Why Operations Is the Ultimate Growth Engine in Insurance | Ann Haugh

Speaker A: Just because your job is defined on a piece of paper or today online and it's defined a certain way. The best jobs are the ones where you're able to play in the gray and really lean into where you may have strengths that other teammates don't. And why do we feel compelled to stay in the box?

Speaker B: Hello, my name is Juan de Castro and you're listening to Making Risk Flow. Every episode I sit down with my industry leading guests to demystify digital risk flows, share practical knowledge, and help you use them to unlock scalability in commercial insurance. Welcome to another episode of Making Risk Flow. Today I'm joined by Ann Hogg, Group Chief Operations Officer at Axis Capital, which is a global specialty insurer and reinsurer and stepped into the current role early 2026 after leading the company's We Work transformation programs since 2023. Over a three decade career spanning from Zurich to Aspen to Thomas Miller and then Axis, she's built a reputation as the person the companies turn to when they need to rebuild how they operate. And most recently as CEO of Axis3, before her, uh, current promotion under Anne's watch, Axis has posted double digit premium growth and meaningfully improved efficiency ratios, making her one of the clearest examples in insurance of operations being treated as a genuine growth lever rather than a back office function. And today we're going to be talking about how she's done it and what she thinks operational excellence actually means at the company that is already performing well. And I think that would be an angle that will be really interesting to explore. So, Ann, first of all, thank you so much for joining me today.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me, Juan. I really appreciate it.

Speaker B: Let's jump straight into it. How did you land at insurance out of a communication studies degree at Northwestern? Uh, sure.

Speaker A: So I went to university thinking I was going to be a broadcast journalist the next Katie Couric. But I think what I started to realize pretty quickly is barely anyone makes it kind of like acting. So I pivoted and yes, I studied communication studies. It seemed broad enough to go out into the world and find a great career. I also at the time, dipped my toe or kept my toe in journalism. And so I had a concentration in that. But when I got to my senior year, I started to, uh, try to hedge my bets a bit, I guess. You know, when your parents tell you you're coming off the payroll and you're going to be on your own and you have to figure out how you're going to make that work, you look for lots of different possibilities So I looked in a lot of different areas, advertising, banking, and then insurance, of which I knew very little about. And my dad had always said, go for any company that's going to offer you a training program. So with that as a backdrop, I get offered a couple training programs. But the one I selected was Great American Insurance. They had what I would call a relationship manager training program. So focused on learning the business and then becoming a liaison between the insurance companies. So between Great American and their agents and sales network. I got placed in Schaumburg, Illinois in their executive liability division, which was focused on financial lines products and financial lines underwriting. And then very quickly there I realized the sexy place to be was underwriting. And so I didn't just want to be on the marketing and sales side. I really wanted to lean more into the technical side of the business. And so that's how I then pivoted from the career start into underwriting roles, P and L roles, and then moving my way up from there.

Speaker B: And you did underwriting for a while and then eventually you move into more operations transformation, which is, I mean some other people have done that transition, but it's not a very typical transition. Like what drew you from underwriting, which is often what's like perceived as the more attractive, more sexy part of the business, into operations.

Speaker A: Sure. So I think I really got the bug for operations around the time I left Zurich insurance in early 2002. And I went to join Arch Insurance when they were starting up the insurance side of the business. And uh, while I was there I did come over in an underwriting P and L capacity in again the financial lines area. But after five and a half years there, I left as CEO and CEO of that division. And how did I get there? I think I really realized when you're at a startup that you don't really have anything. You don't have processes, you don't have people, you don't have tools or technology. We didn't have an underwriter training program. So part of it was building and creating what we didn't have. So I worked on our technology platform with a company at the time called Advisen. I created the underwriter training program for the organization and I really worked very closely with the underwriting support organization to be sure that all of our processes were standardized, efficient. Because at the end of the day the impact really is the service you provide and the quality you provide to the brokers and customers. After that I took a role as COO back at Zurich, both on the North America side for the global corporate business and then globally out of Zurich. And so it sort of became a part of where I guess I excelled, but also where I found the challenge as the pace of technology and change became more prominent, and particularly when you live and work in different countries and are either building up new operations or trying to transform them.

Speaker B: Um, so is it fair to say it was really driven by a passion to do what you were doing was underwriting before that and doing in a better way, like thinking like, okay, there should be a better way of defining the underwriting process and that's how you got into operations.

Speaker A: Absolutely. I think I realized that there are ways to differentiate yourself through service and through operations. And so for me, because I understood the business coming from the underwriting side, I really felt that I could bring value in that differentiation for the various companies that I had been working for.

Speaker B: And obviously you've worked in very different organizations that you've mentioned. Great American Zurich axis, would you say what is the one skill that you think that you've been able to go back to in every each of those roles that made you successful in very different contexts?

Speaker A: Yeah. And like you said, large and small companies, startup, more mature. I, uh, had to pick one skill. I think I describe it as being able to connect the dots. It's really about the ability to turn vision into outcomes in a very consistent and scalable way. Really trying to strategically execute. I often describe myself as like the orchestrating conductor. So to be able to connect strategy technology nowadays, AI didn't exist back then. Talent and really balancing also governance with measurable business outcomes I think is really important. So to me, how value is defined really is about bringing all those pieces together, removing the barriers, clearing the way, and doing that through risk taking, but also effective decision making.

Speaker B: And in those examples, I assume change management was a significant part of what you were doing. Right. It's like really bringing the teams alongside that transformation, that vision that you had. Does change management like selling the teams on the vision you've got and really kind of enabling and supporting them to work in a slightly different way. Is it very different across those companies or is it similar principles?

Speaker A: I think the principles are the same, Juan. I think communicate, communicate over, communicate, have a very clear, defined vision that people can put their arms around and follow irrespective of what their role might be in getting there. But like they say today with AI, ah, AI is just a tool, a capability, but really it's the way you change what people do and getting them comfortable with doing it differently is the Hardest part. So stakeholder management, no matter what size shape company you are, no matter whether you're in a function or in an underwriting role, I think it's all the same. The principles are the same.

Speaker B: I find it really particularly interesting, I think your face as, uh, leading Axis re your reinsurance business. Right. Because that was a phase where you, you deliberately shrunk the book. And I think this is one of those things that on paper, I mean, when you read any book about insurance, that is what you should be doing, right. If the book is unprofitable or if the market conditions are not favorable, you should be shrinking the book and then growing it when they are favorable. But in reality, I mean, I'm not sure if you would agree. It's like very few companies actually execute well on that. Right. Because there are many implications on shrinking a book. Right. It's like there are people implications, there are relationship implications with the brokers. Tell me a bit more about that phase and what did you find hard? Tell me a bit more.

Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. So an interesting time, the four years I ran the reinsurance business, I mean, it all started with the exit of Property Reinsurance, which was a strategic decision from the group. Not certainly a call on the market, but was very unique at the time. And so how do you create a vision internally but also externally? And for me that was, we want to be the best specialty reinsurance business in the market. And we not focused on size and scale, but being at the best in the lines of business in the areas and geographies we chose to be in. We focused on delivering a low 90s combined ratio with focus very much on profit, profit over growth, and making sure we had the right portfolio balance, mix and diversification, with also very much a, uh, solutions orientation. So not saying no, but perhaps not like this. To your point, over the period of those four years, the market changed, clearly. The casualty market, which was the longer tail lines, definitely deteriorated. 2018 and prior, was already quite challenged. And while rates did start to rise in the early 2000s, it began to be obvious that they weren't going to offset trends. Results were continuing to be poor. And I think we still sit here today where many reinsurers in the market and insurers frankly have varying views of what portfolio management, cycle management means to them. You know, at Axis, it has always been an underwriting company focused on that bottom line, focused on maximizing and optimizing the market environment. But it did become difficult. To your point, how you position yourself in the market, how you show Value how you maintain the relationships with clients and with brokers over a changing strategy takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of focus by the team. And being able to differentiate through service, through quality capital, amongst other things I think was critically important. So for us it was a change intact. I uh, look at the last four years and the results have been strong in our business. The adjustments we made to make specialty a much larger percentage of the total. Particularly from a net perspective then a gross perspective. Our ILS strategy, our third party capital strategy became a key lever for us in being able to generate the profit that we committed to our shareholders. It was a constant evolution and took the talent and the focus of everyone to deliver it. But again each company chooses their own path. You hear others right now that say we are going to cash flow underwrite through the market cycle and take advantage of the better interest rate environment. That's just not the strategy that we were employing here in Axis.

Speaker B: Yeah, but that sounds clearly the right decision from a business perspective. But it obviously takes time to get the internal teams and the brokers along that way. What would you say was the hardest bit of that? Was it more communicate that vision internally and execute on that or was it more the external phase in life?

Speaker A: I think it's twofold. One is motivating people internally. Everyone's motivated by different things. Some want to be part of the biggest organization and they define that as the best. Some want to be part of delivering excellent results irrespective of size and that makes them the best. So I think part of it was being clear on that vision and making sure that the talent felt supported, valued, recognized. From an external perspective, I think it was all about communication being clear and upfront and consistent and the risk appetite, what you liked, what you didn't like and why and just quick answers and providing alternatives. As I said, solutions, orientation and not just saying no I think was really, really valuable too.

Speaker B: And that is often what I hear from brokers too is like often it's less about whether you say yes or not. It's more about are you clear on where do you stand and do you provide that feedback or that answer quickly? So I think what brokers often want is just clarity. It's like what type of business can I count on axis 3 for and which ones I can't? And just being very crisp around that. So I think that makes a lot of sense. And then you move from the CEO role there into to the CEO role now. That was a transition. I'm also fascinated about that transition. Like, how does it feel? What is different? Like, how does your mindset and your day to day change from being a CEO into being a coo?

Speaker A: Yeah, I love this question because I was doing a lot of health roles for a while and it was like moving hats on and off. There is definitely a different mindset and a different approach. When I think about the CEO role running the business, my primary focus was risk selection. Are we picking the right risk? What does the portfolio look like? Are we being adequately compensated for the risks that we're writing? How should the appetite pivot or adjust? Where should we move the capital and what is the impact? How is that going to deliver into the bottom line in returns? But as a CEO, you're thinking more about how do we make sure we drive consistent execution, how do we enable and support the business objectives, whether they are growth, whether they are portfolio optimization or repositioning? Where are the pain points and the bottlenecks that cause either the underwriters angst or the brokers or clients that angst? You also have to make sure, and this is sort of the pedal in the brake, you're balancing risk, operational risk, doing it the right way, aligned to highly regulated environment. We get a lot of different entities across our business, where we operate in different parts of the world with different experts expectations. Do we have the right controls? Do we have the right technology processes? Do we have the right people doing the right thing? So it's a different mindset and your focus is on different things. But I think at the end of the day, it's making sure that you're focused on differentiating the value proposition either through that risk selection and speed to market or the ability to help the business pivot stand up new products very, very quickly so that you're supporting their ambition to grow or to shift gears.

Speaker B: But I assume also having been a CEO also gave you the commercial mindset and the strategy required to also be a better COO. I assume right, because sometimes you see some CEOs which are like very operations and process focused, but they might be missing the more strategic and commercial.

Speaker A: I agree with that, Juan. I mean, I feel very privileged to have had the career I've had where I've been able to do both at different points in my career and really lean in where the opportunity has been and the organization needs me the most. You know, in my opinion it is, I think I'm probably a better COO because I've been on the front lines, I understand the needs to deliver that. And then trying to make sure Everything in the rest of the end to end is making that happen in a way that sort of fits all expectations relative to governance and risk. So I would say yes. But I've also seen a number of people out there that are COOs that have come up through the operational ranks. But I think at a company like Axis, for me I'm able to build a lot of credibility with the other business leaders running our insurance and reinsurance teams now as a result of that experience.

Speaker B: And um, one of the initiatives you led probably three years ago was, I think you called it, how we work. Tell me a bit more about what was it about, like what was the trigger for that initiative? What were the pain points that you were trying to solve?

Speaker A: So Vince came up with how we work about the end of 2023. And I think what we realized was as we were looking to grow our North American operation, as I mentioned, standing up new products areas where we were subscale, we needed to do that very, very quickly and very, very consistently and in a scaled fashion. Similarly, we're also starting to see in the international space, Lloyd space, a lot of facilitation of business distribution, changing more MGA's, more delegated business. And so it became very quickly that one size fits all approach to the operating model would not be sustained sustainable as the market evolved and in particular now as the market is transitioning to a bit of a softer marketplace. So this company grew up early 2000s, grew up in a hard market, insurance and reinsurance, a number of years ago, quite siloed. It grew quickly. Everybody created their own everything, our own ways of working and their own platforms, spreadsheets, et cetera. And so we realized that the way to take the company to the next level and truly scale and drive that shareholder value was to reduce the fragmentation, to operate more as an integrated team, to bring together these functions that had operated in quite sort of separate and disparate ways with single threaded accountability. So that was really the impetus and the driver I ran how we work as part of my role as also CEO of rie. But it became quite obvious quite quickly that this was a full time job and that the only way to truly be able to reimagine the operating model across these vast changes that only continue to come was to create this world.

Speaker B: So perhaps for those, so to bring it to life and um, for those who are less close to the initiative itself, like give us a couple of examples, one or two examples of how does it feel, the ways of working different now from that end of 2023.

Speaker A: I'll touch on a couple and then when we move into AI, I can give a few more. When I think about how work used to get done, it ah, very much was through functions. So you had it, you had operations, you had underwriting, you had claims. And increasingly work is now flowing a bit more horizontally. It's flowing through outcomes as opposed to hierarchical functions. So I think instead of ops, tech, data, all trying to optimize their individual piece, it's about building a model where there's sort of collective accountability for business outcomes with a consistent single governance process that really prioritizes where you spend your time, where you see the value you want to unlock and then how you measure and track it. I think the other piece of IT that's critical is data. Data is a tremendous asset, but not if you can't get to it, not if you can't interrogate it, and not if everyone's getting a different answer out of the various systems. So that's kind of how I look at it holistically in terms of specific areas. It could be as small as why do we do this today? I don't know. Or why can't I automate that? Yes we can. I mean we've used AI and technology for a number of different things, some productivity driven purely and some very much to redesign the way in which you do things. Who's responsible for what, moving tasks, transferring tasks first before you leverage AI or automation to have them done via systems. So it's everything from ingestion to clearance to triage to business rules that we use it for. And I think that's only continuing in terms of how it's showing up in the day to day work of our underwriters and our claims teams.

Speaker B: Uh, and uh, how do you create that alignment across all those teams? IT operations, finance, underwriting. Is it through shared objectives? Is IT through bringing them together as working groups? How do you actually create that alignment?

Speaker A: So the creation of my role was intended to be the strategic alignment tied to our business strategy. So for me I actually don't have it. Data and analytics, operations, all kind of like separate now. I recently went through a, uh, sort of first phase forward where I sort of collapsed some of those capabilities and I'm driving more through value stream delivery across the organization to ensure that. To your point, one, what we measure gets done. Two, because you have to have common objectives across the strategic investments to ensure everyone's in lockstep with what success looks like. So I think that's a key factor. It's definitely about goals and alignment of responsibility. Some of it has been created through matrix reporting. You're part of center of excellence or a functional unit that drives a lot of the standards and consistency. But then you're executing across an entire array of platform tooling that is prioritized by the business that's linking to their strategic priorities. So I think it's just a different way of breaking down the traditional ways in which we thought about operations or IT in support of the business.

Speaker B: And then you were talking about some of the initiatives you're running to drive automation operational excellence, which is notoriously difficult sometimes with underwriting teams. But I would imagine even more so in a company like Axis. I mean, you have already fantastic results. So obviously the first reaction to any change initiative might be why do we need it? Right. Your financial results are extremely healthy. I mean, it might come back to the point about messaging and communication you mentioned earlier, but like, how do you get on board all those underwriting teams?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I think the objective really is it's not really about fixing poor performance or trying to be better than we already are. We are operating, as you said, from a position of strength, which has taken us a long time to get to. I think it really comes down to really focusing on building the sort of next generation of capabilities that will sustain and extend that performance and making sure everyone really understands what that means and what their role in that is. You know, it's faster decision making, it's AI enabled underwriting and operations. It's being simpler and clearer on the governance to be able to scale faster, better and stronger foundations. I don't know. I think we're starting from a position of strength. Yes, but it's not just about the company we are today. It's about being the company that's going to be able to adapt, to adjust, to innovate and outperform during every phase of the insurance cycle.

Speaker B: So let's move now into like your current group CEO role. So what are your key priorities now in this? We've talked about the history and of your Axis 3 leadership, this initiative, how we work that you were doing while you were leading his Axis. Re, what are your priorities now in your new role of Group coo?

Speaker A: Sure, I probably hinted at a few of them in some of the comments. I mean, for me, first it's to build a, uh, global COO function or operation that has very clear accountability, as I said, in a highly, highly integrated way. It's moving to that value based delivery Directly tied to business outcomes and prioritizing that way, not just on we delivered X, Y, Z in a more waterfall way, but we actually created value. And that value can be defined in terms of growth, loss ratio, improvement, better expense ratio, stronger productivity and throughput. We have a tool that we've rolled out in our lower middle market operation where we've seen double or triple the amount of quotes they can get out as a result of being able to sort of package the information through business rules, triage, et cetera and straight through to quote. So there's a lot of great work undergoing that really allows us to link that back to the growth in that particular business for us I think as well. And this is the part that takes a bit of time, but it's making AI tech, data and architecture a unified competitive capability within the organization. Some of those pieces sat, uh, either separate. We've had data architecture sit separate from enterprise and solution architecture. I really see the power of collective accountability there as finding ways to say yes rather than trying to be the roadblock for why we shouldn't do something and then making sure that it aligns to the strategic architecture from a tech perspective of the company. I mentioned data being a tremendous asset and value and to me the power of that has to be interlinked into the way in which we bring that to the business. I think there's still a combination of automation and AI and this requires, you know, everyone talks about AI, you know, reducing headcount and reducing costs or just increasing productivity. I think it's so much more than that because I really think you can reduce not just the cost, you can actually do more of what you want to do. My objective would be to double the size of our company and at a fraction of the cost. And we've shared statistics with our investors where we've been able to do just that. But I also think it's about reducing complexity. If you think back to a number of years ago, operating model transformations involved offshore. Remember everyone went offshore and now everyone's saying, wait a minute, offshore today? Yes, it's a labor triage, you know, a labor arbitrage. It works. But the reality is today those companies are creating agents to be able to do that in a much more cost effective way. So why aren't we bringing that capability, ability back onshore, building agents to do it, and really letting our talent and our expertise focus on the human decisions and the true expertise and not those administrative efforts? And so really that true transformation I think is coming back full circle and magentic. AI will change that. And I think the one piece I would say you can't underestimate is the upgrading of talent skills and your leadership capability to support the future operating model. The HR or chief people officers need to work hand in glove with the COOs, with the CEOs of the business. Because you can't just transform an operating model and then expect your teammates to be upskilled to what you're asking them to do. And so a key thing as well is just building up the digital literacy and the AI literacy of the organization to not feel threatening, but to feel part of what they do every day.

Speaker B: But I think to your point is like some of these AI initiatives are about doing these things cheaper, but uh, I think more importantly they're about doing it faster, uh, to provide better service for the broker, creating a more exciting environment for your underwriters so that you can attract better underwriting talent. And I really like how part of your answer really touches on creating the best culture and the best team that will allow you to really double the size of the business at the fraction of the cost, which I think you summarized really well. Actually. I think this is a good segue. I think I wanted to talk a bit about talent and mentorship, which is something I know you are very big on. And for example, I know you are sponsoring the Women's ERG initiative, you're building underwriting training programs. How do you think about, especially again in the context of AI, as you said, where there's this fear of AI is going to take away jobs. How do you develop the talent of the future at, uh, Access?

Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting one when you think about we've got at least four generations in the workplace and the natural reaction is succession planning. I need to start with succession planning. But the reality is, when I think about the war for talent in our industry, we're really fundamentally competing in a very different way than we did 20 years ago. So the first thing I think about is attracting people who might never have considered insurance. You know, if I look back 30 plus years ago, I really wasn't considering insurance, if I'm honest. But when you really think about, and the reason I've stayed in it is a truly intellectual business. We help our clients navigate some of the most complex risks in the world. You look at some of the issues we face in Iran and other places, every risk is changing. The world is evolving at a pace that we couldn't have even imagined 20 years ago. And I don't think we've done A great job really attracting young graduates to the industry. So I think one, it's really showing people that careers in our industry are about solving complex problems, building relationships and really driving impact and helping close the gap for areas in the world that haven't had access to that same coverage. Secondly, I think about it as trying to develop people faster than we traditionally have. So when I think back to, I have a number of friends from years ago who went through apprenticeship programs, came in as interns and then trainees, and then they had this sort of long ramp build up to great careers. While experience matters enormously, I think we have to move faster, we have to be able to give people stretch assignments. We have to get that cross functional exposure that I have to more different teammates. I think going into one role and staying in that one role will not necessarily be the skill set and capability of the future. I think we need to provide greater mobility. Some companies are great at it. I had the privilege of working at many of them. But I think we just need to take greater chances and we need to build a broader and more diverse pipeline of talent that has more versatility in their skills. And, um, when I really think about it, I mean, the Next Generation challenge isn't really simply about replacing people who are toward the end of their career. It's that balance between taking the time, while they're still here to attract and bring in the new talent, accelerating some of the sponsorship. We talk a lot about mentorship, but sponsorship becomes even more important with the pace of change and with the way people are moving around as much as they are. My dad worked at a company for 45 years. A lot of people in industry have been in their companies for many years. The reality is that's not the world the young, um, colleagues want to operate in. So we really need to prepare the workforce for the future in a way that feels empowered by these tools. And I think if we get that right, the talent gap becomes a competitive advantage more so than a risk.

Speaker B: And I really like that. I think you just made the point about this concept of cross functional careers or really developing people who have had exposure to operations and underwriting and finance. And I think this becomes even more relevant in today's world, right? Where like, when you're thinking about AI, you cannot look at it exclusively from a technical perspective or exclusively from an underwriting perspective. You need really the talent that can look at it holistically and say, okay, like, is there a better way of running our underwriting workflows? So what is your advice for Perhaps people with like less, historically less or careers, for example, in operations that offer less to like more strategic roles. And I think that this is now opening really up to become strategic leaders. What's your advice to those who let's imagine somebody coming from an operations background to really get a seat on the strategy table.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's something I think about quite a bit. And I do reflect on, as I said, on my own career where I've had the ability to move around the world, live and work, but at the same time pivot between these types of roles. And I think part of it is raising your hand, saying yes, pushing yourself outside the comfort zone. I certainly wouldn't have done some of these roles if somebody hadn't said, but you won't know until you try. So do take some risks. I think that's critically important. Be curious. I mean, I always say to people, part of what I love about this industry is I learn something new every day. I mean you go to a new company and it's all new acronyms. We joke about that, but it's kind of true. I think focus on becoming indispensable to the people that are making the strategy and be part of the problem solving behind it. I think as well take the time to learn what makes our business really tick. There's so many facets to it. It's the distribution, so it's the brokers, it's the end client. Be it a company, be it an individual, it's the economics. How do we make money? How do you best get the best return on capital? How can you leverage tools such as Sidecars or ILS reinsurance? I think that's really, really important. Spending time building a network, it's really, really hard at some points in your career. If you have a family, you have aging parents. I think it's a lot easier today with the ability to connect with people by video and not have to always travel, but really make the time to build a cross pollinated network of people not just like yourself or doing the same roles as you and then develop influence. I think influence is equally as important as expertise. But the other thing I think I've found is people that can master influence management over direct management are incredibly powerful leaders because they're able to find ways to motivate people differently, help different people with different ways of thinking and different personalities, embrace different perspectives. And I think that can only drive to better outcomes.

Speaker B: Building on what you said, one of the things our Sam Lewis, who leads, uh, product engineering at cytora, when we Ask him, like, what is your advice to, like in this case, engineers who want to do a different role. His advice is always start doing the role. See, that's even a step before raising your hand and say, I want that role is even m. Just start doing elements of that job. Right. So if you're in operations, start getting exposed to underwriting and come up with ideas of how can you improve the underwriting, or if it's in finance, do the same. Right. It's the concept of, I think to your earlier point, I think careers become less linear today. And it's really the people that raise their hands, they proactively get involved in new things. And first of all are the ones who master that influence skill that you were talking about. Right. Because they have a broader knowledge and are able to bring better perspectives.

Speaker A: I always say, Juan, that just because your job is defined on a piece of paper or today online, and it's defined a certain way, the best jobs are the ones where you're able to play in the gray and really lean into where you may have strengths that other teammates don't. And why do we feel compelled to stay in the box? You know, I mean, the power of a team, some of the collective parts can create something way bigger if we all lean into some of those capabilities. So I agree with you completely.

Speaker B: To wrap it up, Anna, I would like to ask you three very quick questions with short answers to pick your brain. So the first one is one operational habit like every company should steal.

Speaker A: Be willing to stop doing things. Because we're all very good at creating a disciplined approach and making sure we've got all the things lined up. And we're really good at keeping adding to the to do list. But we're not so good necessarily at knowing when to time out and knowing when to reprioritize.

Speaker B: Yep. And a great strategy always also identifies what you want to stop doing. Right?

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: Second one is, when you think about operational excellence, what is the one thing you think people get wrong about operational excellence?

Speaker A: I think the biggest misconception is that it's all about cost and it's all about efficiency. If it's done well, it's actually more about effectiveness. So the objective really isn't to create more process, keep redesigning what you're doing. It's really about getting to better decisions, making sure it's clear about accountability and responsibility, giving people capacity to focus on the higher value work. I think that's what really makes an organization excellent and less slow, less bureaucratic. And frankly, it should inspire and empower people because they're doing the things where they can really see the impact of the value they're creating.

Speaker B: And the last one, which is a bit unfair to ask you to give a short answer, but if you had to say, where is specialty insurance going in the next three to five years in your crystal ball, what would you say?

Speaker A: Well, if I had that crystal ball, I probably wouldn't be sitting here. I'll, uh, keep it short and sweet. Maybe slightly controversial, certainly AI enabled. I don't think that's going away. I always said through the beginning and middle of my career that I thought underwriting was an art and not a science. And not everyone agreed with me because I thought there was so much nuance to it. I think with the improvements in data and the improvements in modeling and the improvements and the ability to be stronger portfolio managers through AI and through all these large language models, I think perhaps our business may become more of a science than an art. But those relationships and those nuances in terms of negotiating terms, conditions and pricing will still be there.

Speaker B: Love it. Wrapping it up with a controversial statement, which actually, I think it's a very valid one. And it's been an absolute pleasure having you on Making Risk Flow today. I really enjoyed the discussion. Thank you for joining.

Speaker A: Thank you so much, Juan. I enjoyed it very much as well.

Speaker B: Making Risk Flow is brought to you by Zytora. If you enjoy this podcast, consider subscribing to Making Risk Flow in Apple Podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, so you never miss an episode. To find out more about satora, uh, visit cytora.com thanks for joining me. See you next time.