engage with them.’‘I typically build my audience through Sales Navigator – a tool within LinkedIn that allows you to hone in on audiences..’‘If you’re using automation that is in any way inauthentic it won’t work, you wouldn’t immediately set up a meeting with someone you just met, I wish people would stop, it’s lazy.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Colin Hirdman is a lifelong entrepreneur, startup advocate, and visionary behind Rainmaker, a platform revolutionizing LinkedIn’s growth strategies through its "Authentic Engine." As co-founder of Monkey Island Ventures, a venture studio launched in 2007 with childhood friends, Colin has spent nearly two decades fostering tech innovation and scaling ventures like SaaS tools, digital marketing agencies, and software development firms. His passion lies in unlocking the power of authentic relationship-building—evidenced by Rainmaker’s mission to help founders, coaches, and sales teams expand their networks, generate leads, and close deals ethically on LinkedIn. A Minnesota native, Colin’s journey began with selling his first startup (launched just days after college) and evolved into mentoring entrepreneurs through actionable strategies like LinkedIn automation, audience targeting via Sales Navigator, and educational outreach. His philosophy blends authenticity, experimentation, and a focus on solving audience pain points—principles he shares as a board member of MNblockchain and a sought-after voice in B2B growth. When not advising startups or hosting LinkedIn livestreams, Colin champions the entrepreneurial spirit, proving that even a criminal justice graduate-turned-accidental-founder can redefine 21st-century scaling. Catch his insights on turning connections into revenue—no bots or spam required. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.   Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Georgiana ‘Gia’ Laudi, a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy focused on helping B2B SaaS companies drive predictable, recurring revenue through a truly customer-led approach. In this episode, Gia and I will explore why so many companies get stuck throwing “spaghetti at the wall,” instead of researching who their best customers really are. We’ll look at the common pitfalls teams face when relying solely on funnel-based thinking—plus the steps any organization can take to cultivate a thriving, customer-centric culture. Gia will also share highlights from the remarkable work she’s done with various SaaS brands, as well as tips you can put into practice right away. KEY TAKEAWAYS Two years after drafting up a customer experience map for our company, through the lens of the customer, we grew revenue by 900%. We’d aligned the team and the company, and it facilitated more streamlined conversation, more alignment, more understanding cross-departmentally making things much easier. It gave us a tool and a shared language for operationalising around customer experience. A big reason for forgetting the funnel and leveraging a more customer-led approach is through the lens of recurring revenue businesses. Even if you don’t have a recurring revenue business model most businesses agree that customer retention, expanding existing accounts vs finding new customers contains a lot of value. This serves all kinds of businesses very well. Customer research is often equated with long, drawn-out projects that are very costly and leave you with more questions than answers. There’s a lot of resistance when we use the term ‘customer research’, we tend to use the term ‘customer insights’. We use targeted, streamlined and intentional research via ‘jobs to be done’ which reveal meaningful patterns from as little as 10-12 people which can identify what leads people to seek your business out. Not all customers are created equally, you shouldn’t try to serve every customer, narrow your focus on who really, really cares about the problem that you solve, has a high willingness to pay, deeply understands the value in what you provide and would sing your praises from the mountain tops. BEST MOMENTS ‘If you orient your operations around the customer experience it becomes easy to make all kinds of decisions.’ ‘Existing customers are worth more and are less costly to us as a business vs finding new customers.’ ‘Your relationship with your customer does not end with the purchase, it begins with the purchase.’ ‘Early stage companies should focus on one customer and do a really good job, later stage companies shouldn’t conflate all customers into a homogenous group but think of segmentation in a meaningful way so you can still provide high-converting and resonating experiences even for multiple segments.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Georgiana (“Gia”) Laudi is a strategic advisor, keynote speaker, and co-founder of Forget The Funnel, a consultancy specializing in customer-led growth for B2B SaaS companies. With over 20 years of experience in marketing and product strategy, she’s helped high-growth businesses such as Unbounce, Calendly, and Sprout Social deepen customer insights, align teams around customer value, and drive predictable, recurring revenue. As co-author of the book “Forget The Funnel,” Gia advocates a practical, step-by-step approach to uncovering why the best customers buy—and how to ensure more of them succeed post-purchase.  Based in Montreal, Gia is passionate about turning real customer needs into clear messaging, frictionless onboarding, and expansion strategies that empower businesses to scale sustainably. She joins Scouting for Growth to share her journey, discuss common growth pitfalls, and offer actionable tactics any organization can use to become truly customer-led. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ron Rock, Managing Director for the Financial Services Sector at JobsOhio. When you think "FinTech hub," your mind might automatically jump to Silicon Valley or New York. But there’s a powerhouse in the heartland that's giving these coastal giants a run for their money: Ohio. In our conversation today, we'll unpack why Ohio – a state that puts you within a two-hour flight of 75% of the U.S. and Canadian financial services industry – might just be the strategic move your startup needs to make. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ohio has the 4th largest financial services economy in the US, so if you’re looking for partnerships, the market, people that’ll have a conversation with you, the operating costs will be a lot less than they are on the coasts in New York and California. If you’re a graduate in IT thinking about going into an IT profession, maybe it’s time to think about financial services. If you can do that kind of developing, programming or coding there’s a lot of opportunity in InsurTech and FinTech.  There are a few different pillars you have to have for growth. The first is the economy in the state, which we do. Then, you have to have the ecosystem of players – the investors, large companies, startups that have found footing, and then the talent in that ecosystem has to be there as well. When we look at the talent that needs to fill the jobs of the future in financial services, we have to make sure the curriculums are up to par, including AI and low-code environments. We’re not a one-size-fits-all, we have programmes that didn’t fit earlier stage companies. We looked at that and how we could support formally and informally and now we have 3 innovation across the state. These give support whether that’s proximity to other innovators to incentives like JobsOhio growth Cap to support earlier state companies. BEST MOMENTS ‘London and Mid-Western states have similar mentalities with amicable relationships. We find a way to make something happen.’ ‘Startups have found footing in Ohio because of the climate we’re in, we don’t have large catastrophes or losses, so if you’re testing a new product or company you have that in your favour.’ ‘Ohio is a microcosm of a larger market, almost like a sandbox in which you can pay before you launch.’ ‘I call myself a connector, or facilitator, it’s the core of my job. I have to know the industry but I’ll never get deep into knowing exactly what the industry is doing. So I stay in my lane and make connections to the right individuals, listen to companies, and introduce people.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Ron Rock is a forward-thinking business management executive and Managing Director of JobsOhio’s Financial Services Sector. With over two decades of experience spanning financial services, insurance, economic development, and process improvement, Ron is renowned for creating and executing strategic growth plans that boost market share, elevate customer loyalty, and broaden service offerings. A dynamic leader, innovator, strategist, and connector, Ron bridges the gap between traditional institutions and emerging technology ventures. He regularly partners with founders, investors, and corporate stakeholders to identify opportunities for expansion into Ohio—home to the nation’s fourth-largest financial services economy. Under Ron’s guidance, JobsOhio provides tailored incentives and support, empowering promising fintech and insurtech startups to flourish while meeting the needs of major banks and insurers throughout the state. Known for his collaborative style and commitment to continuous innovation, Ron’s work centers on connecting bright ideas with meaningful partnerships, ultimately creating jobs and sparking economic growth. His deep understanding of market dynamics, coupled with his emphasis on data-driven strategy, has positioned him at the forefront of Ohio’s rise as a nationwide hub for financial technology and insurance innovation. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Alon Kaufman, CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a company that is revolutionising the way organisations collaborate on data while preserving privacy and security. During today’s conversation, we’ll explore the vision behind Duality Technologies, the real-world problems it is solving, and how organisations can future-proof themselves against risks by adopting privacy-preserving technologies. We’ll also dive into Alon’s inspiring journey as a technology leader and his perspective on the ethical and strategic aspects of data collaboration in the age of AI and Big Data. KEY TAKEAWAYS Combining and enhancing data sets is becoming more and more challenging in a world where privacy, security, regulations and data protection are becoming more critical. This is a good thing. What inspires us at Duality is to find a way to allow organisations to unlock the challenges around working together on data in a way that both protects the data and allows you to get the utility out of it. At the source of Duality is: How can we work on data sets without leaking or sharing the data. That’s where homomorphic encryption comes in. This allows us to work on and analyse data while it remains protected or encrypted. Two companies each have a list of customers and they both want to understand how many customers they have in intersection. The way you did this before is for company A to disclose it’s list of customers to company B which does the analysis and fins the intersection or go to a trusted third party. With duality, the two companies can use our software platform to run a computation that comes up with the intersection without either company seeing each other’s data. We all want our governments and law enforcement to be able to do their work, but we don’t want them to pull in every data point that we leave outside. Duality allows law enforcement investigations to run queries and analytics only on data that is allowed and only giving the insights that are needed. Government and healthcare – where data sets are large an sensitive – are big places where Duality has been successful. BEST MOMENTS ‘In order to get the most value out of data, the more you can bring data sets together and enhance them the better off you are.’ ‘Duality’s mission is to run AI data science analytics on data sets that cannot simply be centralised, and doing it where ethe data is  while making sure the data isn’t exposed, privacy isn’t leaked or challenges of data localisation and regulation are not violated.’ ‘Companies that already know to work on their own data, and control it, can now go to the next step and do it in a collaborative way.’ ‘Insurance companies need to work together around fraud because the fraudsters utilise the fact different companies don’t talk and will attack one and then the other because they know the level of data shared between them is limited.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Alon Kaufman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Duality Technologies, a pioneering company at the forefront of data encryption and privacy technologies. With over 20 years of experience in technology leadership, Alon has a rich background that spans across Big Data, Data Science, Machine Learning, and Cybersecurity. As a thought leader, Alon frequently speaks on topics related to Big Data, Cybersecurity, and Innovation. He is committed to advancing the conversation around data privacy and security. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sara Simeone, an award-winning entrepreneur behind NoCodeLab.ai, the First Vibe Coding Launchpad that helps non-technical dreamers ship AI-powered products in just five weeks—no keyboard sorcery required. Whether you’re a Gen Z founder sketching ideas on a dorm whiteboard, an investor scouting the next scalable platform, or a corporate leader hunting for fresh growth engines, Sara’s story is your front-row seat to how Vibe Coding is about to change the way we build. KEY TAKEAWAYS Vibe coding is defined as creating something using your natural language and vibe with the code to try to understand how the product in front of you is changing as you add more prompts/features. It’s an evolution of the drag-and-drop of no-code platforms but allows you to express yourself in a clear, specific and tangible way to translate visions into products. When I stepped into the startup founder world, I realised that there was a very big problem: There are a lot of subject matter experts who had a lot of dreams, but they couldn’t make these into tangible products. A lot of accelerator programmes only teach you how to launch a product rather than create one because they take for granted that you have a technical co-founder or you can create it yourself, this excludes non-technical founders from a big portion of the entrepreneurial world. Founders don’t need to become techies, but they need a new process to make tch work for them. That’s when I realised AI can help. My goal is to give non-technical founders the creative freedom to move fast but with the discipline of the corporate world. We guide them to develop something new, that wouldn’t have been able to have been developed before. It’s now possible to create, realise and build that idea, it’s a mindset shift where we can become our own CPOs, CEOs, CMO, COOs, etc, we just need the right community around us. I want founders to be aware that they can solve their own problems and they can build something in plain English. When you’re building something, ask yourself who are the customers? What do they need? How much am I going to charge for this? Once there you can start generating technical foundations and product requirements – front/back end, database, APIs, etc in order to create that product. BEST MOMENTS ‘Vibe coding was coined in 2025, so it’s brand new, but I’d been doing it before the term was created.’ ‘AI gives us a lot of tools but we need to know how to use them.’ ‘The beauty of AI platforms is that if you see that something is going wrong you can question the code, understand what’s wrong and ask the AI to fix it for you.’ ‘With vibe coding and NoCodeLab you can build your ideas in days, weeks, or months depending on your technical expertise or background.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Sara Simeone is a multi-award-winning entrepreneur and product strategist who has spent the past two decades turning frontier technologies into real-world growth engines. Today she wears several cutting-edge hats: Founder of NoCodeLab.ai, the first vibe-driven coding accelerator for non-technical founders; CEO & Co-founder of Niftyz.io, the Web3 token-factory that lets brands transform data and IP into tradable digital assets; and lecturer in Blockchain For Business at the MedieInstitutet in Sweden.  ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ivan Pylypchuk, the CEO of Softblues, and Olha Pylypchuk, the company’s COO. In today’s discussion, we’ll explore: What Agentic AI is and why it’s poised to disrupt traditional business processes, how Ivan and Olha are leveraging multi-agent systems to solve domain-specific challenges and deliver business transformation, and the future of AI agents and their role in shaping the workplace of tomorrow. KEY TAKEAWAYS If you talk about traditional AI systems, they can handle one simple, specific task, such as image recognition, data classification, content generation. Agentic AI is more autonomous and capable of complex decision making across multiple steps. Our approach is focussed on controlled, multi-agent systems.  The biggest challenge companies face is collecting data and putting it together. Often, companies have their valuable data spread across different systems and departments, like customer databases, email records, business software. These don’t always talk to each other. To have an effective AI implementation, you must make sure that all this data is collected neatly and accurately. Surprisingly, some companies don’t know how their people work. When you observe their processes sometimes, they miss important details about their daily operations which can create a lot of wasted investment when we rectify these mistakes afterwards. That’s why we invest a lot of time work with and talking to the businesses about how their workflows move from point A to B. Then we can enhance them with the help of AI. How team members embrace this technology is very important. Even a perfect solution will fail it teams don’t use it. We create simple interfaces and make sure our systems explain their recommendations in plain language. This approach improves the understanding of how AI works dramatically and build trust. BEST MOMENTS ‘Agentic AI gives us scalability in different domains, explainability to understand what it’s doing, so we can provide the exact information that is needed across an organisation.’ ‘It’s important to start very small, on a piece of a project so the AI can show clearly its quick results. After the goal has been demonstrated, then we scale the solution.’ ‘Our recruitment solution help reduced time to hire by 60% and provided an increase in the quality of hires by 40%.’ ‘It gives you more time to do strategic work that brings more value to the business than managing this data.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Ivan Pylypchuk is the CEO and AI Solution Architect at Softblues, a company specializing in building multi-agent AI systems to tackle real-world business challenges. LinkedIn Olha Pylypchuk is the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Softblues, where she drives operational excellence and spearheads AI-driven business automation initiatives. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine meets Areiel Wolanow, the managing director of Finserv Experts, who discusses his journey from IBM to founding FinServ Experts, emphasising the importance of focusing on business models enabled by technology rather than the technology itself. Areiel delves into the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence, responsible AI practices, and the implications of quantum computing for data security, highlighting the need for organisations to adapt their approaches to digital transformation, advocating for a migration strategy over traditional transformation methods KEY TAKEAWAYS Emerging tech should be leveraged to create new business models rather than just re-engineering existing ones. Understanding the business implications of technology is crucial for delivering value. When harnessing artificial intelligence, it's essential to identify the real underlying problems within an organisation, assess its maturity, and build self-awareness before applying maturity models and gap analyses. The EU AI Act serves as a comprehensive guideline for responsible AI use, offering risk categories and controls that can benefit companies outside the EU by providing a framework for ethical AI practices without the burden of compliance. Organisations should prepare for the future of quantum computing by ensuring their data is protected against potential vulnerabilities. This involves adopting quantum-resilient algorithms and planning for the transition well in advance. Leaders should place significant responsibility on younger team members who are more familiar with emerging technologies. Providing them with autonomy and support can lead to innovative solutions and successful business outcomes. BEST MOMENTS 'We focus not on the technology itself, but on the business models the tech enables.' 'The first thing you have to do... is to say, OK, is the proximate cause the real problem?' 'The best AI regulations out there is the EU AI Act... it actually benefits AI companies outside the EU more than it benefits within.' 'Digital transformations have two things in common. One is they're expensive, and two is they always fail.' ABOUT THE GUEST Areiel Wolanow is the managing director of Finserv Experts.  He is an experienced business leader with over 25 years of experience in business transformation solutioning, sales, and execution. He served as one of IBM’s key thought leaders in blockchain, machine learning, and financial inclusion. Areiel has deep experience leading large, globally distributed teams; he has led programs of over 100 people through the full delivery life cycle, and has managed budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. In addition to his delivery experience, Areiel also serves as a senior advisor on blockchain, machine learning, and technology adoption; he has worked with central banks and financial regulators around the world, and is currently serving as the insurance industry advisor for the UK Parliament’s working group on blockchain. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner. Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Lisa Bechtold, global executive and strategic leader in technology and law who currently serves at the head of AI governance from a transformative viewpoint at Zurich Insurance Group. In this episode, we explore the challenges and opportunities of the current AI transformation, what it takes to drive innovation in insurance while minimizing potential risks about AI, the role of digital trust and sustainability in leveraging AI for long-term growth, and how leaders can prepare their teams for the digital transformation ahead of us. KEY TAKEAWAYS AI governance is about how we use AI, which already affects all areas of our private and business lives. The acceptance and potential success of AI applications, tools and use cases correlate with the respect of legal systems and the culture of the country or region. With the tools, systems and platforms we’ve built at Zurich, we’ve driven and scaled AI adoption, including the reuse of solutions which have proven extremely successful. In parallel, we drive AI literacy to foster adoption, but also to ensure AI tools are being used in an optimal way. For example, setting the right prompts is crucial for generating the most valuable output from GenAI tools. On one hand, we invest in the education of our workforce, with digital upscaling and AI literacy in particular. On the other hand, it’s crucial to allow for experimentation in a safe sandbox environment so that everyone is embrace the technological opportunities. Insurance has always been a data-driven industry, so the adoption of AI techniques is very well founded in insurance, from risk modelling to all phases of the insurance business value chain. Looking ahead, with the AI revolution taking place this year, both opportunities and risks will be taken to another level. Today,AI systems are beginning to autonomously interact with one another and adapt their behaviours accordingly. I expect, as things increase within both the interaction of individual AI agents as well as in the creation of high-performance, multi-agent systems. Such multi-agent systems bring a multitude of business opportunities but also trigger challenges, such as potential information asymmetries and miscoordination, all of which need to be understood and managed.   BEST MOMENTS ‘The goal of deploying AI solutions must be to optimise the benefits of the technology while effectively minimising the risks.’‘AI governance is the foundation of being a catalyst of AI innovation and ensures high-quality outcomes and inspires trust in customers.’‘Today we’re focusing on the scalability and further optimisation of our AI capabilities.’‘Managing the complexity of multi-agent systems in a safe and lean way while optimising business value will be one of the key priorities for 2025.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Lisa Bechtold: As a Global Executive and Strategic Leader and Leader in Technology & Law, I have profound expertise and experience in Data, AI, Governance, Digital Risk and Regulatory Affairs to protect corporate assets and optimise business performance. In my current role as Head of AI Governance at Zurich Insurance Group, I have pioneered and led the operationalisation of a framework for AI Quality & Safety to oversee the development and deployment of AI solutions globally. My multifaceted background positions me perfectly to provide strategic advice on data, digital solutions, and technology topics, integrating legal & risk considerations, to generate sustainable business value and digital trust as a competitive edge. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.   Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook  TikTok Email Website

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Alex Schmelkin, a visionary entrepreneur who's reshaping the future of insurance operations. Alex is the Founder and CEO of Sixfold, a company at the forefront of harnessing Generative AI to empower insurance underwriters with groundbreaking tools and capabilities. Today, we'll explore how Sixfold is leveraging Generative AI to transform underwriting practices, the challenges and opportunities in implementing AI at scale, and Alex's vision for the future of insurance operations. KEY TAKEAWAYS          There’s close to $7 trillion of premium written around the globe every year. That equals 7% of global GDP, it’s an enormous amount of premium that’s needed for the world to function and for people and businesses to take risks. The most underserved population are the underwriters, the people making decisions day in day out on that $7 trillion worth of business trying to figure out the good and bad risks and why. There’s so little support for these unsung heroes. The typical underwriter is reading the equivalent of a novel every 2-3 days in documentation. These are not interesting fiction novels, they’re information-dense losses, statements of values of property and exposures. We’ve expected them to consume more and more but it’s information overload. Enter language models and AI, in the first time in human history we have the ability to take in a nearly limitless volume of data and help the underwriter to see through that to find the patterns without having to read every single word on every single page and free them to do the extra research at the end to find the best result for the end customer. Regulators understand that AI is here and have already embraced it. They’re not as ahead of it as we would like them to be, as an industry, and they’re not getting everything right. But by putting a few fence posts around the problem we’re trying to solve they’ve forced the conversation and the industry to respond to it and to start rolling out the way we are with some of these AI transparency partner models. The single challenge we run into everywhere is underwriter trust. The underwriters, despite being overworked, there not being enough of them, and despite it being a challenging job, are really good at what they do. The reason is they’ve been trained over the years to do everything they can to get the right answer. They’re the front line protecting insurance companies from bringing on bad risks. The hardest thing is to convince them is that AI is accurate. If they have a bad experience with AI first time they may not go back ever.   BEST MOMENTS ‘I found insurance – or it found me – almost 20 years ago and I’ve never looked back, and it’s all underwriting all the time.’‘The biggest use of GenAI today is helping underwriters to find more accuracy, be more effective, and more transparent in their underwriting efforts.’‘We attempt to arm the human with a bevy of different things for the that are the less value-producing part of their jobs.’‘The human is so much more effective when they’re working beside a robot that helps them be more accurate and more efficient at their job.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Alex Schmelkin is the Founder and CEO of Sixfold and is at the forefront of revolutionizing how insurance underwriters operate through Generative AI—a game-changing approach that not only enhances decision-making but also streamlines processes for a more efficient future. His knack for identifying industry pain points and transforming them into innovative solutions has been the backbone of his success. With a deep-rooted belief in the power of technology to drive growth, Alex has consistently pushed the envelope, challenging norms and inspiring those around him. Beyond his entrepreneurial endeavors, Alex is a dynamic speaker who captivates audiences with insights on SaaS, customer experience, and technology ethics. His passion for responsible innovation shines through in every conversation, as he advocates for solutions that not only meet business needs but also uphold ethical standards. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.   Twitter LinkedIn Instagram Facebook TikTok Email Website