out of office - d3 icmif conference
day 3 of the icmif conference, #collaboratingwithpurpose & the audacity to give it a whirl
On 13-15 November, I attended the ICMIF Biennial Conference hosted in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
375+ delegates from 35+ countries, most of which being CEOs, C-suite executives, senior leaders or directors.
I’m not in that list. I’m a lowly 24 year old analyst and as such I’m part of something they call the Young Leaders Program, a cohort of about 50 deemed to be the future of the mutual insurance industry. Tall call!
In this season of Out Of Office, I’ll be sharing an insight, finding or story from each plenary session that really called to me; and some tangential events around the conference that I found awesome.
This post covers Day 3 of the conference. You can read about Day 1 here and Day 2 there.
D3 ICMIF Conference - #CollaboratingWithPurpose
By far, the most frequently occurring word at this conference has been partnerships.
Alas, our final days opened with partnerships to create more resilient communities where I most entranced by Ekhosueni Iyahen of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF).
She shared of the Global Risk Modeling Alliance, a cross-border collaboration that brought together private and public risk expertise to develop what she called a ‘public good’.
A bit like a streetlight, a bit like a council park - the IDF aims to create a publicly-available repository of climate and disaster risk information. Closing the information gap, she called it, to help light the way for investment and risk finance into vulnerable communities.
When asked about how we can measure resilience, Eksouheni made the imposition of ‘making the long-term explicit’.
If a farming community did not have access to disaster resilience measures, they would not be able to defend themselves from flood. This would wipe out their crops every couple years, impacting their own income and the communities who rely on them, reducing access to food which most primely, stunts the growth of the future generation.
It is a bit of a catastrophisation exercise, I admit, but it helps bring future problems into present value. A spark. A trigger. If not for ourselves, for those who come after us.
While my formal education revolved around numbers and math, my heart has always belonged to words and stories.
My favourite sessions were the ones that shared change through impeccable storytelling.
This conference, Dr Aris Alip (CARD MBA, The Philippines) and Lorenzo Chan (Pioneer Inc., The Philippines) had the most enamouring tale of how the lives of working Filipinos were transformed by microinsurance.
Captured in a soon-to-be-published memoir titled Covering Nanay, Alip and Chan talk on partnerships to create more resilient businesses, namely one between the equity-seeking mutual (CARD MBA) and the competitive commercial insurer (Pioneer).
They attributed the success of their product to the support of Filipino mothers and grandmothers.
Women are spectacular. They do, they lead, they nurture.
They are the backbone of the nation and at the end of the day, it is their practices and beliefs that get passed down to their youngins, who are the future leaders of the Philippines.
Dr Alip had a quote that I love, drawing back to what Eksouheni spoke of in the previous session:
“We are not in the business of insurance. We are in the business of poverty eradication.”
Insurance is not the solution but a mechanism to which we understand and innovative risk.
We are the world’s risk management experts and have a key role to play in driving equity into resilience matters, whether it’s climate protection, sustainable living or the eradication of poverty.
Sentimentally speaking, stories like Covering Nanay remind me that we do more than issue policies/protections.
We are more than pricing and underwriting and sales and claims.
We are more than just balance sheets and audit trails and convoluted policy wordings to get us out of legal trouble.
Organisations are, ultimately, big teams of problem-solvers.
And I like to believe that as a mutual, the problems we address and solve are a little more purposeful than that of commercial folk. Something fathomable and tangibly greater.
It’s an act of service.
Liz Green, incoming CEO of ICMIF, took to the stage and echoed my thoughts.
Cooperatives and mutuals were the original disruptors. We are the purpose-led sector that everyone is trying to copy.
She shared her previous ICMIF conference experiences. From 2015 in Minneapolis, 2017 in London, 2019 in Auckland and 2022 in Rome for ICMIF’s 100th anniversary; there was a turning point somewhere.
A turning point where we were no longer defensive about our mutuality, but positive about it.
Acknowledging and affirmation that we have an innate competitive advantage that cannot be replicated by potent marketing, large salaries and especially not AI large language models. A goodwill, family-factor that cannot be priced in.
Purpose.
With a capital P, cause why not?
It’s at the centre of our decision-making. Our guiding light. Our flag on the hill. Our north star.
It drives our supportive, collaborative nature.
The United Nations have announced 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives, whatever that entails, and with that, the ICMIF have some incredible plans for the year ahead.
With the official conclusion of the 2024 ICMIF Biennial Conference and an admittedly long-winded farewell to Shaun Tarbuck, outgoing CEO of ICMIF - the Young Leaders converged one last time for a debrief and a glass of bubbles.
We were each given one post-it note to write one key takeaway for the whiteboard. A summarising sentence to show what we’ve learnt and will hold dear from the 2024 ICMIF Biennial Conference and Young Leader Programme. After an episode of deliberation and slightly misunderstanding the question, I wrote:
“You’ll never know where you’ll end up - have the audacity to TRY.”
This thought was first planted during the CEO Roundtable Discussion where Jan Kamp Justesen marked some of his success to raising his hand for roles that were admittedly out of his depth - opportunities that came from doing good work and being an excellent colleague. He never thought he would become CEO, but by building his skills and connections in roles he couldn’t have imagined, being a practitioner of innovation which entailed both success and failure - he found himself slotted nicely into the executive chair.
The idea was further reinforced by the myriad of inspiring stories throughout the conference. Again, the Filo chronicle of Covering Nanay comes to mind. In their youth, did Dr Alip or Lorenzo Chan ever think they would be doing something like this? Standing on an internationally renowned stage, sharing how their organisations have contributed to a genuinely brighter future for their country? Moving down a level, did the employees of CARD MBA and Pioneer, from the mothers on the field who share the joys of the product to the claims analyst listening to worries of claimants - think they would be in the business of transforming the world?
Finally, between the multitude of conversations I’ve had with international Young Leaders, my own organisation’s directors and a few select names - I’ve noticed one common thread that interweaves in people I find most admirable.
Non-linearity. In where they’ve resided. In who they know. The sharp yet complementary contrast in what they do for work and what they love to do.
What do you mean you’re a mechanic who raises racing greyhounds for fun? What do you mean you had a brief stint in London or Singapore or goddamn Bermuda? What do you mean you ACCIDENTALLY married into Balinese loyalty?
Life works in exceptionally unusual ways.
Yes, there are those turning points. A post gone viral. A casting director on the street. Closing a 10-million-dollar deal.
They’re never overnight successes.
It’s culminated slowly through the lifestyle we put ourselves in. The actions we take every day. The stories we tell ourselves and that which we absorb from others.
Some call it manifestation. Some call it strategic planning. Some call it a card of wild coincidence and chance but if there’s anything I know, it’s that you’ll never know who or what will influence your next career move, set off a cataclysmic mindset shift or utterly divert the course of your life.
I don’t think we can be ready for these turning points.
But I do think we can be open-minded about them.
So when those opportunities come:
Let’s have the audacity to give it a whirl.
