2023 Speakers

Paul has been an insurance broker for over 30 years and is Group Chief Executive Officer of Seventeen Group, which owns James Hallam Insurance Brokers, Touchstone Underwriting and London Re

Seventeen Group is passionately independent and employs over 350 staff throughout the UK. All of the shareholders and Directors of Seventeen Group are actively involved in the business and from the insurance profession by background.

Paul was previously a BIBA main board member and Chaired the BIBA Insurance Brokers Standards Committee. He currently sits on the board of Una Alliance which is a non-profit making company owned by its insurance broker members.

Outside of business, Paul is married with 4 children and lives near Devizes in Wiltshire. He has been involved in coaching and leadership training on a voluntary basis for a number of years and is a Saracens rugby supporter, fisherman and sometime golfer.  
 

Stuart has 15 years of experience in various property underwriting roles, specialising in Private Clients business. Stuart joined GJW Private Clients in January 2020 as a founding member of the management team and built the underwriting function, policy wording and risk appetite and played a key role in designing the end to end underwriting system. His current role sits across MRSI UK, managing a number of personal lines portfolios.

Prior to working at GJW Private Clients Stuart spent 2 years helping to launch the property proposition at syndicate 457; managing a number of HNW binders and 4 years at MS Amlin where he worked as an Underwriter on the private client’s team, specialising in HNW and estates risks. Prior to MS Amlin he worked at Plum Underwriting and NIG in various underwriting positions.

Outside of work Stuart enjoys playing a variety of sports, cooking and travel.

Described as “a trailblazer, and the most determined, tenacious, and motivated woman,” Preet Chandi is the ninth woman in history to ski solo to the South Pole and the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition on the continent. Driven by an unending desire to push her mental and physical boundaries, Preet is any Army officer, physiotherapist, Nordic skier, ultramarathon runner, and endurance athlete with an iron will that has led to her making history and breaking barriers in the world of adventuring.

Facing the ultimate test of endurance, Preet packed 48 days of food and fuel to complete the solo, unsupported 700-mile expedition from the coastline of Antarctica to the geographic South Pole and completed the journey in just 40 days on 3 Jan 2022. Her aims for this expedition were to inspire as many people as possible. She did not grow up learning of polar explorers or know much about Antarctica when she decided to embark on this adventure. Preet wanted to show that everybody starts somewhere.

Preet is a captivating speaker who encourages audiences to push past their boundaries, believe in themselves, and to set out to achieve their goals without being labelled a rebel. She emphasizes that, no matter where you’re from or what your starting point in life is, you are capable of smashing

A graduate in Law, and with decades of senior management human resource experience, gained nationally and globally in the insurance sector, Victoria joined Clear insurance Management in 2020 and has sat on the Group Operating Board since 2021. She leads on our People and Culture strategy for the future growth of Clear. 

Harry started his career at Arthur J. Gallagher later joining Aplan Insurance as an Insurance Advisor and progressing to New Business Sales Manager at the Poole office. Since then he has been introducing the concept of Gamification to insurance companies across Europe. During his speaking session expect to hear recent data around employee engagement insights and modern strategies for motivating your employees to their full potential.

Emily graduated from Bangor University, North Wales in 2003 and started her career soon afterwards with Zurich Insurance as a graduate trainee. She soon realised that she wanted to represent the client, not the insurer and started working for an independent broker in 2005. This business was bought out by larger businesses during the 13 years Emily spent with the company. She is passionate about improving the profession and believes there is a wealth of opportunity to do so. As such she gets involved in the professional bodies to do just that. She is currently working on the New Generation Programme for the Chartered Insurance Institute looking at ways the broking community can support clients to rebuild public trust in our sector.

She is also a passionate runner having completed marathons in London, Berlin, Newport, Taunton, Gloucester, and Bournemouth!

Howard has been running financial services businesses since the 1980s and was one of the founders of Clear Insurance Management Ltd in 2001. After many years as CEO he is now the Group Chair with responsibility for Clear’s M&A programme and the relationships with carriers

Paul joined the company in 2011, working for the WTW Networks Team to continue development of the Network Policy Wordings.

He has 35 years experience in the insurance industry, 21 of them as an underwriter and 14 on the national broking side. Main experience in property and liability classes dealing in large accounts for property owners, the construction industry, the care industry, and even used to dabble in the pluvius market. He is a petrol head, and a Gym addict. He is married to Liz, an ex-motor trade specialist, and has a 25 year old Son called Scott who has to date managed to avoid working in Insurance.      

Paul is continuing the work on Network Wordings and providing technical support, bespoke training, webinars, and face to face workshops to Network Member Brokers on claims, wording issues, and general risk management issues. He also holds a ‘Webclinic’ on Wednesday mornings for wordings therapy and support to his clients on insurance issues.

Martin Parker joined Markel in 2023 to head up the construction product line, which forms a significant part of Markel’s growth plans for the next five years.  He has overall responsibility for the construction product performance and ensuring Markel’s construction growth strategy aligns with its underwriting and profitability ambitions.  Prior to joining Markel, Martin held senior positions in underwriting, operations and business development.

After an early career as a university lecturer in economics, where he was also an examiner for the Institute of Bankers & Trustee Savings Bank, Ashley left to establish an insurance & financial services brokerage in London & latterly in New York.  He was a non-executive director of Mysis Insurance Marketing & was responsible for the research which led to the establishment of one of the earliest life networks. He has been a past director of BIBA & for the past 6 years represented brokers at the FCA. The business remains fiercely independent and is a top 100 independent broker. The company specialises in commercial & high net worth insurance, although it also offers group benefits & private medical insurance. It recognised very early the importance of cyber risks & set up its own on-line quote & buy facility as a coverholder, available to both their own clients & other brokers.

Nick is Director of the London/Head office of The Clear Group. Clear are a leading UK independent and chartered insurance brokers, placing in excess of £300M of premiums for commercial and personal clients. With 19 UK locations and over 650 staff, Clear offer a comprehensive insurance advisory service, from insurance program design and risk management to claims administration. Nick has over 28 years' experience as an insurance broker and adviser, specialising in the construction and engineering sectors. He has advised on the insurance requirements for many well known businesses, for major London and UK infrastructure projects and manages 11 broking teams, both in the Company market and at Lloyd's.

David has over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and since 2002 has focused on insurance broking compliance. During that time David led a group's firms through authorisation, as well as providing technical compliance advice to a number of firms, from the international to the very small, on UK regulations.

David is able to bring a 'regulatory mindset' to his role at BIBA (which he took up in August 2013) having spent a number of years at the Financial Services Authority where he focused on insurance broker supervision.

John founded Konsileo, a commercial insurance broking startup, with tech veteran Peter Henderson in 2015. John's insight behind Konsileo is that there is a wealth of opportunity to use technology to: help businesses manage risk; transform the efficiency of the broking process; and to build a self-managing broking organisation. John is a regular commentator on insurance technology issues, particularly broking technology, notably in the recent "Future of Commercial Insurance Broking" report for the CII.  

John has participated in the evolution of the insurance business model for over 20 years.  A common thread has been the application of technology to support and enhance, rather than replace, people in insurance. He started in 1993 in Commercial Union (now Aviva) in Leicester where he had an extensive apprenticeship in underwriting, sales and operations. He then worked in Hong Kong and Beijing before returning to the UK to run a personal lines affinity business. In 1999 he started a “dot com” selling travel insurance online.  

Following an MBA at London Business School, John became a consultant at Accenture where he worked in a number of markets applying technology to support underwriters. He joined Allianz in 2004 and fulfilled a number of senior roles in the UK business. John moved to Munich in 2011 as the Director of Marketing responsible for driving Allianz’s global Digital Business initiatives, reporting to the global CMO. He left Allianz in 2015 to start Konsileo, where he continues to be driven by a deep respect for the expertise of insurance professionals and a desire to use technology to augment rather than replace them.

Paul has been an insurance broker for over 30 years and is Group Chief Executive Officer of Seventeen Group, which owns James Hallam Insurance Brokers, Touchstone Underwriting and London Re

Seventeen Group is passionately independent and employs over 350 staff throughout the UK. All of the shareholders and Directors of Seventeen Group are actively involved in the business and from the insurance profession by background.

Paul was previously a BIBA main board member and Chaired the BIBA Insurance Brokers Standards Committee. He currently sits on the board of Una Alliance which is a non-profit making company owned by its insurance broker members.

Outside of business, Paul is married with 4 children and lives near Devizes in Wiltshire. He has been involved in coaching and leadership training on a voluntary basis for a number of years and is a Saracens rugby supporter, fisherman and sometime golfer.  
 

After an early career as a university lecturer in economics, where he was also an examiner for the Institute of Bankers & Trustee Savings Bank, Ashley left to establish an insurance & financial services brokerage in London & latterly in New York.  He was a non-executive director of Mysis Insurance Marketing & was responsible for the research which led to the establishment of one of the earliest life networks. He has been a past director of BIBA & for the past 6 years represented brokers at the FCA. The business remains fiercely independent and is a top 100 independent broker. The company specialises in commercial & high net worth insurance, although it also offers group benefits & private medical insurance. It recognised very early the importance of cyber risks & set up its own on-line quote & buy facility as a coverholder, available to both their own clients & other brokers.

Emily graduated from Bangor University, North Wales in 2003 and started her career soon afterwards with Zurich Insurance as a graduate trainee. She soon realised that she wanted to represent the client, not the insurer and started working for an independent broker in 2005. This business was bought out by larger businesses during the 13 years Emily spent with the company. She is passionate about improving the profession and believes there is a wealth of opportunity to do so. As such she gets involved in the professional bodies to do just that. She is currently working on the New Generation Programme for the Chartered Insurance Institute looking at ways the broking community can support clients to rebuild public trust in our sector.

She is also a passionate runner having completed marathons in London, Berlin, Newport, Taunton, Gloucester, and Bournemouth!