The We Are InsurTech Women Podcast

You don’t have to feel 100% ready to take your next career step. Sometimes, curiosity is enough to get you started.

In the next episode of We Are InsurTech Women, host Melissa Collett, CEO of Insurtech UK, speaks with Daisy Dong, Product Leader and Advisor, D2 Advisory, about the questions that have shaped her career.

From actuarial work to product leadership and now working with founders across insurtech, Daisy’s journey has been driven by wanting to learn what comes next — even when that means stepping outside her comfort zone.

They explore:

💡 How curiosity can help you move through self-doubt.

💡 The rewards and challenges of building a fractional career.

💡 Why better insurance products start with understanding customers.

💡 The impact of leaders who see your potential before you see it yourself.

For anyone considering a career change, exploring fractional work or wondering whether they’re ready for a new opportunity, this conversation offers plenty of encouragement.

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Proudly sponsored by FinPro.

#WeAreInsurTechWomen #InsurTech #CareerDevelopment #WomenInInsurance #FinPro

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Maariyaah Afzal loved underwriting. But too much of her day was spent on spreadsheets and admin, taking time away from the risk analysis she enjoyed.

After leaving insurance, travelling and retraining as an engineer, she returned with a different perspective — and a business idea rooted in the problems she had experienced herself.

In the next episode of We Are InsurTech Women, host Melissa Collett, CEO of Insurtech UK, welcomes Maariyaah, Founder and CEO of Silas Insurtech, to explore her journey from underwriter to tech founder.

Together, they discuss:

🚀 Finding the conviction to change careers and start again.

🧠 Why insurance experience matters when building technology for underwriters.

🤖 How AI can surface information buried in complex submissions while keeping human judgement central.

💬 Why junior colleagues should have a voice in the technology decisions shaping their work.

🤝 The investors, colleagues and allies who helped turn an idea into a business.

Maariyaah also shares what founders can underestimate about moving from a successful pilot to an enterprise customer — and why building a company is a marathon, not a sprint.

A conversation for anyone considering a career leap, building an InsurTech business or thinking about the future of underwriting.

Proudly sponsored by FinPro, helping bring these stories to a wider audience.

#WeAreInsurTechWomen #InsurTech #WomenInInsurance #Underwriting #Silas #FinPro

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Doing great work should open doors. But who is making sure those doors actually open?

In the latest episode of We Are InsurTech Women, host Melissa Collett, CEO of Insurtech UK, welcomes Elizabeth Wooliston, Chief of Markets at Artificial Labs, for a candid conversation about career progression, sponsorship and the responsibility leaders have to develop their people.

Drawing on three decades across insurance—and seven years working with women’s football—Elizabeth shares:

⚽ What the player pathway can teach businesses about developing talent.

🤝 Why mentoring matters, and why actively sponsoring someone’s career goes further.

💬 How psychological safety and clear expectations help teams perform.

🚪 How a chance conversation in a lift opened doors in her own career.

Her message is clear: improving women’s representation in leadership requires people in positions of influence to step up.

A conversation for anyone building teams, supporting colleagues or thinking about their next career move.

Proudly sponsored by FinPro, helping bring these stories to a wider audience.

#WeAreInsurTechWomen #InsurTech #Leadership #Sponsorship #WomenInInsurance

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What difference can one mentor make to a career? And what happens when you decide to back yourself? 🎙️

We’re kicking off a new season of We Are InsurTech Women, with Melissa Collett, CEO of Insurtech UK, making her debut as our new host.

Her first guest is Katya Kinane, Co-founder and CTO of Nettle, who shares her journey from discovering programming at 15 to building an AI business in insurance.

In this conversation, they explore:

• The mentors who opened doors for Katya and inspired her to pass that support on.

• Why taking the leap into entrepreneurship felt like the right move, despite the uncertainty.

• Building a team and culture you believe in, alongside technology that helps insurers better understand risk.

• Nettle’s expansion into new markets and technology that empowers the insured to take ownership of their own risks

**FinPro created the WAIW community and sponsors the podcast

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After two decades in insurance, Akanksha Rais kept seeing the same problem: decisions about risk, capital and investments were being made in isolation. She founded Capitawise to help bring those decisions together.

This week, Akanksha joins Charlotte Gregory for an honest conversation about building a company as a solo female founder and the people who have helped her along the way.

In this episode, Akanksha shares:

✅ What prompted her to leave a secure career and start Capitawise

✅ The “invisible tax” of being the only woman in the room

✅ What meaningful allyship is

✅ How a clear vision can help insurers make better decisions about AI

✅ Her advice for women waiting until they feel ready to take the leap

Whether you’re building a business, backing a founder or considering a change in your own career, this conversation offers a candid look at what it takes to move forward.

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"You can't be what you can't see."

In this episode, Charlotte Gregory sits down with Gemma Jarrett, Chief Underwriting Officer at Domus IQ MGA, to talk about her 15+ year journey from broking at Gallagher to leading underwriting at an AI and data-driven specialist MGA.

They cover:

🔹 Her "lightbulb moment" and why it sparked a passion for modernising insurance

🔹 Moving from big corporate roles to the scale-up world, and building an MGA from the ground up

🔹 How real-time building data is transforming underwriting — shifting insurers from reactive, once-a-year conversations to real risk prevention

🔹 Why flexibility and trust — not desk time — get the best out of teams

🔹 Honest talk on allyship, networking, and why the "women in insurance" conversation is really a conversation for everyone

Gemma's advice to anyone considering a career in insurance? "Go for it. Insurtech is such a hidden gem, with so much potential."

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This week, host Charlotte Gregory is joined by Rachael Ridgwell, Director of Legal and Regulatory Affairs at Zego.

In this conversation, Rachael shares:

✅ Her path from banking litigation during the 2008 financial crisis to leading legal and regulatory affairs across two regulators

✅ The daily challenge of applying decades-old legislation to a business built on new data and new risk — and why that friction is what makes the role exciting

✅ Why she believes in sponsorship over mentorship

✅ Her take on confidence

It's a conversation about resilience, culture, and building trust — one honest conversation at a time.

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This week Eloise Morgan, MD of Price Forbes Ventures, joins Charlotte Gregory to talk about the mentors and allies who backed her and the curiosity, confidence, and bold decisions she brought to every opportunity.

In this episode, Eloise shares:

✅ How 21 years in the industry started with a job advert in a local newspaper

✅ The one skill she wishes more people in insurance mastered

✅ How she ended up leading an all-female team

✅ How male allies backed her early and why advocacy is "about what happens when you're not in the room"

✅ Her advice for anyone starting out in Insurtech

Whether you're a founder pitching for investment, a broker building relationships, or just starting out in the industry, this episode is packed with honest, practical advice on confidence, mentorship, and building a career that doesn't look like anyone else's.

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🎙️ NEW EPISODE: We Are InsurTech Women

This week Charlotte Gregory is joined by Megan Bingham-Walker, co-founder and CEO of Anansi, for her first ever in-person podcast recording.

From government energy policy to venture capital to machine learning to an e-commerce business selling stainless steel straws, Megan's path to insurtech was anything but conventional.

In this conversation, Megan shares:

✅ How selling stainless steel straws online exposed her to a huge gap in small business insurance — and led her to found Anansi

✅ Why she chose to focus Anansi on one problem, shipping insurance, rather than spreading across a diverse product range — despite people calling it "niche" (it's a $60bn market)

✅ The hard data behind female founders and venture capital, and why "restrictive vs. expansive" investor questioning, not a pipeline problem, is the real barrier

✅ A genuine allyship story, starting with a cold email to one of Anansi's earliest investors

✅ How her team has upskilled to build their own AI agents, and why she sees AI as an opportunity rather than a threat

It's a conversation about staying laser-focused on a single problem, the systemic issues still holding back female founders, and why normalising failure might be the insurance industry's next big cultural shift.

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🎙️ NEW EPISODE: We Are InsurTech Women

This week Charlotte Gregory is joined by Caroline "Caz" Taylor, Chief Insurance and Delegated Authority Officer at Crux Underwriting — whose route into the C-suite ran through claims, law, startups and two boardrooms, and who only recently discovered why she's always worked that way.

In this conversation, Caz shares:

✅ The accidental interview that changed everything — including the ultimatum from a colleague that got her through the door

✅ How growing up in a socially disadvantaged household shaped the hustle and resilience she still relies on today

✅ Why her ADHD, dyslexic, autistic "3D brain" thrives in cross-functional, ground-up roles — and struggles in a narrow one

✅ Why claims is one of the best entry points into a career in insurance

✅ Her views on AI in recruitment, and how rigid screening criteria can quietly filter out brilliant people

It's a conversation about turning a non-traditional background into a superpower, why insurance needs more people who think differently, and what leaders should really be asking about diversity, equity and hiring.

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