Scouting for Growth

AI can prepare the quotation. It cannot take ownership of the decision.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, I sit down with Bastiaan de Goei, who leads financial services marketing at OpenAI, for a conversation recorded live at ITC Vegas about what happens when AI moves beyond an impressive demonstration and into the daily work of an insurer. Having worked across AXA and Instabase, Bas understands both the promise of frontier technology and the reality of bringing it into established insurance operations.

The uncomfortable truth is that automating individual tasks is not the same...

Your next AI pilot will not fix an operating model that cannot scale it.

Two rooms. Two cities. One verdict. In this solo episode of Scouting for Growth, I connect the conversations from AI Horizon 2030 in Las Vegas and Majesco’s Frontier Customer Summit in New Orleans, where two very different groups arrived independently at the same conclusion: AI capability is increasingly available. The operating model required to turn it into measurable results is not.

The evidence reinforces the point. Research conducted with my students at Bayes Business School found that 26 of 30 leading carriers have ye...

Insurance has become extraordinarily good at finding the few. The next competitive advantage may come from clearing the many.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, I sit down with Manjit Rana, Executive Vice President for Insurance across the UK, EMEA and APAC at Clearspeed, to explore a deceptively simple question: can insurers establish trust at the same speed at which they are automating decisions?

More than 90 out of every 100 customers coming to an insurer are genuine. Yet much of the industry's fraud infrastructure has historically been designed around identifying the minority that may represent...

AI is changing the economics of business. But it is not rewriting the fundamentals of strategy.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, I sit down with Professor Gianvito Lanzolla, Professor of Strategy at Bayes Business School, advisor to boards and CEOs, and co-author of Diversification in the World of Data and AI, to examine what actually creates competitive advantage when access to intelligence is rapidly becoming ubiquitous.

The uncomfortable truth is that better technology alone does not create a better strategy. Being early to AI can accelerate learning, but scaling before you understand how...

Discovery is becoming abundant. Customer ownership is not.

In this solo episode of Scouting for Growth, I go inside the Distribution Intelligence Layer and examine what happens when AI assistants become a new front door to the market. Customers can increasingly discover products, compare options, generate quotes, and decide what to do next before they ever reach a company website. The strategic question is no longer simply how they find you. It is what happens to the relationship when they arrive.

The uncomfortable truth is that AI may not remove the broker. It may remove...

Four excellent tools can still produce nothing. Intelligence only creates value when it connects, compounds, and scales.

In this solo episode of Scouting for Growth, I introduce the Enterprise Intelligence Stack, a practical framework for understanding why promising agentic pilots stall, why different AI agents can operate with completely different views of the same customer, and why the third pilot can end up costing as much as the first.

The uncomfortable truth is that most enterprises are not suffering from a lack of capability. They are suffering from a lack of composition. Data, models, platforms...

Kevin Maney: The Category Creation Formula for Winning Markets in the AI Era

AI is making products easier to build, but meaningful differentiation harder to sustain. A stronger feature set, a faster model, or simply adding an “AI-powered” label may not be enough to convince customers that a new market should exist in the first place.

Kevin Maney, bestselling author, technology commentator, and founding partner of Category Design Advisors, joins me to unpack the Category Creation Formula: Context + Missing + Innovation = New Market Category. Developed through nearly a decade of fieldwork with more than 50 companies, the fram...

Denise Garth: The Frontier Insurer, One Year In

Denise Garth returns to Scouting for Growth one year after the Frontier Firm idea began to move from a strategic aspiration into insurer operating models, technology roadmaps, and boardroom priorities.

As Chief Strategy Officer at Majesco, Denise offers a sharper test for the Frontier Insurer: Is the organization simply using AI? Is it redesigning selected processes around AI? Or is it rebuilding the enterprise around intelligence, connecting its data, core platforms, people, partners, and decisions? Only the third represents genuine transformation.

The uncomfortable truth is...

Bárbara Fernández: Human-Agent Collaboration, Agentic AI, and the Rise of the Human Boss

The future of work will not be won by humans who move faster. It will be shaped by humans who know how to orchestrate intelligence.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Bárbara Fernández, Deputy Director of MAPFRE Open Innovation and Head of insur_space, to explore one of the defining leadership questions of the agentic AI era: what happens when humans stop doing every task and start directing systems of intelligence instead?

Carlos Falcón: Rebuilding the Insurance Core for AI, Venture Scouting and the Frontier Firm

Insurance does not have an innovation shortage. It has an absorption problem.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Carlos Cendra Falcón, Scouting and Investment Lead at MAPFRE Open Innovation, to explore one of the most pressing questions facing insurers today: can the core of the institution actually absorb the intelligence, ventures, platforms and partnerships being scouted around the world?

Carlos brings a pragmatic perspective from inside one of the world's leading in...

Reggie Townsend: Making Responsible AI Irresistible

Responsible AI has a design problem. Too often, it is treated as a compliance exercise, a policy document, or a late-stage control, when it should be the operating system that enables organizations to innovate with confidence.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden welcomes back Reggie Townsend, Vice President of AI Ethics, Governance and Social Impact at SAS, to explore one compelling idea: making responsible AI irresistible. Drawing on decades of experience helping enterprises embed trustworthy AI into their operations, Reggie explains why governance must evolve from...

Dale Diamond: When a $25K Claim Becomes a $7M Verdict or More

A small claim is no longer a small claim. It can be the first signal of a verdict that changes everything.

Dale Diamond, J.D., Vice President of Claims at NAMICO, joins Sabine VanderLinden to unpack one of the most urgent realities facing mutual insurers today: nuclear verdicts are not random events. They are often predictable. And if they are predictable, they can be prevented.

With more than 30 years of experience across appellate law, bad-faith defense, complex professional liability claims, underwriting...

Willem Paling: From Messy Middles to Autonomous Agents and the Race for Trust at Scale

While the insurance sector has long flirted with artificial intelligence, a vast majority of firms find themselves paralyzed in perpetual pilot phases. In this installment of Scouting for Growth, I sit down with Willem Paling, Executive Manager of AI and Analytics at IAG, to decode the transition from mere experimentation to the realization of operational AI at scale.

Reflecting on IAG’s aggressive deployment—launching more models in the past year than in the previous six years combined—Willem highlights that s...

Patrick Van Deven: The Frontier Firm's moat isn't data — it's the layer that governs it.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Patrick Van Deven to unpack one of the biggest hidden blockers to becoming a true AI-native enterprise: legacy data infrastructure.

As organizations rush toward the “Frontier Firm” vision championed by Microsoft — intelligence on tap, human-agent collaboration, and AI-powered workflows — Patrick argues that most regulated industries are still running on fragmented data pipelines built decades ago. Beneath the excitement around agentic AI lies a critical operational reality: data remains horizontal...

Brad Wetherall: AI Search, Agentic AI, and How Corporations Must Adapt to Digital Discovery

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden is joined by Brad Wetherall, former Director of Operations at Google and current COO of Esquire Digital, to unpack the transformative impact of AI on search engines and digital visibility. 

The conversation explores how search is moving beyond traditional search engine optimization (SEO) to an era where AI agents, neural networks, and zero-click searches are redefining how brands are discovered, trusted, and chosen online. 

Brad Wetherall outlines the emergence of "ag...

The App Era Is Over: Wallet-Native Insurance & the Agentic Frontier — Marc Lampe × Ernesto Suarez Talk Collaboration

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Ernesto Suarez and Marc Lampe to explore why the future of insurance is moving beyond apps and into wallet-native, AI-ready experiences.

The conversation begins with a powerful reminder of why customer experience matters: a traveler stranded abroad, unable to prove they had insurance in an emergency. From there, the discussion unpacks the hidden friction embedded across the insurance journey — especially in claims, servicing, and customer engagement. Ernesto share...

David Daiches: Inside INSHUR — From Manhattan Uber Rides to Insuring Autonomous Fleets

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden speaks with David Daiches, co-founder and COO of Insure, about building insurance solutions for the on-demand economy. The conversation traces Insure’s origins to a simple yet powerful insight: traditional insurance models were not designed for gig workers like Uber drivers, who operate entirely on their smartphones and cannot afford downtime. David explains how Insure addressed this gap by creating flexible, usage-based insurance embedded directly into platform ecosystems.

They explore the importance of “fluency over f...

Alan Martin: Why Insurers Who Invest in Wellness Win - The Healthcare Innovation Playbook still works

In this episode, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Alan Martin, founder of Resilient Risk and Health Solutions, to challenge the fundamentals of life and health insurance. The conversation highlights a growing disconnect between insurers, customers, and the health tech ecosystem, and why current “wellness” programs often fail to deliver meaningful outcomes.

Alan argues that most insurance products remain transactional, focused on payouts rather than prevention and long-term resilience. He introduces the concept of “modifiable risk,” emphasizing that many health risks ar...

Xavier Lestrade: From Insurance to Personalized Care Pathways

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden explores the transformation of health insurance from a claims-paying model to a care partnership approach with Xavier Lestrade, Managing Director of AXA Health International within AXA Global Healthcare. 

The conversation delves into how AXA Global Healthcare is redefining industry standards by transitioning from traditional insurance products to an integrated membership model focused on prevention, personalization, and digital engagement. Together, they discuss the operational, regulatory, and technological complexities of building all-in-one health platforms and the broader mission of combating m...

From Org Charts to Work Charts: What the MIT Frontier Firm Paper Means for Insurance, Finance & Risk

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden explores a 2026 research paper from MIT CISR on how business models are evolving in the age of agentic AI. Drawing on longitudinal data from nearly 2,400 companies, the research highlights a major shift from traditional digital business models toward AI-driven ones. Sabine explains how earlier models, such as supplier, omnichannel, modular producer, and ecosystem driver, have now evolved into four new archetypes: existing plus, customer proxy, modular creator, and orchestrator.

...

The Risk Intelligence Gap: How Exposure Data Deficiency Is Reshaping Property Underwriting

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden is joined by Anthony Peake, CEO of Intelligent AI, to dissect the "Risk Intelligence Gap" reshaping the property insurance landscape. We are both dissecting the recent white paper Anthony commissioned during Q1 2026.

With 93% of UK and 90% of US commercial properties insured for the wrong amount, the discussion reveals why the industry’s vast data resources fail to reach underwriters in a form that is both actionable and trustworthy. 

Sabine VanderLinden and Anthony Pea...

Trust Is the Operating System of the Agentic Enterprise

In this episode, Sabine VanderLinden is joined by Franklin Manchester, Global Insurance Strategic Advisor at SAS, and Steven Abel, Global Technology Partner and Deputy Global Head of AI & Transformation at Oliver Wyman. Together, they unpack the concept of "trust by design" in the context of agentic enterprises and AI adoption. 

The conversation pivots from traditional risk frameworks and compliance-based approaches to trust to the urgent need for architectural and cultural transformations in which trust is embedded in every system and decision. They explore why organizations often c...

In this riveting solo episode, Sabine VanderLinden confronts what she calls "the capacity gap"—a silent barrier that undermines organizational success in today's complex business landscape. Rather than blaming common culprits like strategy, leadership, or talent, she reframes the issue as a structural mismatch between ambitious goals and the finite resources available to deliver on them. 

Drawing from her extensive experience in the insurance sector and referencing compelling case studies from companies like Ping An and Nestlé, Sabine VanderLinden unpacks the math behind the capacity gap and lays out a practical five-step playbook to help leaders bridge it a...

In this episode of "Scouting for Growth," Sabine VanderLinden welcomes Florian Graillot, founding partner at Astorya VC, for an in-depth conversation about the evolving landscape of risk management and insurance innovation. The discussion explores how risk management is shifting from static predictions to adaptive strategies designed for tomorrow's uncertainties, emphasizing the rise of the “frontier firm”—organizations that continuously learn, adapt, and act in real time.

Florian Graillot shares insights from his experience investing across insurtech, cyber, climate risk, and financial fraud, highlighting the increasing importance of technology, data, and AI. 

Together, Sabine VanderLinden and Florian...

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden welcomes industry veteran Karl Grandl, now of Miss Moneypenny Technologies, for a wide-ranging conversation on the real transformation underway in financial services and insurance. 

Sabine VanderLinden sets the stage by emphasizing that digitization is no longer enough—true change means re-architecting operating models for velocity, intelligence, and trust at scale. Together, they explore the pitfalls of strategic complacency, the opportunities provided by European regulation, and the immense potential of intelligence layers and wallet technology to redefine how institutions interact with customers. 

The discussion moves from strategic lead...

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Manish Shah, President and Chief Product Officer at Majesco, to explore the rapidly changing landscape of insurance core systems. 

Together, they examine how AI is shifting the industry from being purely a protector to one that also focuses on prevention and dynamic participation. The conversation covers everything from the persistent protection gap and the urgent need for behavioral—not just technological—transformation in insurance to the practical realities and fears surrounding the implementation of agentic AI systems. 

Manish Shah shares actionable insights on overco...

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden welcomes Gil Arazi—a serial entrepreneur, executive, and leading insurtech investor—to explore the urgent transformation taking place in insurance. Gil Arazi argues that the industry’s traditional role of simply paying claims post-loss is outdated and that prevention is the new north star for sustainable growth.

Their conversation dives into why insurance must shift from risk transfer to risk mitigation, what the future holds as data, AI, and even quantum computing disrupt business models, and how prevention can actually drive profit—not just avoid cost. Gil Arazi introduc...

In this forward-thinking episode, Sabine VanderLinden returns to kick off the year with a transformative discussion on “frontier firms” and the rise of agentic enterprises.

As digital transformation accelerates, leaders face challenges like increasing climate risks, cyber threats, and widening protection gaps—pushing businesses (especially in regulated industries like insurance) to rethink strategies. Sabine explores how trailblazing organizations are leveraging AI not just as an assistant, but as an autonomous driver of capacity and productivity. 

Through practical frameworks and real-world case studies, this episode lays out the playbook for riding the next wave of innovation, resilie...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sangha Penesetti, founder and CEO of goZeal, who didn’t just break the glass ceiling—she installed a flexible skylight.

Today we’ll dive into the economics of equity, why flexible work is not a perk but a performance driver, and how insurers can win by rethinking who gets a seat at the table—and how that table is set.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In my early career, every client meeting I walked into was a room full of men. I was the only...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Marinela Profi, Global Market Strategy Lead for AI, GenAI and Agentic AI at SAS, about the rise of agentic AI and how we will move from hype to real, reliable AI.

In today’s episode, we’ll discuss: Why LLMs alone don’t solve business problems – and what does, how governance is becoming the new frontier of AI trust, and what leaders should expect by 2026, as enterprises shift from experiments to autonomous, explainable intelligence.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A generative AI chatbot is reall...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Andrei Craciunescu, founder and CEO of RiskCube, about why the next generation of insurance will be built like software: adaptive, transparent, and embedded into every business platform.

They also discuss how AI and data are transforming the broker's role from middleman to intelligent orchestrator, and what the insurance experience of 2030 could look like when protection becomes invisible and trust becomes the new currency.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

What companies want from the insurance market is fast underwriting, not to talk with humans...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Rob Schimek, Group CEO at bolttech, about how bolttech’s connector model is redefining global insurance distribution, from telcos to auto makers and beyond.

They also talk about why the future of protection will depend on trust, data and design more than policy documents and premiums, and what leadership really looks like when you are building at the intersection of revelation, innovation, and human impact. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

If you have an hour to solve a problem you should spend 55 minutes on...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to us about all she’s learned from the numerous guests on the show recently, from startup founders who build AI to simplify the chaotic insurance back office, to innovation leaders in Fortune 500 firms wrestling with ethics, regulation, and talent shortages.

After dozens of conversations here’s what Sabine has learned: AI isn’t just changing our tools. It’s changing our temperament.

This episode is her reflection on those lessons; a guide for leaders and builders trying to navigate this new age of intel...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Stephen Brittain, co-founder of InsurTech Gateway, a pioneering venture builder focused on bringing early-stage startups into the heart of the insurance world – a regulated industry that typically moves at glacial speed.

Over the past decade, Stephen has helped launch and scale ventures inside one of the most regulated, risk-averse business sectors on the planet: the insurance space. He has been the spark for innovation inside large insurance corporates and the strategic partner for founders who wanted to navigate the labyrinth of regulation, procurement and di...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Sebastien Denef, CEO and co-founder at AGENTS.inc, a company at the forefront of building intelligent agent platforms for enterprises.

On this episode we explore how agentic AI architectures are reshaping industries, what it takes to scale agentic AI solutions across siloes, and why the winners in this space will be those who master both the technology and collaboration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

You can give a task to an AI agent – a piece of software – that autonomously handles the task. When comp...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Ulrich (Uli) Homann, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft, and Mark Luquire, EY Global Microsoft Alliance Co-innovation Leader, about how to build an agentic AI enterprise that doesn’t just work faster, but works smarter and, most importantly, works for everyone.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In the past automation has been very task driven and specific, things had to go in a certain order and you needed to know that order ahead of time. While you need some of that with generative AI, we now have a...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Laurna Castillo, Senior Vice President of Product at CSAA Insurance Group, a AAA insurer serving millions of customers across the western United States.

Laurna has become a leading voice in reimagining how the insurance industry – and entire communities – can build resilience in the face of escalating wildfire risk. On this episode, Laurna will share her journey, lessons learned from the frontlines of growth, and actionable insights for listeners eager to drive meaningful impact in their own ventures.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The AAA...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Yo Kwon, CEO at Voltaire.Claims.

Together, we pull back the curtain on how enterprise operations (and in particular finance and insurance operations) are being reinvented – not tomorrow, but right now.

KEY TAKEAWAYS          

I was working with my co-founder on Ai technology trying to work out what would be applicable for wider businesses. While we were testing ideas someone was using one of our products to write claims letters.

Adjustors don’t enjoy writing claims letter, especially denials, they lean heav...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Bobbie Shrivastav, co-founder and CEO of Solvrays about building AI-driven workflows that aim to eliminate 70% of manual back office work with governance, auditability, and with human-in-the-loop controls directly built in. They also talk about what makes vertical AI for insurance defensible and measurable, compressing sales and implementation cycles without cutting corners on risk, change management, and how to augment teams as talent retires while new talent ramps up.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

When the work comes into an organisation, not everything is digital. Things...

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amit Santhirasenan, co-founder and CEO of hyperexponential, an actuary and software engineer who has built the AI native pricing and underwriting platform used by leading specialty carriers.

In this episode we cover how to turn messy submissions into structured signals your pricing model can trust – without hiring an army, multi agent architectures, the agentic AI mesh, and the human in the loop controls executives need for auditability and speed, and where agentic underwriting is ready today (and where it isn’t), plus the metrics exec...