Interviews
July 05, 2021
May 12, 2021
MeetFounders - VC Advice, spending your 1st capital by @Mandalore_Minh
MeetFounders Paris (June 2021) Panelist Announcement!
Please welcome to Minh Q. Tran, Managing Partner at Mandalore Partners, who will be joining us on the 1st of June on the panel “VC Advice - Spending Your First Capital.”
June 1st & 2nd, tickets here: https://lnkd.in/dc58NVB
Minh is a Managing Partner at Mandalore Partners with 30 years of (Corporate) Venture Capital experience in Media, Telecom, and Financial Services. Join this great panel if you are a startup who is looking to gain insights and great tips on the best uses of funding, allocating your capital, and planning on the next fundraise.
Visit our virtual event to watch six expert panels, network with VCs and Startups, and see 18 startup pitches on the 2nd of June.
#venturecapital #investing #startups #fundraising
September 24, 2020
September 23, 2020
#GreenFinance with Sasja Beslik - from influencers' list to podcasts by @Mandalore_Minh @Minh_Q_Tran
For months, we have been working to spot the most influential people on the net around #GreenFinance...
Here is our September edition
... But the ranking has been with a quantitative algo we have been developed at Mandalore Partners...
We are still developing a better crawler of all influencers beyond the top 25
It was not sufficient to create more awareness so we decided to innovate
... So, I am happy to announce now that we move to the next level with our Podcast series.
The objective of the podcast is to 1. build more awareness, 2. get to know each influencer, 3. promote what his or her goals in #GreenFinance are
Our 2nd Podcast is with Sasja Beslik
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
Also, on Spotify and Itunes
#GreenFinance with Nicole Anderson - from influencers' list to podcasts by @Mandalore_Minh @Minh_Q_Tran
For months, we have been working to spot the most influential people on the net around #GreenFinance...
Here is our September edition
... But the ranking has been with a quantitative algo we have been developed at Mandalore Partners...
We are still developing a better crawler of all influencers beyond the top 25
It was not sufficient to create more awareness so we decided to innovate
... So, I am happy to announce now that we move to the next level with our Podcast series.
The objective of the podcast is to 1. build more awareness, 2. get to know each influencer, 3. promote what his or her goals in #GreenFinance are.
Our 1st Podcast is with Nicole Anderson
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE
Also, on Spotify and Itunes
June 10, 2020
June 02, 2020
May 27, 2020
#InsurtechChat – Shaping resilient businesses through a better understanding of emerging risks with @SabineVdL
Q1: What are those emerging risks that insurers must pay attention to whether now or post Covid-19?
A1: Recent Willis Towers Watson survey shared that insurance executives stated that the top 3 most dangerous risks within the coming year were cybercrime, disruptive technology, as well as pricing and profit. I believe that Covid-19 will drive increase interest in additional emerging risks types and topics including financial instability, pollution and climate change, gig economy and SME coverage, as well as risks such as business continuity, operational resilience, supply chain management including the evolution of renown risks such as D&O liability, employment practices liability (including wages and hours), and communicable disease coverage.
Q2: From the lists, you shared above, which emerging risks you consider to be the number one risk of all?
A2: Weather-watchers know that climate change is a clear threat globally. Insurers such as Allianz, AXA, Munich Re, and Zurich used to cite it as their top emerging risk on their materiality assessment matrices, as well as inclusive workplaces and digital transformation.
I have two risks actually! Cybercrime or climate change... telling you which one I select between the two: "it is hard to say!"
Cybercrime is also progressing to become a micro risk. It doesn't just affect others; it affects all businesses including the insurer business too.
Q3: We often hear that disruptive technologies are increasingly becoming one of the most pressing threats of the century. Do you feel this is correct?
A3: Whether we are talking about threats coming from Tech giants or those rising from emerging InsurTechs, FinTechs, and WealthTechs insurers are not only faced with dynamic external market forces, but also competitive threats from advanced technology-first players. Tech giants e.g. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Tesla are still valued at Billions of US$ & young ventures focused on immediate digitization & transformation needs are also doing OK. InsurTech received $1.3Bn and HealthTech $6.2Bn in funding in Q1 2020.
Q4: Whether emerging risks or disruptive technologies. Where should insurers concentrate their attention right now?
A4: Insurers must recover quickly from the pandemic and market flux and uncertainties to spring back into health. The pandemic is testing the operational resilience of many business models, and their ability to respond quickly to customer demands. Right now, insurers need to deploy resilience strategies to support more advanced sales and distribution, pricing, claims and servicing operations too. It is for many a clear time for prioritization. Many insurers are assessing and selecting those emerging risks that need evaluating most to drive the right future impact, and that will yield the most interesting long-term growth opportunities.
Q5: What does this actually mean in terms of future technological requirements?
A5: Companies must improve their understanding of their risk portfolio on an individual and aggregated risk basis to mitigate upcoming risks. They must build highly detailed risk profiles to facilitate more flexible risk-based pricing for instance. This requires technology enablers. "Tech" is at the core of future transformations. Problems will be solved with better predictions through machine learning, advanced big data sources, and other sophisticated tech solutions that are coming to market.
Q6: Will emerging risks create a new generation of insurance models?
A6: It is likely. Dynamic economic shifts, pandemics, climate change, sudden poverty, changing consumer behavior are creating new risk types for which insurers have no expertise. For example, there is a need for a joint consortium like co-creation forums to tackle the climate change challenge. Insurers must determine a series of paths forward and help policyholders become more sustainable to minimize such types of risk long term. Another example, autonomous driving and intelligent systems drive new risk types too. The question is who is liable if a driver instructs an autonomous car to do something and causes an accident? Driver or Car Manufacturer? Counterparty exposures must be revisited. Many insurers already have a series of activities in place to determine how to assess risk and drive future efficiencies. Everyone has to keep up to date with emerging developments to design customer aligned products and services of the future. For gig economy and SME workers, new technologies enable flexibility in the way we as individuals manage work and life. Adaptive insurance models must and will continue to come to market Insurtech.
Q7: You shared with us earlier that we must pay attention to Cyber risk. Could you elaborate a little bit more about your viewpoint on the topic?
A7: With COVID-19 and homeworking, we will start to see new cybercrimes (e.g. home networks and personal devices). Coverage gaps will increase for individuals and businesses as the usage of tech evolves and more sensitive digitally kept records appear. Insurers must gain a better view of their total aggregated risk exposures. Some insurers have in-house dedicated cybercrime detection engineers which look at weak points and ensure that customers’ systems are kept secure. Risk profiling, footprint, and prevention. As we all know, Covid-19 creates new types of commercial liability. New opportunities will emerge to evolve underwriting techniques and welcome more sophisticated modelling approaches. InsurTechs cannot yet solve the problem end-to-end as it takes time to do so.
One significant risk from cyber is the increasing fragility of information and data, and the subsequent impact on intangible assets such as intellectual property. Thanks to Raconteur for a great infographic.
The process of continuous data sharing to inform continuous underwriting will shape future system requirements. The sector must build a robust & ongoing defence against cybercrime to gain a better picture of where the liability lies.
Q8: What would your recommendations be to those insurers that are today focusing their attention solely on immediate short-term priorities?
A8: A ‘wait and see’ approach is certainly not an option. While emerging, these risks are real, significant and increasing drastically in exposure every day of the week, impacting large segments of society, including businesses and individuals. Emerging risks are continually evolving, changing, and growing. Let’s not forget that we could have planned but may not have been able to fully comprehend the scope of COVID-19 as other unforeseen crises that struck economies around the world before. For example, cybercrime is expected to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021 cybercrime expert Frank Abagnale predicts. Connectivity-related changes are increasingly driving a new focus on emerging risks for re/insurers.
Insurers today must test and evaluate their business models and then develop strategies that are capable of weathering and absorbing the impact of a constantly changing risk landscape.
Q9: What should insurers do to keep abreast of those opportunities that are emerging right now, as well as the accelerating trends we were hoping would come in the far future?
A9: Insurers must find new products and services that address customers’ needs in a much more bespoke, personalised and customizable way. This means increased segmentation and profiling activities, in addition to development of new adaptable pricing models.
Q10: Would you like to share any final words of wisdom with our audience today?
A10: Don’t expect someone else to sort this out. Many market players are waiting for someone else to take the first step. We are all accountable in some way. Let’s start working together to create a better and more joined-up world. Looking forward to reading the comments and continuing the conversation. Do reach out if you have a question!
Insurtech Chat is a Twitter chat hosted by Minh Q. Tran, Managing Partner of Odysseus Partners. For more information, please contact [email protected].
May 11, 2020
April 20, 2020
April 17, 2020
March 17, 2020
July 16, 2019
#Insurtech - who wants to be a Billionaire? The route to being a Unicorn (part 1/3). My interview with Yashish Dahiya, CEO of @PolicyBazaar
INTRO
I met with Yashish a few months back for an interview after a panel discussion at Money 2020. I was intrigued to learn how he started his company, scales it up to be a #Unicorn after a raise of 238m$ with Vision Fund / Soft Bank. Funnily, I discovered that we went to INSEAD the same year.
Working odd hours is something most entrepreneurs are used to. But here’s one who wakes up at odd hours to make sure he gets time to run and swim. PolicyBazaar cofounder Yashish Dahiya’s day starts at 3.30 am so that his Ironman preparation workout is not compromised. As a consequence, he manages to get four hours of exercise and reach office — in Gurugram — before most people punch in.
“My job is mostly with other people — communication, meeting people, handling people issues, talking to investors, etc. So, I just have so much time. That’s the advantage of not having a family here,” says Dahiya, whose wife and children live in the UK.
The decade-old company, an insurance aggregator platform, has become one of the new entrants of the coveted unicorn club in the country (a tag Dahiya is embarrassed about, as he feels they are worth more than a billion dollars) ..
The decade-old company, an insurance aggregator platform, has become one of the new entrants of the coveted unicorn club in the country (a tag Dahiya is embarrassed about, as he feels they are worth more than a billion dollars) ..
VIDEO INTERVIEW (PART 1/3)
July 02, 2019
May 22, 2018
#Insurtech #WIR18 - Driving digital agility in Insurance moderated by @SabineVdl
Looking forward to tomorrow's #Insurance Twitter Chat moderated by
@SabineVdl and following panelists: @fgraillot @guzmand @Minh_Q_Tran @stratorob @psb_dc @insurtechtalk @wfsullivan3 #WIR18
March 07, 2018
INSEAD #Insurtech #Webinar for learning about investing trends with @rogerpeverelli
DESCRIPTION
The role of money is changing, and its guardians have to as well. Blockchain is knocking at the gates of staid Insurance companies and Financial Institutions. How they’ll react will have an impact on the cost of business going forward.
By 2020, incumbent Insurance & Financial industries will likely look very different than their current avatar.
The winning insurance firms of the future will be those that leverage the most innovative Insurtech solutions to accelerate their digital strategy
To provide a picture of what’s happening in Insurtech, we’ve invited Roger Peverelli of the Digital Insurance Agenda. He will join us on March 27th at 10 AM CET.
Please REGISTER for this webinar with your insead.edu email address
As previously, the idea is to engage alumni in this journey. We're crowdsourcing the questions from you, so, as you register, please send us the 1 question you want to ask Roger.
Host: Minh Tran
What to expect:
Roger is the author of international bestsellers 'Reinventing Financial Services' and 'Reinventing Customer Engagement'. He is a well-known speaker and hosts Financial Industry luminaries at conferences across the globe.
Roger will talk to us about the top trends in Insurtech and also provide us with a glimpse of some of the top Insurtech disrupters he came across in the recent past.
If you are buying insurance for personal or professional reasons, this Webinar provides a quick lay of the land & what’s on the horizon.
Join us for this first Webinar of a series to explore trends in Insurtech, Fintech, Blockchain & Corporate Venture Capital (CVC).
If you want to participate / contribute in any way, please feel free to reach out to [email protected]
November 06, 2017
December 31, 2016
#Fintech #Insurtech = Many Thanks to My Top 25 Financial Services Twitter Influencers of 2016 from @WFSULLIVAN3
Many Thanks to My Top 25 Financial Services Twitter Influencers of 2016
Bill Sullivan
Head of Global Financial Services Market Intelligence at Capgemini
As 2016 comes to a close, I wanted to take a few minutes to thank and recognize a select group of FinTech influencers who have played an invaluable role in regularly sharing great insights through their Twitter feed.
It seems like a new Top Influencer list is popping up every couple of weeks and I've been honored to be listed on many of them. Over the last three years, I personally have built a master list of over 200 accounts I track each day, of which largely consists of the regulars on those top influencer lists. However, for those days I have limited time to get caught up on what is happening in the the FinTech world, I need a more concise feed. Last year, I created my Top 30 list of 2015. This was my go-to list throughout the year and it served me well.
As we go into 2017, I have refreshed my top go-to Financial Services influencer list for 2016. I didn't use any special formula or calculation. This is simply the list of individuals who I believe have added the most value to my Twitter feed throughout 2016 and who I believe will continue to be great sources of insight, news, and other information in 2017 (although I'm sure once I hit 'publish' I'll realize I missed a couple).
2016 was only my 3rd full year on Twitter. I raved last year about how valuable I have found it for keeping up with industry trends, sharing my own content, and for networking. After another year, I still stand by the value Twitter can play. However, it is really a result of the broader community coming together to share stories, insights, and good banter. Over the year at various events, I finally managed to meet a number of the influencers on my list face-to-face and hope to meet many more next year.
As exciting as 2016 was, I'm expecting 2017 to see even bigger change in the industry. I'm looking forward to following these 25 accounts in 2017 and hope to accumulate a couple of new ones throughout the year.
Thanks to all of you on this list, to all those I follow, as well as my nearly 13k followers!
Happy New Year and see you in 2017!
www.twitter.com/WFSULLIVAN3/lists/top-25-of-2016
- Alex Jimenez - @RAlexJimenez
- Anna Irrera - @annairrera
- April Rudin - @TheRudinGroup
- Brad Leimer – @Leimer
- Brett King - @BrettKing
- Bryan Clagett - @Clagett
- Chris Gledhill - @CGledhill
- Chris Skinner - @Chris_Skinner
- Danielle Guzman - @guzmand
- David Brear - @DavidBrear
- Devie Mohan - @devie_mohan
- Duena Blomstrom - @DuenaBlomstrom
- Hardeep Walia - @hardeepw
- Jay Palter - @JayPalter
- Jim Marous - @JimMarous
- Matteo Carbone - @MCIns_
- Minh Q. Tran - @Minh_Q_Tran
- Nigel Walsh - @NigelWalsh
- Oliver Bussmann - @OBussmann
- Ron Shevlin - @RShevlin
- Sam Maule - @sammaule
- Scott Bales - @scottebales
- Simon Porter - @SimonLPorter
- Simon Taylor - @sytaylor
- Spiros Margaris- @SpirosMargaris
