Description

Sabine VdL talks to Lou Smith, a true trailblazer in 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 our 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, began breaking down investments, and got it into 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 over the last 5-6 years is that this conversation has circled around: what do we do? But in the last 12-18 months, I’ve seen a passion for how we now think about using digital distribution models, digital analytics, and AI, and thinking of all of those things together and delivering distribution models that start to move the industry forward.
• The challenge is always in leadership, culture, and change adoption. This is because it’s really difficult to step into the unknown and think it’s going to be better than what you’re doing today.
• You want to empower people with the data and capabilities so they can do what they’re brilliant at: 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, 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 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

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ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

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And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures