Growing Innovative Talent
Holmes Murphy’s CEO and BrokerTech Ventures Co-CEO, Dan Keough, shares his thoughts around the development and recognition of top talent.
It’s been just over a year since BrokerTech Ventures (BTV) launched the company with its inaugural accelerator, and while hard to believe, there has been no shortage of activity from its five towers of operation.
In a year with so much uncertainty, BTV was able to amplify support from its BTV Agency Partners and their desire to keep moving – to keep leaning into BTV and its ambitious charters to move innovation forward for the insurance industry.
I had the opportunity to connect recently with Dan Keough, Chairman & CEO of Holmes Murphy and Co-CEO of BrokerTech Ventures, to discuss more about one of the most recent BTV initiatives, the Labs. (By BTV Agency) platform.
Q
One of our industry’s greatest assets…talent. Recruiting, retaining, cultivating and elevating talent, is more critical now than ever. How does Holmes Murphy, BrokerTech Ventures, and the partner agencies view this?
A
At Holmes Murphy, and with all of our BTV agencies, we believe that much of our success has been based around our ability to develop and retain top talent. The young and promising talent of the future won’t stand for lack of technology adoption or inefficiencies from our industry. We knew we’d need to find a way to change this and to embrace technology from the inside through our own agencies, rather than allowing technologies to disrupt us from the outside-in.
This is what led to our creation of BrokerTech Ventures in 2019, and coalescing with 12 other forward-leaning agencies. Over the last year, we realized that we have the unique opportunity to lead an effort to recognize and lift up our employees at the desk, who are helping us to shape and implement technologies in our agencies. We are doing so by the deployment of our Labs. (By BTV Agency) concept, which will be launched officially in 2021.
Q
Tell us more about this Labs. (By BTV Agency) concept.
A
Labs. is really a platform for each of our agencies to recognize the contributions and efforts by our employees, who go above and beyond their “day job” to work on pilots, proof-of-concepts (POC’s), integrations, and other, to elevate innovation and technology in our own firms. Through BTV, in 2020 alone, we have had nearly 70 pilots, POCs and integrations, taking place between our insurtech startups, our agencies, and our insurance company relationships. It takes people…to pull this off.
While technology may create the efficiencies, it is truly the people behind and utilizing the technology, that make it happen. The use of brain-power, is where the gold lies in each one of our people. Let’s have technology work for us to manage the repetitive, mundane and antiquated tasks, and allow our people to use their own creativity, hearts and minds, to drive innovation forward.
Ultimately, Labs. is building a community of innovative thinkers, who desire to work in a more efficient way. This makes our agencies more forward leaning, and provides a greater experience for our customers. Insurance is a slow and antiquated industry.
The end goal is to become a smarter, nimbler, and more innovative industry, and we believe that through BTV and our Labs. platform, we are creating a channel to reward and amplify these efforts in our workplaces.
Q
What would success for Labs. look like, in years to come?
A
In a year’s time, could some of our employees bring concepts and ideas to BTV through Labs., which we would then potentially apply to be a part of our BTV Accelerator program?
Through our own employees, and BTV’s Labs. initiatives, we are empowering our employees to help our clients identify risks sooner, and drive down their costs faster.
That would truly be the full circle of Labs. through BTV. Changing our industry; cascading insurtech solutions and allowing them to reach their full potential, through our own people.
Susan Hatten is the chief operating officer of BrokerTech Ventures.
