Scouting for Growth

By Sabine VanderLindenBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology

Scouting for Growth episodes

December 29, 2022Meeri Savolainen: Inzmo... Driving home rental resilience
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Meeri Savolainen, CEO and co-founder of Inzmo, a fast-growing European financial services provider that makes renting a home affordable for everyone.
Inzmo is considered the fourth runner-up in creating a new standard for how people rent their homes. With more than 70,000 customers and over 400% growth in 2022, Inzmo has acquired recognition and investments from several insurers in Europe
As an entrepreneur by trade, Meeri is passionate about breaking new ground to lead social change. She shares that the core innovation lies in understanding customer needs, struggles, and their values. "At Inzmo, we design our services around this purpose - this is what makes us authentic. We put the customer first.”
During their discussion, they cover what makes Inzmo a leader in its category across Europe’s rental and cash deposit markets, Meeri’s interest in communication, relationships, and psychology, and Inzmo’s innovation journey across Europe… Opportunities and challenges, and Team Inzmo: What is next to scale?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I was a corporate and tax lawyer for quite a few years at Ernst & Young, and I started thinking that I wanted to grow more, take more risks, and become an entrepreneur. When I began Inzmo with my co-founder, we wanted to create a digital disruption in the insurance industry because it was lagging behind in technology. As things progressed, we wanted to build a strong brand in the insurance sector. We wanted to mediate our own products. We didn’t just want to be an IT company or an enabler for insurance companies. Since 2016, we’ve become more consumer-focused.
We’re driving innovation in the insurance industry by automating underwriting processes and, first and foremost, the customer experience. We believe future success for insurance companies and InsurTechs relies on customer success and experience.
We understand that the majority of our customers are also vendors, and 80% of those customers are living paycheque to paycheque. This means they have a daily financial burden, and 40% of their income goes toward rent, utilities, etc. These are the people we want to help with our different financial and digital solutions.
Insurance is a very male-dominated industry, though it is getting better. I’m proud to say that at Inzmo, 50% of the employees are women, and 60% of the C-level/ management staff are female. Being a woman gives us many more opportunities to stand out. It’s also good for PR – especially for a small company like Inzmo, which doesn’t have an unlimited budget – to gain visibility. It does, of course, have its downsides as well. Women struggle more to secure VC funding because they need to prove their success more than men do. After all, there’s still a strong bias, even though the data proves otherwise.
BEST MOMENTS
‘We’re always trying to find our niche. We don’t want to be another traditional insurance company or fight with the bigger companies.’
'Renting rather than home ownership is a growing trend globally because people want a flexible lifestyle. We want to be an enabler in this new lifestyle.’
‘Inzmo means “insurance” and “mobile,” insurance that is always accessible – it’s instant, it’s always there, and very easy to follow.’
‘We’ve been focused on the German market so that we could prove we’d done well in one very significant market, but in the next 12-24 months, we’re ready to expand to other European rental markets, the most interesting to us are Spain, Italy, Portugal, and France.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Meeri, also known as Mrs InsurTech, is strongly driven by innovation, focusing on the development of new products, services, and processes in a forward-thinking world.
She specialized in developing innovative, creative, and visionary products and services for the insurance sector.
A serial entrepreneur with a passion for breaking new ground to lead social change, with management experience and the ability to lead and build high-performing teams.
She is interested in communication and relationship psychology, and is currently also developing her knowledge of Strategic Intervention (also known as SI). SI is dedicated to extracting the most practical and effective forms of strategic action and communication from various disciplines: Ericksonian therapy, Human Needs Psychology, organizational psychology, neurolinguistics, psychology of influence, strategic studies, traditions of diplomacy and negotiation, and others. A practical method for acting strategically to get things done is to fulfill and elevate human needs.
ABOUT INZMO
Inzmo is a fast-growing financial services provider in Europe, making renting a home affordable for everyone. The team’s aim is to become #1 provider of zero-deposit solutions for EU renters. We believe the core innovation lies in understanding customer needs, struggles, and their values. Inzmo designs services around this purpose - this is what makes the team truly authentic. Inzmo puts the customer first. Always. The team thinks big, takes risks, innovates constantly, hires the best, and strives to earn customers' trust.
Inzmo is the fourth runner in creating a new standard for how people rent their homes. With over 70,000 customers and 400% growth in 2022, Inzmo has attracted recognition and investment from several insurers in Europe. In 2017, the company was recognized as the best fintech company in the StartUp Europe Awards by the European Commission, and in 2019, was awarded as the Insurance Shaper of the Year. Inzmo's customers are renters, primarily for mid-term and long-term rental homes. Today, finding a home online might be easy, but the road to moving in is time-consuming, as the EU's 600 billion EUR annual private rental market still operates offline. To finalize a rental agreement, one must provide proof of income, a cash deposit (3 months' rent), home contents, and liability insurance. This takes 1-2 weeks and requires a cash deposit of thousands of euros. Inzmo solves all four pain points with one insurance product you can get online in seconds for a small monthly premium. As Inzmo focuses on covering each customer when they sign up for a rental home, the team sees this as an opportunity to serve them throughout the rental cycle with different insurance products and services.
More on Inzmo on their site and LinkedIn profile.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
31 min
December 22, 2022Newsflash: IBM Partner Ecosystem Strategy 2023
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL shares some timely insights from the team at IBM. One of these findings relates to one of IBM’s 2023 strategic themes and to IBM’s new partner program.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Autonomous vehicles are expected to account for about 12% of car registrations, and global car sales of autonomous vehicles are expected to reach some 101 million units by 2030. Autonomous vehicles or companies that are working on self-driving technologies include perception, mapping, and localisation solutions, as well as cybersecurity risk prevention, testing, and fleet management solutions, are doing very well. The autonomous vehicle market raised over $51 billion across 500+ companies, meaning each company received an average of $102 million in funding.
Many devices use embedded intelligent systems today, besides car functionalities, like Point-of-Sale terminals, smart TVs, smart metres, video surveillance equipment, traffic light controls, digital signs, and aviation controls. This means we need to understand how embedded intelligence systems operate and how they enable breakthroughs for established and new market players.
For years, IBM Research and Centres of Excellence have invested in developing AI capabilities that are embedded in IBM software offerings. IBM's partnership strategy is combined into a single organisation, where all the pieces of the IBM Partner Ecosystem within the sales and distribution organisation operate. It is also consolidated under one single leadership and direction.
IBM is making the same capabilities available to its IBMers and to its ecosystem of partners, providing them with a more straightforward path to create AI-powered solutions and access engagement materials to ensure that each ecosystem partner can create bulletproof propositions aligned with IBM’s high standards.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Embedded intelligence 'is a term used for a system or program that can analyse and monitor their own operations and then adapt and optimise, consequently, in real-time, its routines with limited human intervention. They enable companies to get more innovative in the way they deploy and use technology, identify market opportunities, and target new markets.’
‘The global embedded intelligence market is projected to reach a market value of $ 86 billion US dollars in 2032, increasing from $ 25.5 billion dollars in 2022 and expanding at a CAGR of 13% between 2022 and 2032.’
‘Today, the lack of expertise and skills in Artificial Intelligence remains the biggest barrier to adopting advanced programming techniques by businesses, large and small, while limiting biases and ethical issues.’
‘It is indeed crucial for data scientists, developers, sellers, and experts, among other types of users, to gain access to cutting-edge capabilities to learn new business development techniques and technological skills regardless of their level of expertise.’
ABOUT THE IBM PARTNER ECOSYSTEM PROGRAM:
IBM has worked throughout 2022 to enhance its approach and systems to deliver a unique partner experience, giving partners access to the same capabilities available to IBMers.
To find out more, use the two links provided below:
Embeddable AI
IBM PartnerWorld
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
22 min
December 15, 2022Elizabeth Lumley: FinTech Trends
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Elizabeth Lumley, an all-around FinTech expert who is currently the deputy Editor at The Banker, a company from the FT. Elizabeth received the State Street UK Press Award for Journalist of the Year in Technology and Digital Finance in 2022.
For 20+ years, Elizabeth has been a global specialist commentator on regulations, risk, data, and technology in investment, retail, and global transaction banking. She is recognized internationally as one of the leading voices in FinTech and banking technology innovation, as well as a well-established global conference speaker and conference organizer.
During this discussion, Sabine and Elizabeth dive into the trends affecting FinTech in the upcoming year.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I’ve been in this industry for about 28 years – kind of by accident. I wanted to be a journalist, specializing in politics. Still, most of what I’ve done in this space has been as a reporter or editor covering how banks and financial insurance firms use data and technology. Now, I’m deputy editor of The Banker magazine as part of the Financial Times. It’s been an exciting journey through this vast and varied industry of banking and financial services.
I got on Twitter when it was first starting, and my voice became amplified. I’m full of opinions, and I can’t keep them silent, so I write blogs, do interviews with people, webcasts, and events, and I started posting on Twitter, and people really responded to that. Social media has been perfect for me and my career. This was also when smaller FinTech companies started emerging; it was a perfect storm.
A lot of people are talking about where financial services are headed with the metaverse and Web 3.0, and how payments and services will be embedded in that world in the future. That’s an interesting conversation, but right now, it’s very innovative theatre-y, something to talk about on stage, and nothing is actually happening. What’s actually happening right now is that we’ve had so much growth over the years – not just in startups but in banks as well – there is a focus on efficiency, cost-cutting, saving money, and talent retention. It’s not a sexy topic to talk about, but I guarantee you it's what every bank is working on right now.
Insurance is one of those sectors where the sexiest part of it is that you don’t know it’s there. We’ve had insurance embedded into things for a very long time, when you buy a car, for example. You only know it’s there when you need it. I think that having that service available to customers when they need it is harder to achieve than people realize. I think the idea of owning the customer so you can sell them more stuff is the mindset of a lot of people in the industry, instead of acknowledging the customer so you can serve them better, which I think would actually make them more profitable customers, actually, in the long run. But that’s not the mindset many people have.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Pick your investors wisely.’
‘Journalism has changed a lot in the past 30 years. I wanted to be a magazine editor, and I’m glad I didn’t go into that world because I probably wouldn’t have a job. You’ve got to pay for quality, which is why the FT and The Banker are behind paywalls.’
‘Social media puts you in charge of what you’re putting out into the world and the narrative you’re putting out into the world.’
‘To me, FinTech is any way of using technology to improve banking and other financial services.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Elizabeth Lumley is an all-around FinTech expert who is currently deputy editor at The Banker, a company from the FT. For 20+ years, she has been a global specialist commentator on services, regulations, risk, data, and technology in investment, retail, and global transaction banking
Elizabeth is internationally recognised as one of the leading voices in FinTech and banking technology innovation, and is a well-established global conference speaker and organiser.
Her expertise includes: technology installations and market data usage at global investment banks, retail banks, institutions, and exchanges, as well as the emerging FinTech ecosystem of new entrants and startups.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
46 min
December 08, 2022Steve Abel: Why is EPAM the best kept secret?
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Steve Abel, a dedicated, results-oriented executive with a proven, hands-on track record and a superior ability to build highly effective teams that deliver success at all levels of an organization. When recording this podcast, Steve was at EPAM, which is one of the best-kept secrets, voted one of the world's leading and fastest-growing information technology companies. EPAM today leads the charge in global digital and physical transformation and digital platform engineering services. The company has over 61,000 employees across 6 continents and 50 countries. In this episode, Sabine and Steve cover three main topics: Changes in the way innovation is delivered today, repairing broken processes with the right engineering mindset, and the requirements for building the business of tomorrow.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The way technology solves problems today is through point solutions to point solutions. This is a flawed approach to solving the technology problem and building highly effective business models. Imagine if there were tools that had 95% of what a business needs to operate. You would only buy items available as part of the packages. As an insurer, you would be able to gain benefits as you would need fewer specialists to determine whether to buy, build, or partner. Pull widgets that could be your integration engine. Could be cheaper than what is available, and you could rebuild in a bespoke, unique way.
I was in a stable job at KPMG. When the pandemic hit, I worked on a project with no real choice but to deliver tech assets quickly. Then I decided to investigate and discovered EPAM. They loved my idea and then thought about new technology in new ways to solve the client’s problem with purpose. EPAM is multi-sectors, and I sit within the insurance business unit.
How do startups grow? One option is to use cloud-based tools that make it easier to create reusable assets. This is a profound change in how people think about technology and business; cloud-based tooling, data mash-up, etc. We can unlock the power of these tools and bring them together as a unified landscape.
Insurance carriers are struggling with geospatial data (for instance) because of their legacy systems and the way each carrier integrates data into its systems. Each carrier wants to know if they are getting unique information from you, but they don’t need the dashboard or data very often. They want to process an algorithm that gives them an answer.
BEST MOMENTS
‘A lot of commercialized software is not fit for purpose. Still, businesses operate thousands of spreadsheets. This is not right for the employees and gives poor customer service.’
‘I love to wake up and ensure that customers do every day what they do best with others.’
‘If you have not thought of how to do so. Hire an expert to think through the problem in a new way for you. You will get to the optimum outcome faster and likely cheaper too.’
‘Get the right tools and get the approach right. I can assure you, you will be impressed by them.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Steve Abel is a transformation executive with a dedicated, results-oriented executive, a proven hands-on track record, and superior ability to build highly effective teams to deliver success within all levels of an organisation.
Specialties: Program Management, Insurance, Operations, Shared Services, Enabling Technologies (Oracle, SAP, Workday, PeopleSoft, HFM, etc.), Business Process Reengineering, Finance Leading Practices (e.g., Procure to Pay, Record to Report), Insurance products and data, actuarial platforms (AXIS, Prophet, MG-Alfa, PolySystems, etc.), digital enablement, machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud solutions, business, and technical architecture.
Steve worked with large companies such as Capco, EY, and KPMG, EPAM and today Oliver Wyman.
EPAM: Since 1993, EPAM Systems, Inc. (NYSE: EPAM) has leveraged its advanced software engineering heritage to become the foremost global digital transformation services provider – leading the industry in digital and physical product development and digital platform engineering services. Through its innovative strategy, integrated advisory, consulting, and design capabilities, and unique 'Engineering DNA,' EPAM's globally deployed hybrid teams help make the future real for clients and communities around the world by powering better enterprise, education, and health platforms that connect people, optimise experiences, and improve people's lives.
In 2021, EPAM was added to the S&P 500 and included in the Forbes Global 2000 list.   Selected by Newsweek as a 2021 and 2022 Most Loved Workplace, EPAM's global multi-disciplinary teams serve customers in more than 50 countries across six continents. As a recognized leader, EPAM is listed among the top 15 companies in Information Technology Services on the Fortune 1000 and has been ranked four times as the top IT services company on Fortune's 100 Fastest-Growing Companies list. EPAM is also listed among Ad Age's top 25 World's Largest Agency Companies for three consecutive years, and Consulting Magazine named EPAM Continuum a top 20 Fastest Growing Firm.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
40 min
December 01, 2022Yann Barbarroux: Scaling Otonomi
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Yann Barbarroux, CEO and co-founder of OTONOMI, an InsurTech startup dedicated to mitigating supply chain risk. Yann shares insights into himself, his successes, and the recent USD $3.4 million fundraising round he and his team finalized during very uncertain times.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Around 2003 – the onset of the internet bubble in the tech industry – I redirected myself toward financial services. I moved to the US and got a job on Wall Street in New York, and I never left. I’ve spent my entire career in the capital market, risk management, and technology at several financial institutions and brokerage firms. From 2013-2020, I joined CitiGroup in downtown Manhattan doing risk management for structured credits and emerging markets, but more interestingly, in 2017, with the ramp-up of the digital asset era that we encountered, I got involved with emerging tech, deep tech, and blockchain within Citi Ventures' innovation arm and I got incubated as a startup within their innovation lab. I’m not the earliest adopter of blockchain, but 5-6 years of experience in this space feels like decades compared to other industries.
Transitioning into entrepreneurship, what became very visible is that a lot of the operations, pricing models, and pricing procedures and processes within financial services became very obsolete and very heavy-handed in terms of regulation, and there was a need for new, fresh products in the space. I was working on those items while I was in the innovation lab at Citigroup Ventures. While I was working there, I also came across deals in InsurTech and FinTech, which were very exciting for me. That’s where I came across the fascinating space of parametric insurance – the equivalent of financial derivatives or other binary products in financial markets, but in the insurance space. What we bring with OTONOMI is a binary event contract for the supply chain space.
We fundraised in 2021 for our pre-seed or the first tranche of our seed round. This raise was pre-product, pre-revenue. This year, we expected to struggle tremendously given the market circumstances: rampant inflation, the political climate between Ukraine and Russia, and the East side of the globe. You would expect an early-stage startup to be struggling to raise funding, but our fundraising campaign turned out to be more productive this year, and we managed to close it in 3-4 months. £3.4million raised, and we’re very, very grateful for it.
The starting point for us in 2021 was the rippling effect of the global supply chain breaking down. But for us, a few months beforehand, there were two events that were very critical and instrumental. The first was the snowstorm in Texas, a 1-in-100-year event with many climate and weather components that ripple down into transportation. That created such traumatic volatility in the market that it became clear that cargo players, freight, and logistics, while at the forefront of trying to operate as quickly as possible, were constrained by huge financial liabilities they couldn’t recoup under traditional insurance contracts. The second event was a few weeks later in the Suez Canal. Everybody saw it and talked about it. Again, the supply chain couldn’t function properly, and insurance and financial contracts weren't transparent enough to serve those players in a timely manner. What was interesting for us was not just the parametric aspects but also the binary delay of potential supply chain interruptions (which we cover) and the facilitation of operations and payments.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I’m a nerd at heart but a financial engineer by trade.’
‘The turning point for us was when we actually visited Austin, Texas, in person. We were in touch with several VC teams virtually, but the mere fact that we actually went to this conference, handshaking, having coffee, and having in-person chemistry actually created much more interest for our raise, and the VCs sent us a terms sheet two weeks after. This was a tremendous difference from the previous two years during the pandemic.’
‘The Insurance sector wants to take the leap of faith now with several projects in the space, us included.’
‘We believe that if we have the right infrastructure to collect premiums, manage collateral, and settle compensation payments within this very much ring-fenced and consistent infrastructure for digital payments, then essentially we can be creating very streamlined processes.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Yann Barbarroux is CEO and co-founder of OTONOMI, an InsurTech focused on transforming the transportation and cargo insurance industry. He was born and raised in Marseille (France), went to grad school (graduated with an MS in Computer Engineering) in Paris, found his first job on Wall Street back in 2003, and never left NY.
He wants OTONOMI to become the one-stop shop for the operating layer of parametric insurance policies (data-activated insurance smart contracts), with applications in air freight, marine, trucking, weather, and device coverage. First and foremost, alleviating the customer’s pain points of going through the lengthy claim adjudication process: OTONOMI compresses resolution time from 45 days to 45 minutes.
OTONOMI aims to be the de facto “detect, active, and pay” infrastructure InsurTech for all data sources that can be used to create parametric products: database server APIs, logistics analytics, and IoT sensors. For that, it works with data partners such as Chainlink, which provides security and integrity to its event triggers.
Website: https://www.otonomi.ai/
Email: [email protected]
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
48 min
November 29, 2022 Paul Roetzer: The Marketing AI Institute
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast. Sabine talks to Paul Roetzer. Paul Roetzer is the founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute. He is the author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence, The Marketing Performance Blueprint, and The Marketing Agency Blueprint, and the creator of the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON).
In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine and Paul discuss how Artificial Intelligence will evolve marketing practices. Drawing comparisons to how we use AI in our daily lives through social media and marketing.
KEY MOMENTS
'What Does Paul Mean by Traditional Marketing Is All Human?'
'What Are the Obstacles to Artificial Intelligence Adoption'
'How Did the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute Come About?'
'Paul Talks About the Revolutionization of the Market Today.'
'What Trends Should One Look Out For In Artificial Intelligence Marketing Technology'
'How To Make Artificial Intelligence A Part Of Our Daily Lives.'
'What Is The Gap Between The Business School And Learning Artificial Intelligence'
'What The Next Generation Needs To Have to Lead Them To Success 10.'
'What Are The Metrics We Need To Look At In Artificial Intelligence Marketing?'
'Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence.'
'Five Steps To Implement Artificial Intelligence In The Marketing Environment'
'Tips on Tools To Use For Artificial Intelligence'
'Words Of Wisdom From Paul.

ABOUT THE GUEST
Paul Roetzer is the founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute. He is the author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence (Matt Holt Books, 2022), The Marketing Performance Blueprint (Wiley, 2014), and The Marketing Agency Blueprint (Wiley, 2012); and the creator of the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON).
The Marketing Institute - https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
47 min
November 24, 2022Annap Derebail: Simplifying operations with advanced technology
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Annap Derebail, IBM’s Global Insurance Industry CTO within IBM’s Global Business Services Unit, now in IBM's payment center. Annap’s focus has always been on delivering impactful business outcomes by re-imagining user experiences. Today, Annap provides trusted advice to drive revenue growth for IBM’s clients by leveraging architectural leadership to transform their businesses through technology innovation. In this conversation, they cover the future of insurance and its implications for operations, how technology is a key enabler of growth today, and how insurers can simplify operations to build resilient business models.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There are many market forces disrupting traditional insurance models. Firstly, around customer expectations. Customers are increasingly looking towards an Amazon- or Google-like experience when dealing with their insurance. The implications for insurers include creating personalised offerings and providing high levels of service and responsiveness.
There are two key advantages that incumbent insurers have over new entrants to the market. Certainly, new entrants are developing new business models and approaches to attracting and engaging customers. But I think the advantages for incumbents are their huge existing customer base – keeping a customer is six times easier than acquiring a new one. Secondly, by virtue of having been in business for so long, they are sitting on tons of data and have knowledge of customer transactions/interactions. That’s a rich oasis that can help them develop a better understanding of their customers and what they need.
Insurers really need to reinvent how they think about risk and what sort of relationship they want with their customers. Reinventing that risk partnership and helping insurers with new risk experiences that offer personalised advice, and demonstrating a new risk partnership between the insurer and the customer. Being able to harvest the data can be done by taking a fresh look at historically operating processes in the enterprise, critical processes such as underwriting claims, but also all of the support processes like billing, customer support, policy maintenance, etc. Just by paying attention to driving intelligence into those processes using data, we’ve reduced customer churn by 15% by implementing a churn detection model.
At the infrastructure level, I see many incumbent insurers still operating legacy IT systems and infrastructure. The immediate opportunity there is to migrate those onto a cloud-based platform. This brings inherent benefits, such as flexibility in scaling up and down in response to demand and market needs. You can access cloud-based services from anywhere in the world.
BEST MOMENTS
‘The insurance industry needs to adapt and respond to new disruptors, and this response has to be driven by data and new technologies, and using them to gain a business advantage in the market.’
‘Less than 10% of insurers have actually been able to meet what we call ‘the data dividend’, effective use of data in order to achieve competitive advantage because of a lack of knowledge of how to access data, how the data is siloed within the infrastructure of the business.’
‘We can help drive a step change in the core productivity of incumbent insurers. About 60% of their costs go into legacy IT systems. Modernising by having multiple core systems in place and moving to a SaaS model reduces issues.’
‘The typical underwriting or claims process tends to have heavy human involvement and requires a large number of steps in order to make decisions. The scope there is to effectively use the mountain of data that insurers are sitting on to present the right data to the right decision-makers at the right time – not just raw data, but insights drawn from it. – to improve the process and categorise incoming cases that can either be automated or need human intervention.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Annap Derebail has 20+ years of professional experience in systems and integration architecture, design, development, and management of complex industry solutions. In his current role, he works with insurance customers worldwide to create innovative solutions for business problems, leveraging microservices and API-driven architecture, distributed, multi-tier systems, application integration architecture, AI/ML, blockchain, IoT, cloud computing, and service-oriented architecture.
In the last five years, he has worked with worldwide financial services clients to provide trusted advice on their digital transformation initiatives, while serving as the leader of the global IBM insurance industry architect community. His work with clients has spanned several application areas: Modernization architectures for insurance and banking, Blockchain applications in insurance, Enterprise architecture for aircraft systems health, Supply chain collaboration in automotive and retail, RFID-based track-and-trace solutions, Product design-to-manufacture integration, and Supply chain optimization. Over the years, he has been IBM’s technical representative in industry standards bodies, including ACORD, BIAN, PDES Inc, STAR, and AIA. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research from Texas A&M University.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
45 min
November 17, 2022Christie Downs Wood: About handdii
On this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Christie Downs Wood. A self-made entrepreneur and problem-solver who founded handdii with her co-founder, Kathryn Wood.
After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, Christie saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims.
This is how Handdii was born as a three-way digital platform that combines insurance, construction, and contractors, enabling contractors to easily connect, engage, and promote their businesses.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
I am a high-energy business leader who loves solving problems and creating exciting solutions that transform people's lives. After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, I saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims, making it quicker, faster, and cheaper for insurers, clients, and tradespeople.
We’re just at the starting line; there’s so much opportunity ahead. I think the early innovation in our sector has been pretty straightforward. How do we buy faster, make things convenient, streamline processes, and save cost? Quite a lot of separate practical solutions. For example, right now, there are many inspection tools and solutions an insurance company would use – virtual inspections, drones, AI, and they might actually use various tools all at once.
Our vision is to make small property claims amazing. The industry has a cumbersome process for property claims, involving multiple people and approvals, designed for large losses. This process is not designed to fast-track small claims, and, moreover, the major suppliers to the insurance industry would prefer not to handle them. So, my Co-Founder and I set out to change that! Handdii is a really practical solution to a common problem. Any Claims leader can see the opportunity in their portfolio to improve how small claims are managed. We’re really focused on our niche, and when we partner with an insurer, we make it easy to work with us.
Our team has a solid property claims background, reflected in the product and program we have built. This makes it easy for the insurer to work with us because we speak their language and understand their challenges, while having the speed and the money to be an innovative partner, creating solutions for them.
BEST MOMENTS
‘My experience also includes being Executive of Carlton Football Club as the General Manager of Business Development, introducing unique revenue streams, the creation of Carlton Respects program against family violence, and Blue Skies program supporting diversity and inclusion in the inaugural year of AFLW.’
‘I think the future of innovation will become more and more integrated into our lives, activities, and systems. Bringing all of these different solutions together, then once that efficiency is achieved, we’ll look to bring innovation to achieve more purposeful outcomes around sustainability, inclusion, and prosperity.’
‘COVID has made some things much easier and others more challenging. For example, onboarding contractors via video rather than in person has streamlined how quickly we have expanded our contractor network across multiple states this year. Whereas meeting new insurance companies is more challenging, we are certainly happy that the in-person conferences are kicking off again now.’
‘When working with large enterprises, be patient, be persistent, be astute commercially – if you’re bringing great value, hold your line on your cost.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Christie (Downs) Wood: I am a high-energy business leader who loves solving problems and creating exciting solutions that transform people's lives and work. After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, I saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims, making it quicker, faster, and cheaper for insurers, clients, and tradespeople. I made the leap to entrepreneurship in 2018, starting Handdii with Kathryn Wood.
Handdii is a three-way platform where contractors can easily connect, engage, and promote their businesses, insurers experience reduced cost, and customers find their property insurance repairs are easier and cheaper to organize with better results.
My core career experience of 10 years was as group sales director and board member of the national construction company, Johns Lyng Group, ASX-listed as JLG. I played a lead role in the national expansion and exponential revenue growth of the group, from $12 million in 2004 to $350 million in 2015. During this experience, I saw firsthand the problems people had getting repairs done, often after stressful situations, and I met fantastic contractors who ran great businesses.
My experience also includes serving as the Executive of the Carlton Football Club as the General Manager of Business Development, introducing unique revenue streams, creating the Carlton Respects program against family violence, and launching the Blue Skies program supporting diversity and inclusion in the inaugural year of AFLW.
I am passionate about contributing to society and was Chair of the Starball Committee Sydney for 3 years, raising more than USD $1 million for Starlight Children’s Foundation.
I love to share my experiences and learnings with #public speaking on the value of diversity and inclusion, starting your own venture, and how the insurtech industry is evolving.
About handdii:

Having worked as a Director of a Construction company in the Insurance industry for 10 years, I know customer satisfaction in property claims is very low. This is because the traditional fulfillment process is complicated and takes an average of 60 days to repair a property. Yet 80% of property claims are small and require only 1 or 2 trades.
For this, Handii dramatically improves the customer experience by pairing customers with the trade they need to assist in claim determination and complete work immediately. Cutting claim life from 2 months to 1 week.
handdii makes workflow easy for trades through pre-agreed rates, opt-in scheduling, automated processing, and payment. Minimizing these friction points empowers the trades to focus on providing quality work and an awesome customer experience.
For insurance companies, handdii can provide claim lodgement and allocation, save 25% in claims cost, and enable digital transformation for property claims. A significant positive impact on customer satisfaction (NPS) will drive new customer acquisition and open up further product opportunities.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
38 min
November 03, 2022Mark McLaughlin: What are Risk Experiences?
In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL interviews Mark McLaughlin, a respected figure in IBM and its insurance division, to discuss the future of customer experience within a fast-evolving world. Today he is leading AI, hybrid cloud, and risk innovation engagements with insurance CxOs worldwide for IBM.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
You must improve how you engage with your customers, whether through distribution channels (e.g., brokers or affinity partnerships) or directly. Your customers are demanding digital frictionless engagements and experiences. They are seeking transparency and optimal convenience in how they access insurance products and services. They also want transparency into how their data is being used. In the end, this is the way you earn customer trust.
When data, intelligence, automation, and insights are combined, they augment decision-making among stakeholders but also require changes in skills, processes, technology, and culture. Think about the “reconfiguration” of the internal fabric of the enterprise to deliver the required personalized experiences.
InsurTechs are doing well. Over $47 billion has been invested in InsurTechs. Over 30 have become unicorns, and more are expected to become unicorns in the years to come.
Today, to realize such a vision and upgrade legacy systems and global delivery presence, IBM works with the top 100 carriers worldwide, bringing capabilities such as blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and cloud for flexibility and innovation, as well as industry expertise to deliver unique capabilities able to yield differentiated experiences.
BEST MOMENT
‘To elevate customer experiences and achieve customer-centricity and unlock new growth opportunities, insurers must identify innovative opportunities internally and through external partnerships to reinvent the core of their business.’
‘We are in the days of “Risk experiences”.’
‘If insurers think about repackaging old format analog processes into digitised options, they are going to fail. Customers are asking for more. They want products and services aligned with their needs.’
‘We know that insurers are better placed at focusing on “risk” (e.g., algorithmic underwriting) while InsurTechs are great at building unique customer experiences (e.g., Lemonade, Hippo, etc.).’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Mark McLaughlin is leading AI, hybrid cloud, and risk innovation engagements with insurance CxOs worldwide for IBM. Mark’s teams analyse trends in insurance and technology, develop strategies for insurers, and build IBM insurance solutions to meet insurer needs. He also shares IBM’s point-of-view on insurance with business leaders, regulators, and conference audiences worldwide.
Mark is a 25-year veteran of the insurance industry. He has previously led business units in insurance distribution and analytics, technology infrastructure, CRM, and insurance business process. Mark has personally led implementations in strategy, program management, analytics, data warehousing, expert systems, commercial claims, and underwriting for multiple top 20 US insurers.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
53 min
October 26, 2022Danielle Guzman and Theodora Lau: The new and never normal
On this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL talks to two renowned FinTech Influencers and respected voices in finance and insurance, Danielle Guzman – head of social media at Mercer who is an expert at activating employees and creating business impact on social media, and Theodora Lau - Founder at Unconventional Ventures, author, podcast host and public speaker who advises many startup ventures.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Danielle - The future of work is something I’m passionate about, both personally and professionally, and the journey over the past years has been about reinventing myself and how to stay relevant in a world that is changing so radically. The pandemic has only accelerated that journey, not just for me but for everyone to be thinking about this a lot more, using social media channels to connect and make a difference.
Theo – I spent the bulk of my career in telecom, not finance and banking, don’t hold that against me! What’s interesting is, when you look at high-tech, telecom, financial service industry, and FinTech and InsurTech startups, a lot of what we do inherently at the end of the day is about people. Technology is a means to an end and allows us to communicate and exchange ideas.
As a broader society, we’re starting to realize that self-care isn't self-indulgence. The conversations around mental health and well-being are now becoming what they should be. Health is embedded in every aspect of our lives, but mental health and taking time to invest in our own well-being have always been secondary things. It’s critical that, now, through organizations and leaders, it becomes a very real, daily conversation at the table.
I grew up in a generation where you had a career, and now we’re part of a generation where you’re having career experiences. There’s so much that needs to be done for that to become accessible to everyone; there doesn’t seem to be an answer to that right now, but organizations are trying to figure that out. That’s going to be a watershed moment for the future of work and one of the biggest changes that we will probably see in our lifetime and we’re at the beginning of that journey. At the crux of that is the concept of trust.

BEST MOMENTS
‘I like to look at everything as not making big changes all at once, but how we can make small, incremental changes that have a compound return over time.’
‘The past 18 months have shown that we might be in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat. We have been very aware of a lot of the challenges and inequalities that exist in our society, but I hope we take away the learning from recent months that there’s a lot we still need to do.’
‘Longevity is a challenge, but it’s actually an opportunity. Since the early 1900s, we’ve all gained an extra 30 healthy years of life. Living longer allows us to try different things in our careers.’
‘Are new solutions being created to mimic what we’ve always had in the past, or are they being created to support these new opportunities? Are there enough solutions out there to support small business owners and gig workers? I would say we need more.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
As the VP of Social and Distributed Content at Mercer and now Marsh, Danielle uses data to assess the viability of risky campaigns and predict the future of digital content consumption. Since diving headfirst into insights-driven marketing and leadership, Danielle has seen data transform the careers of dozens of marketers—including her own.
Theodora (Theo) Lau is a public speaker, writer, and startup advisor, whose work seeks to spark innovation to improve consumer financial well-being.
As founder of Unconventional Ventures, she focuses on developing and growing an ecosystem of financial institutions, corporates, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to better address the unmet needs of consumers (e.g., older adults and gig economy workers), with keen interests in women and minority founders. As part of her work, she regularly mentors and advises FinTech startups.
She is recognized as a LinkedIn Top Voice for Economy and Finance, No. 1 Women in Finance by Onalytica, and Top FinTech influencer by various publications, including Onalytica, Retail Banker International, and FinTech Finance. She co-hosts Rhetoriq, a podcast on longevity and fintech innovations, and runs a weekly blog on Irish Tech News. She is also a regular contributor to top industry events, publications, and podcasts, including Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, Money20/20, Finovate, RISE, American Banker, Breaking Banks, Financial Brand, Financial Revolutionist, Irish Tech News, Mercer, and INV Filter.
She provides strategic advisory services to a broad set of corporations; she also advises startups and mentors entrepreneurs from different accelerators and incubators across the country. She is an advocate for diversity and inclusion – and frequently writes and speaks about the need for diversity across gender, ethnicity, age, education, and more. Her end goal is to help more financial institutions (incumbents and startups) focus on the needs of the forgotten demographics and build sustainable and inclusive business models.
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.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
46 min