Liz is an accomplished and commercially minded insurance leader with experience in taking products to market, leading start-ups, and driving change in more mature, established organisations.  She has acquired broad experience across the general insurance industry having worked with brokers, software providers, and insurers.  Today Liz is the CEO of Qlaims Limited, a fast-growing specialist MGA providing loss recovery insurance and expert claims support to businesses and homeowners.  Prior to Qlaims she was Commercial Director at Saga Insurance Services.

Chris works at esure as Head of Data Science leading a large team. He is accountable for the growth and scaling of new machine learning applications and products across the enterprise as well as AI research.

Chris has experience across FMCG retail, banking, automotive, marketing & insurance industries having worked as a practitioner of data science and product developer through to a leader & strategist of data science capability and transformation. He has worked on every facet of the discipline from forecasting, NLP, image recognition, anomaly detection, recommenders & more recently GenAI. He is also responsible for the build of platform infrastructure and MLOps frameworks.

Chris Thomas is the Chief Executive Officer at ARTes Specialty and a member of the Board of Directors.

Chris has over 20 years’ underwriting experience across International Construction and Casualty lines of Business in Syndicate, Company market and MGA’s. He has launched and led underwriting teams delivering innovative risk solutions in challenging market spaces.

When not doing insurance things, Chris can be found out walking the dogs with his family or messing around with cars.

Darius is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Wrisk. With a career spanning executive leadership roles in consultancy, corporate multinationals, insurers and cutting-edge startups, Darius has a wealth of experience. His consultancy background has honed his ability to tackle complex technical and organisational challenges effectively.

Before co-founding Wrisk in 2016, Darius was the Head of Digital at Markel International, where he led a major digital transformation initiative. He also served as a Principal Consultant and Head of Experience Design at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy known for pioneering the agile software movement, innovation, social advocacy, and enterprise-class software engineering. His other significant roles include Head of User-Experience and Product Ownership at Isotrak (logistics & telematics), and Head of New Media at Cambridge University Press & Assessment.

Darius is deeply passionate about leveraging technology for competitive advantage, evidence-based decision-making, and enhancing customer experience. He advocates for creating learning organisations where innovation thrives, and he believes in servant leadership as a means to empower teams.

Elliot has worked in financial services for over 15 years covering mortgages, banking and insurance most recently as Strategic Development Director for Ageas UK. He has a strong background in IT, developing strategies and monitoring emerging trends.

Keith is a founding director and CEO of the Consumer Duty Alliance (CDA), an independent, not-for-profit professional body, for the sector by the sector. The CDA is consumer focused and brings together a cross-sector Alliance for the sharing of 'good practice' to support members, engage Policymakers on key consumer duty matters and raise the profile of the profession and the value of professional advice with the public.

A recognised leader within the financial services sector, Keith has over 38 years experience operating at executive level, has an established media profile and is regularly called upon for comment both home and abroad by various organisations, including Trade and National press.

Keith established a strong media profile whilst leading the Personal Finance Society as Chief Executive Officer, also incorporating the role of Chief Membership Officer of the Chartered Insurance Institute, prior to which he was an executive board director of one of the UK’s largest IFA Networks, Tenet Group and prior to that he was Head of Retail Distribution for the largest mutual insurance company in the UK, Royal London Group. Actively engaged in the promotion of financial services within the UK and internationally, he has contributed to various boards, including PFS, Tenet, RL Retail, AIFA, AMI, European Financial Planning Association (EFPA) and various government and regulatory working groups.

Keith is also the founding Chair of the Financial Vulnerability Taskforce, which is an independent representative body covering the Personal Finance and wider Financial Services Sector. Its ultimate purpose is to promote greater understanding, encourage appropriate behaviours and establish good practice in respect of consumer vulnerability.

As Chief Technical Officer at the MIB Nick is responsible for building strong relationships with the Government, Civil Service departments and the European Commission, among others. He works closely with public affairs teams across the insurance industry to understand what policy changes are on the horizon and to influence areas of common interest by speaking with one voice.

Nick’s experience covers both private and public sectors. He worked for Allianz as Branch Claims Controller in Maidstone and is a Chartered Insurer. This was followed by 19 years in the Civil Service, mainly in the Foreign Office. He served overseas for the Foreign Office in India, Austria and Saudi Arabia as HM Consul. He has significant policy experience in multilateral diplomacy, North Africa, the EU and Gibraltar.

Janthana is the CEO of Tapoly, a pioneering on-demand insurance provider for SMEs and freelancers. She has been recognized as the 6th Top Woman Founder to Watch by Forbes and as one of the Top 10 Insurtech Female Influencers by The Insurance Institute. Recently, she has won prestigious awards such as the Innovator Of The Year Award at the UK Fintech Awards 2023 and the Insurance Leader of the Year Award at the Women In Finance Awards 2021. Before joining Tapoly, Janthana worked at top-tier investment banks.

Rebecca Haines has over 25 years change delivery experiencing working in consulting and major banking and insurance organisations. Currently she leads the Insurance Transformation team at the AA where she has used her experience to build and grow a team of delivery specialists who deliver strategic change for the AA Broker and Underwriting business. Her style is change delivery through open and honest communication across all stakeholders and delivery teams. Her focus is on bringing teams together to align on business outcomes and best for customer solutions

Anna Mejlerö is Group Foresight Lead at Swiss Re. With a keen focus on identifying and analyzing emerging risks, Anna provides critical emerging risk insights that help shape the strategic direction of Swiss Re. In her prior position as a Senior Digital & Regulatory Manager she carried out risk assessment and mitigation actions related to AI risks and regulatory governance. Her expertise in understanding complex risk landscapes ensures that Swiss Re remains at the forefront of emerging risk management.

Prior to joining Swiss Re, she worked as a Legal Attorney in the pharmaceutical industry, where she gained extensive experience in regulatory compliance and legal affairs. She also held senior positions focused on fighting fraud and product crime, demonstrating her commitment to upholding integrity and security.

Anna began her career after law school as a Claims Manager at a Swedish insurance company.

Director of Client Services and Innovation at Robertsons.  David has worked within Claims since 1997 holding leadership roles with both Insurers and Service Providers.  David is Robertsons Senior Management lead on delegated Claims Fraud Management and the Robertsons Claims TPA.

Seasoned professional with successful history for leading D&A research and consulting assignments globally across clients in Financial Services, Energy and Utilities, Life Sciences, Manufacturing, Telecom and Media.
Currently am a Director in Gartner Consulting for Data, Analytics and AI practice with responsibility of managing and growing the UK&I business.

Gabriel joined Homeprotect in 2020 and is currently Head of Customer Strategy. He leads all aspects of Homeprotect's customer strategy to drive more customers to join, renew and recommend Homeprotect, managing a team that oversees customer strategy and analytics, customer propositions and UX/UI. He is the Chair of the company-wide Customer Experience Forum, a monthly review of all customer initiatives, feedback and transformation projects attended by the CEO and other SLT members. Prior to joining the company, he worked in growth and customer strategy development roles for Fintech startups. Gabriel was nominated as a finalist in September 2024 for The Insurance Times Young Achiever Award.

Andrea Pace is a strategic technology leader with over 15 years of experience in shaping innovation roadmaps and delivering scalable solutions for global organisations in the insurance and fintech sectors. Currently serving as Head of Engineering at Brit Insurance, Andrea drives technical strategy and operational excellence across the entire company’s portfolio. He has a strong track record of fostering high-performance teams and spearheading digital transformation initiatives, aligning technology with business goals to create competitive advantages. Andrea is passionate about leveraging modern tech stacks, cloud computing, and agile methodologies to simplify complex systems and drive innovation.

Sanat is a multilingual Chartered Accountant with Management analytics, Financial modelling and Business partnering skills who is passionate about Shareholder Value creation. He streamlines and automates Finance processes and drives towards Efficiency and Control. He eases Decision making via actionable Business insights and interactive Dashboards. Sanat is a keen and constant Learner, and has recently completed Columbia Business School’s Business Analytics course. He currently supports restructuring and divesting of Zurich Insurance’s global Non-core portfolios from Finance perspective. Before Zurich Insurance, Sanat had a progressive Accountancy practice career and has served clients from various industries including Hospitality.

Bobby Shang is currently the Head of Pricing, Casualty at Inigo Insurance since March 2021. Previously, Bobby worked at Everest Reinsurance Company as a Pricing Actuary in Everest Global Markets. Bobby has also held roles such as an Interim Manager of Actuarial Function at Syndicate 2786, Syndicate Actuary at International Insurance, and various actuarial positions at XL Catlin and Chubb. Bobby's educational background includes a Master's degree in Entrepreneurship from the University of Cambridge, a degree in Actuarial Science from The London School of Economics and Political Science, and attending Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge.

Rob’s career in insurance started as a consultant for the newly formed RAC Insurance Broker in 2010 where he set up and ran distribution for RAC. When Aviva divested itself from RAC a year later, Rob stayed on to become a founding member of the Quotemehappy.com team where again, he set up the Price Comparison channel and over the next 9 years became responsible for Propositions, Trading and Distribution. His most notable achievements during this time were:

• Launched QMH Motor and QMH Home into the PCW Channels delivering over 1.5m customers over 9 years
• Implemented Agile work methodology into QMH
• Re-launched the GA (General Accident Brand), GA Telematics product and relaunched the Household Product for the price comparison market.

Rob went onto to join esure in 2019 where he launched esure Flex, the first new product line in 20 years for esure as well as transforming the aggregator relationships through the use of best in class commercial practices.

Since 2023 Rob has been working with Got You Covered, as Head of Household Insurance.

I am passionate about technology, particularly AI, which I consider the driving force of tomorrow's innovation. My journey in the IT industry spans over 17 years, during which I've witnessed the incredible transformative power of AI.

Certified by Google and Microsoft as an Azure Administrator Associate and having honed my skills through intensive training in Containers and DevOps, I bring a wealth of expertise to the table.

My focus lies in cloud administration, automation architecture, and devSecOps—areas that empower me to conceptualize and implement innovative, scalable solutions that push the boundaries of what's possible.

As an Engineering Manager for the Middleware API Chapter, I lead a dynamic team of engineers who excel in various technologies. My role involves providing unwavering technical guidance and mentorship, ensuring that our projects adhere to the highest standards and best practices.

Beyond my professional pursuits, I am dedicated to making a positive impact on society and the environment. My ultimate goal is to be a catalyst for the digital transformation and sustainable growth of our organization, while contributing to the social and environmental responsibility of the industry.

Manu Mazumdar is the Head of Data Analytics and Insurance Technology at Conning’s Insurance Research. His 25+ years’ executive experience in the insurance industry spans across global private equity, management consulting, retirement, technology, and global sourcing industries. He led retirement and investment groups at MassMutual Life Insurance Co. and was the president at Arrowpoint Technologies, a global PE company. He currently serves on multiple Boards as Director and Corporator. Mr. Mazumdar holds an MBA from West Chester University, and Executive Leadership Degrees from Harvard University.

Babs is the Protection Platform Technology Director where he has responsibility for a mix of Insurance specialists and Technology practitioners driving growth and transformational capabilities in the UK market for protection insurance through innovative products and services in line with our purpose of Helping Britain Prosper

Babs is a skilled and talented Technologist with a wealth of change and run experience, he has worked for a variety of organisations across various sectors including, Government, Health and Financial Services.

With over 25 years experience in the insurance sector both in UK & Australia. I bring professionalism, high quality service and solid understanding of our customer's insurance needs. Through senior roles at both insurers and brokers I have a broad and deep understanding of customer expectations, the needs of brokers, and how to deliver value.

I deliver a balance of technical insurance skills and a pragmatic approach to risk and insurance .

I understand what it takes to build a business founded on providing high quality service to customers. I have an understanding how to leverage the marketing and sales process to deliver this message. My time managing a P&L has provided me with an understanding of both top line growth and bottom line management.

I appreciate the strength of a collegiate approach and drawing relevant and complementary skills to work as a team to deliver a total solution to clients.

Merve Alanyali is Head of Data Science at AXA UK with over a decade of experience spanning academia and industry. She draws on an interdisciplinary background and combines deep technical expertise with a strategic mindset to deliver transformative business solutions.

Prior to joining the insurance industry, she completed her doctoral degree in Computational Social Science at University of Warwick and The Alan Turing Institute. Her work has been featured by television and press worldwide including coverage in Financial Times and Bloomberg Business.

David has over 30 years’ experience in all lines of General Insurance, roles at AXA UK including Managing Director of Underwriting & Technical Services, Managing Director Claims, Reinsurance Manager and Casualty Insurance Manager. In 2022 David moved to a Non-Exec / Advisory career, and continues to support AXA and others on a consultancy basis.

David holds Non-Exec Director roles at Qlaims Ltd and Freedom Services Group / Action 365. He sits on the BIBA Claims Customer Working Group and is Chair of the Fire Protection Association (FPA). He was previously Chair of the ABI Motor Committee & Autonomous Driving Group, was a Vice President of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) Nationally, a founding member of the joint CII / CILA Faculty of Claims, and was Chair of the CII Underwriting Faculty for almost a decade.

Very well-known and active across the entire UK Insurance market, in 2018 he was recognised as Social Media Influencer of the year, and in 2019 he won both the Insurance Post Claims Achievement Award, as well as being named Insurance Personality of the Year at the British Insurance Awards.

Scott Thomson, Insurance Solutions Director at FintechOS, brings over 25 years of experience in the insurance sector. His career includes 15 years with tier 1 insurers, brokers, and MGAs, followed by 10 years at SAS Software, where he provided operational and risk-based solutions to leading insurers such as Admiral, AVIVA, DLG, and Hastings Direct.

Scott has held senior roles at EXL Services, PwC LLP, and Deloitte LLP, offering strategic advice on insurance analytics and risk management. In 2019, he became Global Head of Insurance at World Programming (now Altair), and later joined Palantir Technologies as UK Insurance Sales Director.

At FintechOS, Scott’s deep industry expertise helps drive innovation in how insurers build, distribute, and manage products.

Yohan leads the development of our solutions for Financial Services clients following 16 years in commercially focussed roles within the consumer and B2B payments industry. He has held a range of key sales, sales-leadership, and commercial delivery roles during periods of rapid change. He has worked with a range of sectors including business services, local government, and alternative finance. Yohan has always had a focus on bringing the voice of clients into product, marketing and operational functions.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/yohan-lobo/

Dermot McCauley is Chief Strategy Officer at Lithe, a leading provider of AI-driven document processing and digital mailroom solutions. With over 25 years of leadership experience across global technology companies, Dermot brings deep expertise in enterprise automation.

At Lithe, he works closely with insurers to solve complex operational challenges and accelerate digital transformation. Dermot is passionate about helping organizations harness intelligent automation to drive efficiency, improve compliance, and deliver measurable business outcomes. Most recently, he’s been instrumental in advancing Lithe’s strategic partnership with Tungsten Automation to deliver scalable solutions to the insurance sector and beyond.

Edward Winfield is Director of Global Partnerships at Content Guru, a global leader in cloud contact centre and customer experience solutions. A veteran in the SaaS and technology space, Edward has over 25 years’ experience in the telecommunications space, which he leverages to create lasting partnerships, deliver cutting-edge solutions that anticipate evolving customer needs, and to help businesses to create outstanding customer experiences through seamless engagement and data-driven insights.

Craig brings extensive experience in the use of enterprise architecture and applications architecture practices in the insurance industry, working with and within insurers.

Craig has advised insurers on IT strategy, legacy modernization, insurance vendor analysis and enterprise architecture topics, principally in the EMEA region. Since joining Celent, he has been a speaker at industry events in North America and London, as well as Celent events in Europe. He has spoken on topics such as the influence of mobile on the industry, the use of social networks by insurers and how the evolving use of the Internet, data and IoT will influence insurance in the future.

Recent consulting clients have engaged Craig for policy administration vendor analyses, market entry strategies, and product messaging work for insurance vendors.

Prior to joining Celent, Craig was an applications architect with Royal Bank of Scotland Group's Strategy and Architecture team, working extensively with RBS Insurance.

Jamie leads the Celent team globally across banking, insurance, wealth management and capital markets technology.

Since joining Celent in 2011 and drawing from his experience of a career spanning over 28 years in both the management consulting and insurance industry (with AXA, AIG and the Zurich Insurance Group), he has helped clients formulate their fintech technology strategy across the industry globally in ~20 countries. Engagements have included supporting major technology investment decisions, performing due diligence on vendor selection and for mergers & acquisitions, architectural option choices, and technology roadmap development.

Alongside leading the Celent team, Jamie maintains an active client engagement and research role, with a primary interest in the technology opportunities and challenges facing the European life and pensions market, contributing to the debate around innovation, digital transformation, BPO strategies, the impact of regulation, and the insurtech / fintech arena. Jamie was also one the architects of Celent’s innovation framework and continues to be a major contributor to shaping Celent’s global research agenda.

Jamie has an MBA from the University of Southampton and a first class BSc Honours degree in Business Information Technology from the University of Portsmouth. He has also attended Driving Strategic Innovation at the IMD was selected for Telemaque (a global leadership development programme run by AXA University in partnership with INSEAD), and is currently studying for his doctorate in business administration researching innovation. Jamie is a Chartered Engineer, Chartered Information Technology Practitioner, and Member of the British Computer Society.

Karun is a Senior Analyst within Celent’s insurance practice based in London. His research efforts have centred around identifying and analysing insurance technology trends and software platforms in the insurance industry, particularly in the EMEA region, encompassing property and casualty (P&C) and life and health (L&H) lines of business. Karun is a highly accomplished and technology-focused professional with a wealth of experience in the global IT industry, specifically within the insurance, pensions, and investment management sectors.

Before joining Celent, Karun spent 22 years at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), where he played a pivotal role in expanding the company's insurance portfolio in Europe. During his tenure, Karun excelled in securing and executing large-scale, multi-million-dollar global IT contracts. He assumed complete solution and cost ownership, providing strategic guidance to clients on transformative initiatives.

In addition to his extensive insurance industry experience, Karun has a background in manufacturing and supply chain management. He has led consulting engagements focused on IT strategy and Enterprise Architecture, further enhancing his expertise.

Karun's recent reports have covered a wide range of subjects, including core systems analysis, digital twins in insurance, best practices in cloud adoption, quantum computing, parametric insurance, ESG, and climate change.

Since joining Celent, Karun has been a featured speaker at industry events in London and Celent events in Europe, covering topics such as NetZero Transition, Climate Change, Cloud, Customer Experience, and Legacy Modernization.

Gary has been working to deliver technology based solutions for businesses for over 25 years. He is a Chartered Management Institute Certified Professional Consultant and Business Analyst with experience of working on multitude of transformation projects.

Gary is currently working within Kainos to help insurers digitally transform to deliver better customer and employee experiences across multiple client projects. With a particular focus on elevating the customer and employee experience in insurance by innovating the claims process using Azure OpenAI.

Carolina Pinto is an Analyst in the Thematic Intelligence team specializing in how macro themes, including supply chain disruption, geopolitics, and sustainability, impact the tech sector. She also contributes to analyses on the adoption of AI, robotics, IoT, and other emerging technologies in the consumer goods and automotive sectors.​

David Bicknell has over 30 years’ experience in writing about and analysing the technology sector, both from the vendor and the user perspective, both in the UK and the US. His career in technology journalism and analysis has included detailed research into IT projects and he has co-authored a book, ‘Crash’, which explored why and how IT projects go wrong. He has also co-authored a novel on the life of computer pioneer Charles Babbage. Prior to joining Thematic Research, David spent six years editing a GlobalData title exploring the use of technology in the UK public sector. He is currently also studying part-time for an Undergraduate Certificate in the History of Art at the University of Oxford.

Jeremy has worked in insurance for over 25 years – holding various roles across underwriting, sales, innovation and claims. Starting as an underwriter at Commercial Union, Jeremy progressed through a variety of underwriting and account management roles before taking over running the Aviva sales and underwriting team in Maidstone in 2003.

He moved across to Allianz in 2006 to run both the local Sales and underwriting and Small business team before taking his first head office role in Innovation and Strategy in 2009. He did this for 3 years before joining claims as the Claims operations manager for Allianz – running 5 sites including their offshore site in Trivandrum in India. After 8 years in this role and nearly 15 years at Allianz and now works at Ecclesiastical as their Claims Director.

Jeremy is also heavily involved at the CII – having sat on the Claims Faculty for 6 years before taking on the Chair in 2017. In 2019, as the faculty moved into the Society of Claims Professionals, he became its first Non-Executive Director.

Jeremy is passionate about strong customer service and employee advocacy, looking to use technological enhancements to improve both.

Jack Funchion is the VP, Global Financial Services at Digital Realty. Jack and his team work with the world's leading banks, asset managers, hedge funds, financial exchanges, market data providers and insurers. Jack has extensive experience in the financial services industry starting in data centre operations for three major Wall Street brokerages, then transitioning to management consulting focused on data centre issues, and for the last 18 years at Digital Realty.