The next member of WCL we want to introduce you to in our ‘People behind the tech’ series is Ian Davies, who joined WCL in 2018 as Client Services Manager. Ian started his working career at a lettings agent before joining Willis Towers Watson, where he spent 16 years prior to joining WCL.
Name: Ian Davies
Job title: Client Services Manager
1. Can you tell us about your career journey so far?
Throughout my career I have always been involved in technology and business processes and I am now in what I would call my third ‘proper job’. In my first role, I spent six years working for a local lettings agency, managing accounts payable and accounts receivable. My second job is where I entered insurance and I spent 16-and-a-half-years working at insurance brokers Willis. In that job, I worked on Carrier Accounting, Client Accounting, Eclipse implementation, and Finance transformation projects, including CASS 5. I spent the last six years at Willis working on wholesale transformation programmes across Accounting, Finance, IT & Placing, before joining WCL as Client Services Manager in 2018.
2. What is an average day in the life of a Client Services Manager?
There is no such thing as an average day! Every day is different and that is what I thrive on. Since working from home, we start the day as a team with a morning huddle as a way to check in and find out how the previous day had gone. How was yesterday, and were there any issues people need help with? How is your day ahead looking? Anything to share with the team? Any escalations required? Some days this may take just 10 minutes, but we never cancel. Fridays allow a time shift to 4pm and the virtual pub opens for 30 mins instead. A regular day consists of internal and external calls/video calls. Internally, we will be working on tactical solutions for certain client needs alongside our medium and long-term strategic considerations. Externally, it will be client engagements, pre-sales, sales and project management alongside operational needs and supporting the executive team.
“One of WCL’s corporate mantra’s – Data, not Paper – and if the past twelve months have shown anything, it is that the London market can continue trade electronically.”
3. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
The diversity is a big draw – repetition is not for me. I joined WCL with a general belief that the growth opportunities were significant. In just over two years, I have been a part of wholesale rebranding, new product launches, and WCL has grown significantly to bring in new skills and roles to strengthen its overall capability.
4. Which areas for developing technology do you see as the most important for your business and industry?
Right now, application programming interface (API’s) remain the talk of the town. No new trends, but the appetite remains high, and we have made sure WCL remains relevant in the market space. Distributed ledger technologies (that’s Blockchain to the rest of us) has not gone away, but the hype curve has certainly peaked. Of course, I will follow one of WCL’s corporate mantra’s – Data, not Paper – and if the past twelve months have shown anything, it is that the London market can continue trade electronically. I would really like to see the work within the Lloyd’s Blueprint have a meaningful and lasting switch to electronic placements, claims and accounting processes for brokers, carriers and MGA’s.
5. What is your proudest moment in work or your greatest achievement in your career and why?
Oh, good question… whilst I cannot take the sole credit, WCL receiving its ISO27001 accreditation took us almost 18 months to prepare for and was one heck of a marathon! The stamina to keep going week in, week out, leading up to an extensive external audit and finally getting the ‘nod’ that we had passed was a great achievement and just in time for Christmas, meeting the end of year target!
6. Following the acquisition by Zywave what are you most excited about / opportunities to explore.
The Zywave announcement is great news for Clients and our valued WCL team. We have been able to work with the Zywave teams to explore a wide variety of opportunities that will provide additional resource capacity, heightened operational excellence and fresh ideas through 2021 and beyond.