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I love having insurance entrepreneurs on the show explaining their ideas and outlining the ambition they have for their business. It's a great way to discover the best opportunities that are out there in the marketplace. And when the guests are highly experienced, with great track records, it just means that we should pay even more attention what they are seeing. That's why I'm delighted that Michael Price CEO (pictured Left), and Kean Driscoll (Right), President and CUO of Dellwood Insurance Group were able to spare time out of their busy schedules to appear on the Voice of Insurance. If you had the chance how would you go about attacking the best business opportunities in the Insurance industry today? For Michael and Kean it's all about exploiting the increased flow of business that is finding its way into the US Excess and Surplus Lines market. The advent of improved technology means that lots of Small Commercial insurance and even some personal lines are now able to take advantage of the more dynamic, responsive and entrepreneurial underwriting environment to be found outside Admitted Lines. Michael and Kean are applying the lessons learned from full careers in insurance and reinsurance to serving areas of high demand in the largest insurance market in the world. Dellwood is a start-up working at a fascinating time, where Insurance distribution is being remoulded and new technologies such as AI are really beginning to come into their own, just as dislocation and large shifts in demand are being experienced in many segments of the market in both property and casualty. Building a brand new player, with no financial, technological or indeed cultural legacy at a time like this looks like a very exciting move, allowing Dellwood to move fast to fill in the gaps and allow capital access to hopefully sustainably profitable pools of risk. Michael and Kean are laser-focused on the job in hand and this podcast is full to the brim of their wisdom and expertise as they look to capitalise on a career business opportunity and build a new premium insurance franchise. If you ever wanted to climb inside the minds of top insurance thinkers and practitioners in full flight, this is your chance. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com
Today is a first. I've had a many senior industry executives on the show who have started their careers as actuaries, but I've never met anyone who already knew when they left school that they definitely wanted to be one. Martin Burke is different and this is what makes him an excellent podcast guest. In his own words he has walked something of a squiggly career path that has brought him to his current position as Chief Underwriting Officer at Lloyd's stalwart MS Amlin. But having walked all the bends in the road to get where he is now has made Martin an extremely well-rounded CUO. It's obvious none of his time spent on reserving, pricing and in the finance and risk departments has gone to waste. To re-run the cliché, actuaries aren't famous for being great communicators, but that just makes the ones who are stand out. Martin has the gift of the gab and that makes him a high value guest to someone like me. An interviewee who can understand and, more importantly, summarise and explain complicated ideas in a way that laypeople can understand, is podcasting gold dust. And when that person is also responsible for profitably growing a £2bn (US$2.5bn) book in today's market, this makes for a complete and satisfying listen. Here we run through MS Amlin's strategy in an evolving market and take in Martin's views on an eclectic range of topics, including the impacts of the latest major loss activity on insurer and reinsurer appetites, the best applications of technology and Ai, as well as his priorities for where he feels the London Market should be developing as a collective as the leadership regime at Lloyd's transitions. I think you'll find Martin fun to spend time with and full of surprises. LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com
This week we talk to Karen Dayal, CUO for Commercial Lines at Aviva UK. We discuss: • The role of a CUO and how to bring different disciplines together to deliver best in class underwriting. • The evolving role of AI within the insurance industry, • Key challenges the industry needs to solve to make progress on DEI.
Today's episode is a real treat. With all Voice of Insurance podcasts the aim is to be able to get to a level of comfort and ease with a guest so that what we end up hearing is as close you can get to listening in on a lively conversation between two good insurance market friends in a bar. This week I think we managed it and that's down to my guest, Nick Line, the Chief Underwriting Officer of Markel International. Nick has had a fascinating career, almost all of it at Markel and one of the forerunner companies that it acquired to make its entry into the London Market in the late 1990s. Nick has been through markets hard and soft as well as reserving cycles plump with redundancy followed by equal and opposite inverse periods of insufficiency and strengthening. You could say he has seen most things – and he also seen those phenomena through different lenses as he started his career as an actuary and only more recently took a more public-facing role. Nick's story is Markel International's story too- as well as that of the evolving London and wider international insurance markets over the last 30 years. As the market has become more technically sophisticated and reserving, pricing, capital and risk have to be measured and controlled, it has become perfectly logical that a CUO might not necessarily be someone who has written a risk in anger themselves We cover quite a bit of history but it is the forward-looking parts of this podcast that are the most rewarding because Nick combines all the technical smarts one would expect from an actuary with the communication skills of the best CEOs. His is a vision of the tech-and-data-empowered underwriter and global insurance market of the future, but one where the magic always still happens at the behest of a human insurance professional. Markel International has grown quickly in the hard market of the last few years and this podcast is a record of a business that has found a groove and is firing on all cylinders. We made this recording in Markel's London office only aided by coffee, tea and water with no beer or wine anywhere to be seen. But by the end it's almost as if the champagne were flowing as tongues and jaws were loosened and expansive ideas were unleashed on the world. This makes for a fun listen that is brimming with smart observations and interesting takes from Nick. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did. We also thank audio advertiser, The Insurance Network (TIN), organiser of the highly-successful TINtech events series. This week they are advertising their successful TINtech London Market event, which will be happening on 4th February 2025. But before then Data Jam, which is focused on exploring the implications and opportunities of data, analytics, AI and automation in the insurance sector, takes place on 28th November at Convene, 133 Houndsditch, London EC3. I'm going to be there. Get 20% off using the code ‘voice' when you sign up Here
Die Themen im heutigen Versicherungsfunk Update sind: Was KMU von Firmenversicherungen erwarten 26 Prozent der kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen wünschen sich von Versicherern Zusatzleistungen zur Steigerung der Arbeitgeberattraktivität. Das können zum Beispiel betriebliche Altersvorsorgelösungen oder betriebliche Krankenversicherungsangebote sein. 28 Prozent möchten Versicherungsprodukte mit Nachhaltigkeitskomponenten in Anspruch nehmen, 26 Prozent sehen Unterstützungspotential in der Durchführung individueller Risikoanalysen oder in der Unterstützung beim Energiemanagement (24 Prozent). Zu diesen Ergebnissen kommt eine aktuelle Studie der BarmeniaGothaer. Münchener Verein stärkt Handwerksbetreuung durch neue Leitung Die Münchener Verein Versicherungsgruppe organisiert ihre Handwerksbetreuung neu und überträgt die Leitung an Landesdirektor Marcus Königbauer. Ab dem 01.01.2025 verantwortet Königbauer die Betreuung zentraler Handwerksverbände und -initiativen. Ziel der Umstrukturierung ist eine effizientere Prozessgestaltung für Handwerkskunden. MLP Gruppe erreicht neue Höchststände bei Gesamterlösen Die MLP Gruppe verzeichnet in den ersten neun Monaten 2024 ein deutlich gestiegenes Ergebnis vor Zinsen und Steuern (EBIT) von 66,4 Mio. Euro (9M 2023: 45,2 Mio. Euro) und Gesamterlöse von 763 Mio. Euro. Besonders starkes Wachstum erzielte der Bereich Vermögensmanagement. MLP bestätigt die erhöhte EBIT-Prognose von 85 bis 95 Mio. Euro für 2024 und plant für 2025 einen weiteren Anstieg auf 100 bis 110 Mio. Euro. Talanx hebt Gewinnziel für 2024 deutlich an Die Talanx Gruppe erzielt nach neun Monaten ein Rekordergebnis von 1,592 Mrd. Euro und hebt das Gewinnziel für 2024 von mehr als 1,7 Mrd. Euro auf über 1,9 Mrd. Euro an. Der Versicherungsumsatz stieg um 12 %, und die Eigenkapitalrendite erreichte 19,4 %. Für 2025 erwartet Talanx nun einen Konzerngewinn von mehr als 2,1 Mrd. Euro. JDC Group erzielt Rekordumsatz Die JDC Group verzeichnet im dritten Quartal 2024 ein Umsatzwachstum von 36,1 % auf über 52 Mio. Euro und steigert das Ergebnis vor Zinsen, Steuern und Abschreibungen (EBITDA) um 41,4 % auf 2,3 Mio. Euro. In den ersten neun Monaten erreicht der Umsatz 158,2 Mio. Euro (+28,7 %). Besonders auffällig ist die positive Entwicklung des Versicherungsgeschäfts auf der Jung, DMS & Cie. Plattform, sowohl in der Personen- als auch in der Sachversicherung. Allianz Commercial stellt neue Vorstandsmitglieder und Führungsrollen vor Allianz Commercial gibt Änderungen im Vorstand der Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE bekannt. Tracy Ryan hat auf eigenen Wunsch entschieden, am Jahresende aus dem Vorstand der AGCS SE auszuscheiden. Shanil Williams übernimmt ihre Aufgaben Anfang 2025. Parallel dazu rückt Vanessa Maxwell ab dem 1. Dezember 2024 in den Vorstand auf und übernimmt die Rolle des CUO von Shanil Williams. In diesem Zusammenhang wird Jarrod Schlesinger die Nachfolge von Vanessa Maxwell als Global Head of Financial Lines and Cyber antreten. Jenise Klein übernimmt die neu geschaffene Position des CUO in Nordamerika. Gabrielle Durisch wird ab dem 1. Dezember 2024 Chief Sustainability Officer bei Allianz Commercial.
A Republican-led House subcommittee is urging the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute former Governor Andrew Cuomo for allegedly lying about his response to the pandemic. Meanwhile, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams plans to close all ten upstate hotel shelters for migrants by year's end. Plus, expect increased security and street closures for the 2024 New York City Marathon this weekend. Finally, a jury is now in place for the trial of Daniel Penny, the former Marine accused of killing Jordan Neely on the subway last year. WNYC's Samantha Max has the latest.
Laudetur Jesus Christus - Ngợi khen Chúa Giêsu Kitô Radio Vatican hằng ngày của Vatican News Tiếng Việt. Nội dung chương trình hôm nay: 0:00 Kinh Truyền Tin : Của cải vật chất không lấp đầy cuộc sống 7:28 Điểm sách : Cuộc đời – câu chuyện của tôi trong lịch sử 15:37 Giáo hội tuần qua --- Liên lạc và hỗ trợ Vatican News Tiếng Việt qua email: tiengviet@vaticannews.va --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vaticannews-vi/support
This week's The Leadership in Insurance Podcast focuses on all things Cyber and AI - where I am joined by Caroline Thompson, CUO, Cowbell.
Welcome to Insurance Covered, the podcast that covers everything insurance. In this episode we are doing something a little different, Peter is joined by an ensemble cast of experts to answer the question, in the Star Wars universe, could the Death Star be insured, and if so, what policies would cover it.Peter is joined by:Bruce Carman, CUO at Hive Underwriters Calum Lamont KC, Barrister at Keating ChambersNeil Fleming, Space Risk Analyst at Ascot GroupPaul Miller, Compliance Recruiter at HFG In this episode we cover:What exactly is a Death StarIf an aviation war insurer would consider insuring the Death Star and what the concerns of underwriting the Death Star would be Whether there would be a claim resulting from the inherent design flaws that resulted in it's destructionIf any kind of space insurance would cover the Death Star in a similar way in which it would insure satellitesThe answer to the question: Is the Death Star insurable.We hope you enjoyed this episode, if you did please subscribe to be notified when new episodes release. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Today's guest is Robert Wiest CEO of MS Re. After a long and distinguished career in both insurance and reinsurance, much of which was spent at Swiss Re, Robert took on his latest role in September 2022. With prominent career roles in both P&C and Life - in Europe and Asia Robert is an extremely well-travelled and well-rounded professional and this broad experience shines through in the podcast. Robert is comfortable on any subject and he's the sort of person with whom anyone could strike up a rapport. MS Re has rebranded and re-set the image it wishes to project out into the market and because of that we talk a lot about this mid-sized reinsurer's strategy, appetites and growth plans. It's clear from this meeting that the business has a strong idea of how to differentiate itself and maximise the benefits of the fertile reinsurance markets of 2024. But we also talk in detail about long-term big-picture topics as far-ranging as market digitisation artificial intelligence and how the industry should be attacking the problem of insuring the transition to net zero. Robert's definitely one of us and is very generous with his insights. Listening back this encounter is packed with the learnings of a distinguished career and buzzes with the energy of someone with unambiguous ideas and lots of experience combined with the time and clear opportunity to execute upon them Robert's clearly enjoying his new role and I think you'll really enjoy this episode. NOTES: We mention Charlie Goldie, MS Re's CUO. Charlie features in the State of (Re)insurance 2023 Episode: https://thevoiceofinsurance.podbean.com/e/special-ep-the-state-of-reinsurance-2023/ LINKS: We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank our audio advertiser, Aventum Group Please contact them on: voi@aventumgroup.com
We grab Kenny Day to walk us through what he felt with the 2024.5 Rockstar Edition chassis, CUO, suspension as well as the engine character of this new bike. Is it worth the extra cost? Should you stick with what you got? Get some knowledge in this episode.
Today's podcast carries on where we left off after the State of the Reinsurance Market Special Episode which was released after the Monte Carlo Rendez-Vous of 2023. At Monte Carlo what everyone said they wanted after the great re-set of a year ago was orderliness. Buyers and seller alike wanted a period of rational calm after the storm which could be used to clear some of the debris and to rebuild strained relationships. And calm and rationality is what everybody got. Reinsurance capital, profitability and crucially, confidence all recovered and we ended with a largely flat renewal overall. The aim of this podcast is to see how this bodes for the year ahead and the longer-term strategic direction of the reinsurance market for those who work with it, buy from it and invest in it. The big question is how long can the good times last for the newly-re-set and now highly profitable reinsurance world? Have reinsurers hauled themselves up to a peak, only to start sliding quickly down the other rockface, or have they scaled up the side of a ridge onto a new highly profitable plateau upon which they will stay encamped for as long as they can? To help me answer this, I have been able to speak to representatives from three of the top four reinsurance broking groups. David Priebe, Chairman of Guy Carpenter (pictured left) and James Vickers Chairman of Gallagher Re International (middle) are two of the longest-serving senior executives in the business and David Flandro Head of Industry Analysis and Strategic Advisory at Howden Tiger (right) is one of the sector's longest-tenured analysts. They have all been providing insightful commentary on the industry for longer than I have been an insurance journalist and I have been interviewing them all for almost 20 years. I really had fun with these three interviews and the subsequent time spent blending this highly accomplished and eloquent trio's thoughts together. It was a bit more work that usual, but I think it's good value-added exercise and I hope you find it as useful as I did. NOTES Here are links to the reports and commentary I mentioned: Howden Tiger - A New World https://www.howdengroupholdings.com/sites/g/files/mwfley1156/files/2023-12/a-new-world-2024.pdf Gallagher Re – What a Difference a Year Makes https://www.ajg.com/gallagherre/news-and-insights/2024/january/what-a-difference-a-year-makes/ Guy Carpenter - January 1, 2024 Reinsurance Renewals Reflect a Motivated Market with Increasing Capital https://www.guycarp.com/company/news-and-events/news/press-releases/january-2024-renewals.html David Flandro mentioned Charlie Goldie, CUO of MS Re. He appeared prominently in both the 2022 and 2023 Monte Carlo Special Episodes – check the 2023 one out here: https://thevoiceofinsurance.podbean.com/e/special-ep-the-state-of-reinsurance-2023/ ABBREVIATIONS WACC = Weighted Average Cost of Capital TIV = Total Insured Values SPONSOR We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo: https://www.advantagego.com/
Strongly correlated electron systems, i.e. systems where the interaction between electrons cannot be treated as an effective potential, are an extremely fascinating, but also very challenging topic in modern solid state physics. The challenge arises in parts due to the simultaneous importance of non-local kinetic and local correlation effects, which make it important to treat both at equal footing. For this reason Dynamical Mean Field Theory (DMFT) has in the last decades become the state of the art method for electronic structure caluclations of strongly correlated electrons as it includes local correlation effects exactly, but also respects kinetic effects in terms of an embedding approach. In this talk, we will first motivate our interest in strongly correlated materials by giving an example regarding the fascinating properties that these materials can exhibit. This will be followed by an intuitive introduction to DMFT. Finally we present results from our DMFT studies of two strongly correlated systems: BaOsO3 [1] and tetragonal CuO (t-CuO) [2]. [1] MB, Jernej Mravlje, Martin Grundner, Ulrich Schollwoeck, and Manuel Zingl, Phys. Rev. B. 103, 165133 (2021) [2] MB, B. Bacq-Labreuil, M. Grundner, S. Biermann, U. Schollwoeck, S. Paeckel, and B. Lenz, SciPost Phys., 14, 010 (2023)
Tony chats with Chris Schrenk, CUO at NeuralMetrics. They focus on solving issues for small business insurance. How do we identify a small business? How do we identify their real attributes? It all started with classifying the operation of the business and now also helps the underwriter get a lot of other information to help them quickly and properly underwrite the account.Chris Schrenk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-schrenk-b50a439/NeuralMetrics: https://neuralmetrics.ai/Video Version: https://youtu.be/sKcs2xpCOyM
Today on the occasion of National Press Day , Radio Koraput talked to Dr.Sourav Gupta , Asst.Proffesor , Dept.of J&MC , CUO , Koraput on the impact of Artificial Intelligence on Media .Listen here
[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: A strong board of directors is essential to the success of any non-profit organization. The board of directors plays a critical role in providing guidance, oversight, and support for the organization's mission and operations. There is no cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all when it comes to Nonprofit Board Governance and Board Service. However, there is a lot we can learn from people who are active on the Boards of high impact and highly effective nonprofit organizations. Over the past 104 issues, we have devoted a lot of time to this topic. From time to time, we will highlight excerpts from some of these conversations. Today is the 3rd time we are compiling these excerpts. I will have links to the previous two episodes in the Episode Notes. Christin McClave has over 20 years of corporate leadership, beginning her career with Johnson & Johnson and serving in senior leadership in her family's large automotive aftermarket business – Cardone Industries. Christin has served on and continues to serve on several nonprofit and corporate Boards. I've been in this business a long time and I've worked with probably 300 or 400 boards, over the last 30 years. And if I look at them, I would say a lot of the time they're males. They might be closer to my age than your age. And now things are changing. So, what are you seeing, or maybe what are you doing to lower the mean age on a board and to maybe bring more gender and ethnic diversity? [00:01:43] Christin McClave: So, I think we see a lot of changes in the general demographics, right? As our society and culture are changing. The positive thing is there's so much more diversity coming up through the leadership ranks. And I think the traditional way that we've, I'll say we, because I've done it myself as well, when we've needed a new board member on a board, I instantly think about who have I worked with before? Who's like me, who thinks like me, who would be easy to plug and play into this board that I'm on? And so that's been our traditional way of pipelining onto boards. Let's find people who we know and who we know could be very quickly successful and contribute value to this board. I think what we've learned over the last couple years is that doesn't necessarily bring diversity to these boards that we are trying to diversify. And we've seen the pressure coming from the public sector the SEC, not quite regulations, but suggestions that we need a certain percentage of diversity on the public boards. And there's a lot of pressure in the market for that. And then that has trickled down its way to nonprofits and to the private sector. So, everyone is looking to diversify their boards at this point. And I think, a key piece of the job requirements that we have in the past always assumed on larger boards, I'll say. And most boards in general, everybody's wanted, okay you need to have a CEO or CFO or a C level executive. But preferably a CEO or CFO who's been in the chair before. And I've had people say that to me as well, that's what they're looking for. And I think we know just from sheer data that a lot of women and diverse candidates in general haven't had those opportunities. We are definitely developing that pipeline now and being very much more intentional. But I think like through the past few years and now looking at the talent market being as hot as it is and the demand for diverse talent we have, we are at the place we need to take a look at those very narrow criteria that we've said, oh, you have to be a C-level executive to be on a board and to be able to contribute value. And I think, now I've seen a lot more being written, a lot more being talked about, diversity coming onto boards where I'm reading someone's background and I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Maybe 10 years ago that person wouldn't have been chosen for that very significant board seat. So, I think we've opened up our criteria and have opened up our thought process and how we see people's experiences. We're looking at people's resumes really differently these days. From an HR perspective in internal, when we're screening candidates we took the requirement of having a college degree off of our requirements, probably, about 10 years ago, which was a little bit ahead of our time, but it just opened up our talent pool and we realized there are a lot of people out there that may not have a bachelor's degree but are way more experienced with their life and work experience that we were not being able to tap into because we had that very strict requirement. So, I think we're seeing that across the board at all levels, including at the board level. +++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:05:34] Tommy Thomas: Alvin Sanders, President & CEO of World Impact, a nonprofit that focuses on redemptive poverty and cultural proficiency in the urban community. Alvin and his Board are huge proponents of the Policy Governance Model - an integrated board leadership paradigm created by Dr. John Carver. I'm asking people these days about bringing younger people onto boards. And philosophically, do you have a position on that? And then I'll ask a follow up. [00:06:10] Alvin Sanders: Yes, we try to hold it at nine, because we think a smaller board is better for getting things done. And I think in terms of thirds, a third of our board, we want gender diversity, a third of our board, we want age diversity, a third of our board, we want racial diversity. And then we want half and half, what I would say, marketplace people. These are business folk, and then the other half ministry people. Because if you have all marketplace people, the ministry gets lost. It's been my experience. And if you have all ministry people, the business of running the organization gets lost and it loses knowledge and expertise. So that's my philosophy of how you have you bring a board together. But you definitely need people, especially since I just read the other day that millennials now are the most dominant generation numbers wise. It's no longer Baby Boomers. It's never been my generation, Gen X. We're the forgotten generation, I think. Nobody gives a rip about Gen X, but Millennials now are it and you're just being silly if you don't have Millennials on your board. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:23] Tommy Thomas: Caryn Ryan, Managing Director at MissionWell, an organization that provides financial and strategic counsel to nonprofit organizations. Caryn is the former CFO for BP/Amoco and World Vision International. She currently serves on corporate and nonprofit Boards. I want to ask you one question then I'll close. So, my next to the last question has to do with succession planning and the board. At what point should that begin to occur? And how does the board address that without the CEO thinking “I'm a short-timer”? [00:08:04] Caryn Ryan: Okay. Yeah, that's great. I'm dealing with that right now at one of the boards that I sit on. And I've just dealt with that last year as well. And it works both ways if it works all, all different ways. So let me just talk about one where the CEO does get the feeling. If you have this conversation that they're a short timer. I want to just say first of all, that can sometimes go back to the trust issue again, right? When there's a lack of trust between the board and the CEO then, and you bring up the succession of the question of succession planning, the first thing that goes of course into the CEO's mind is, oh, I'm getting fired. I'm a short termer here. So that has to again, be addressed, the trust issue, before you can have productive conversations around succession planning. But even longer term issues are going to take some time to get resolved. There's something you can always do on the succession plan that's very short term and that every single board must have in place. And that is you need a succession plan in case of an emergency. If your CEO becomes ill is hit by a bus, or whatever, you need an emergency succession plan that is an interim structure or very well thought through way that you'll manage in the absence of the CEO. And usually, it's not going to bring out the same negative feeling for the CEO. On the part of the CEO because they understand that, oh yeah, if I'm not there, we need to have some interim structure. And so, they'll begin helping the Board and thinking through, look, okay, if something happens to me, let's make this person on our staff the interim, or let's pull this Board Member out and see if they'll be the interim. Or they'll start to engage in the ideas for how that could work in interim a structure. And as long as you can get that interim structure put in place and everybody's in agreement that it's workable, that then gives a chance during the interim structure for the Board to go out and begin doing a search to find a replacement candidate. Regarding succession planning for a Founder – S/he just might not be willing to step aside. They might have created a whole lack of number twos in the organization who can step in, even in an emergency. It just may not be anybody. So that's a different situation where the board needs to probably, in addition to working on trust, which can be very difficult with the founder. You might be off the board if you start having those kind of conversations. But what you can do as a board is do your research. How would you do a search? You can get your research done on executive search firms who could step in and help you. You can just keep in mind, and Tommy, you're the one who should be telling your podcast listeners this, but it's a long process to do a search. You've got to set up a search committee. You got to figure out how you're going to recruit the person. You've got to have an approach. You have to execute it, you have to review the candidates. It's just really time consuming. You at least have to think through all of these, how that's a minimum thing, even if it's a founder situation. I'd say two things. Number one, for sure, have an interim emergency succession plan, no questions asked. That's an absolute minimum mandate for every board. And number two, if you're on a founder board, you have to do some special extra work along the side with networking, quiet networking, just to figure out the process and figure out how you would do, how would you do that if something did happen to your founder, if your founder's not willing to participate or help with that. Does that make sense? ++++++++++++++ [00:11:33] Tommy Thomas: Rich Stearns, President Emeritus at World Vision US. Prior to joining World Vision, Rich was CEO for multiple organizations in the private sector, thus reporting to their Boards. He cut his teeth on nonprofit Board Governance as President of World Vision US. When I interviewed you back in 2017 you mentioned that from your perspective, the best thing that the World Vision Board did for you when you came on was you recalled an offsite retreat where y'all got introduced to each other. Could you share a little bit about that with us? I think we probably have a lot of up and coming CEOs listening and that might be an interesting discussion. [00:12:14] Rich Stearns: Yeah, I don't know how much that costs. Probably not much, but it was the best money World Vision ever spent. When I came into World Vision the Board and the CEO had what I'd call a turbulent relationship. He wasn't thrilled about his board and the way they behaved, and the Board wasn't thrilled about him in certain ways. And so, I was coming into kind of a troubled marriage, right? You could say there'd been a divorce, and I'm the new husband coming in. And so, the Board had enough wisdom to say, you know what, we should start off on the right foot here. Why don't we hire a board consultant to come in and do a two-day retreat with a new CEO to teach the Board and the new CEO, how best they should interact and communicate with one another. So, a friend of yours and mine named Bob Andringa, he's retired now, but he was in the Board consulting business. He's written at least one book, if not several. He came in and he conducted a Board Governance 101, 102 course for all of us. And gave us tools to use and dealt with different scenarios of here are the dos and don'ts for Board Members. Here are the dos and don'ts for the staff and the CEO. Here is the best way to understand your responsibility as Board Members. This is what your responsibility is, and this is what your responsibility is not. This is the role you play. This is the role you don't play. And same with a CEO, Rich, your role is this the board's role is to establish policy. I guess the best way to say it is it laid down the ground rules for a healthy relationship. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I had a 20-year honeymoon with my board. Not that there weren't an occasional, marital argument over the years. But it was like a 20-year honeymoon with the board. And I respected them, they respected me. My staff, when I first started, after a year, they said, boy, you've had a one-year honeymoon with this board. It's amazing. Because they'd seen some of the dysfunction in the prior years. And 20 years later, they were still saying you're still on your honeymoon. And I in terms of my response, what I attribute it to, is what I talked about earlier, Tommy, that the board knew they could trust me. I would never tell them a lie. I would never hide anything. I was completely transparent. Anything they wanted to talk about at a board meeting, we could talk about. Any numbers they wanted to see, we'd show them. If I had some bad numbers, I'd bring them to the board and say, look, this is not good, and here's what we're going to do. They never felt I was hiding anything. And so that created trust as well. [00:15:03] Tommy Thomas: One of the guys that you've influenced over the years is Joe Mettimano at Central Union Mission. And when I interviewed Joe there, he talked about a lesson he learned from you about the president's report to the board. He would attribute part of his success to what he learned from you there. Tell us about that. [00:15:22] Rich Stearns: I started every board meeting with a president's report. So, the Board is gathered, in the case of World Vision they've flown in from all over the country, and here they are at the World Vision board meeting and remember, they're all volunteers, some are pastors, some are business people. They're from all walks of life and so I tried to use the President's Report to basically bring them up to speed on what was going on at World Vision. What were the important issues? What were we doing about the important issues? How are the finances doing? I tried to answer as many questions as they might have in advance. Because the rest of the board meeting, the finance committee was going to meet and other committees were going to meet. And I tried to use the President's Report to cast a bit of a vision for where we were as an organization, where we're headed, what my outlook was for the coming year or the coming quarter. And I try to use the Board Meeting to really cast a vision to remind them of the mission of World Vision. Often, I would start with a trip report. I've just gotten back from the Syrian refugee crisis, and I want to tell you what I saw. I would remind them, we're sitting here in a nice boardroom, but people are dying all over the world. And our job is to intercede for them to help them to rescue those who are perishing as the book of Proverbs says. And so, trying to remind them why they were here, why World Vision was here and then look under the hood at, the financials, the numbers, the revenues, the overhead, and you had to deal with issues like real estate transactions and mundane stuff like that. I wanted to always to put it in the context of the bigger mission, vision and values of the organization. My President's Report would sometimes go 90 minutes to two hours which is a lot. But usually, the board would say that was the highlight of the meeting because that really brought them up to date on everything. +++++++++++++++= [00:17:16] Tommy Thomas: Paul Maurer, President at Montreat College. Paul is a student of Board Governance and identifies as a “governance nerd”. Paul is on his second college presidency and has learned a lot – some through the school of hard knocks about effective Board Governance. And a lot of people that I talk with, there's a move toward lowering the mean age of the board and increasing diversity. What kind of experience have y'all had at Montreat around those issues? [00:17:45] Paul Maurer: We're intentionally trying to increase diversity. We've not found that to be an easy pathway, but we are we are committed to it. And on age I would just gently push back on the median age lowering. I'm very much of the Aristotelian camp that young people have less wisdom. And part of what you want for board members is wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes with age and the hard knocks of life and just the journey of life with gray hair and getting beat up occasionally. And I want younger people on the board, but that's less common. They're actually very hard to get on the board because they're less qualified candidates in my view, and they're uber busy with career and family. So, the young members, the 30 somethings, I have on my board, I have two of them. They're like up to their eyeballs, four or five kids each, they're CEOs or leaders in their own rights and rising in the ranks. And these people have large portfolios and enormous demands on their time. Then my 70- and 80-year-olds, and I even have a 91-year-old board member who I recruited at the age of 87. And he said to me, he said, Paul, what if I die? And I said, Bill what if I die? We're all going to die. You've got a lot of gas left in your tank. You've got enormous amount of wisdom. And you may have others who think that you're too old to be a board member. I don't think that at all. And if a day should come when your health has slipped, your metro capacities have slipped, we'll have that conversation and we'll have it openly and honestly. Honestly the seventies, eighties, and 90-year-old trustees I have are easily among my best trustees. They're phenomenal. [00:20:04] Tommy Thomas: Let's change over a little bit to the board aspect of being a president. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make between, say, reporting to the CEO as a cabinet member and then as the President reporting to the Board? [00:20:20] Paul Maurer: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm a bit of a governance nerd. I really think about and study governance. I did that in my doctoral work. I do it as a college president in nonprofit governance. And so, the president needs clarity. What is the role of the board? What is the role of the president? What's the role of the relationship and what's the role of everyone else on campus in relationship to the board? And so, in the world of board governance, there are working boards and there are policy boards. Startups tend to have working boards, like true startups, like really small organizations. More established organizations. If they haven't transitioned to a policy board, they probably ought to consider doing so. Because you don't really want a board involved in the operations of an organization. And so, I'm deeply grateful that my board gave me the lead role in board development, meaning recruitment of new board members, training of board, the board policy manual. And we have a great board today, and they really understand that the board should not be involved in operations. That's the CEO's job but should be sure that they're being fiduciaries, that they're making sure there's a strategic plan that's being carried out their success along the way and that they manage or evaluate. They don't manage, they evaluate the presidents. They hire and fire the president, the CEO. I do think that my argument would be that it's more important for a President to be a CEO than a President. The President is, as I think of a bit of an old model for college leadership, it's rooted in what I think is not a very useful model of shared governance. I think the CEO is a better model, but you also need a CEO who's sensitive to campus dynamics and the idea that consensus really matters. And a consensus building CEO I think is the best model, but I think that the CEO also needs to be the CUO - the Chief Urgency Officer. Because things are changing so fast. Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Two Previous Best of Board Governance Episodes: 2023 – Best of Board Service Part 1 2023 – Best of Board Service Part 2 Episodes Featuring These Excerpts Christin McClave – Insights into Board Governance Rich Stearns – President Emeritus World Vision US – An Inauspicious Leadership Journey – Part 2 Alvin Sanders – Board Governance Caryn Ryan – Board Governance Paul Maurer – Board Governance Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn
[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: This week, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Paul Mauer, the president of Montreat College. If you missed that episode, we've talked about what one writer has referred to as the “Miracle at Montreat”. Today Paul is sharing lessons that he's learned about nonprofit board governance over the years. Let's change over a little bit to the board aspect of being a president. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make between, say, reporting to the CEO as a cabinet member and then as the President reporting to the board? [00:00:40] Paul Maurer: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm a bit of a governance nerd. I really think about and study governance. I did that in my doctoral work. I do it as a college president in nonprofit governance. Your board policy manual really matters. It matters because your board needs clarity. The president needs clarity. What is the role of the board? What is the role of the president? What's the role of the relationship and what's the role of everyone else on campus in relationship to the board? And so, in the world of board governance, there are working boards and there are policy boards. Startups tend to have working boards, like true startups, like really small organizations, more established organizations. If they haven't transitioned to a policy board, they probably ought to consider doing so. Because you don't really want a board involved in the operations of an organization. I'm deeply grateful that my board gave me the lead role in board development, meaning recruitment of new board members, training of board members, and the board policy manual. And we have a great board today, and they really understand that the board should not be involved in operations. That's the CEO's job but one should be sure that they're being fiduciaries, that they're making sure there's a strategic plan that's being carried out, their success along the way, and that they manage or evaluate. They don't manage, they evaluate the presidents. They hire and fire the president, the CEO. I do think that my argument would be that it's more important for a President to be a CEO than a President. The President is, as I think of a bit of an old model for college leadership, it's rooted in what I think is not a very useful model of shared governance. I think the CEO is a better model, but you also need a CEO who's sensitive to campus dynamics and the idea that consensus really matters. And a consensus building CEO I think is the best model, but I think that the CEO also needs to be the CUO - the Chief Urgency Officer, because things are changing so fast. And if the CEO is not leading change with a great sense of urgency, then I think the institution puts itself at some measure of risk. [00:03:21] Tommy Thomas: You've served on other boards, and you've reported to at least two, give me some attributes of a great Board Chair. [00:03:29] Paul Maurer: I think the central role of a Board Chair is to manage the board. It's not principally to be a person of wealth or to be connected to persons of wealth. I don't think that's the right model for a Board Chair of a college. I think the right model is someone who understands nonprofit governance and manages the board meeting to meeting because the board ultimately is the boss of the President - CEO, only during those board meetings. So the board chair needs to constantly instill clarity in the board to encourage them and steer them away from being involved in operations from directing the presidents, and to maintaining the role of being an overseer that the CEO reports to three times a year or however many times a year that board meets. The best chairs I've worked with really understand governance and really do well in managing the board's expectations of what that governance entails. [00:04:41] Tommy Thomas: How does a good Board Chair draw out the silent board member? [00:04:47] Paul Maurer: In our board meetings, we have blocks of time for plenary sessions for the big picture items. And there's always time in there for dialogue and for feedback. And there are times when we build into our board meetings. When I give my board report, I give a little bit of a board update, a little bit of a report, and then I just open the floor to questions. And so there's just this open dialogue that I have with my board during the president's report at the beginning of the day and then the middle of the day during plenary sessions. If I'm informing or bringing an action item to the board as a whole, we are sure to build in time for dialogue, deliberation, questions, understanding, and in between board meetings, I'm sending information on kind of the latest update on what's happening in my world. So, they're getting articles on a regular, semi-regular basis that if they're able to take time to read them helps keep them abreast of the most pressing issues that I'm facing on a regular basis. [00:06:04] Tommy Thomas: So how often do you and your Board Chair, do y'all have regularly scheduled times or is it as needed? How do y'all relate to each other? [00:06:12] Paul Maurer: I'm aware that friendship is a tricky element in these things. I happen to have a very deep and strong friendship with my board chair, which preceded him coming on the board and he became a board member. And now as chair and I've changed my mind on this, Tommy, because there was a time earlier on when I thought that those were mutually exclusive and now, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it can work very healthfully. And now I actually try to cultivate friendships with my board members in a way that I didn't early on in my first presidency, certainly not early on at Montreat. And so I think that dynamic when healthy is a really powerful part of making it work well. Any model can be abused. Any model can go awry. And I've seen that and I've heard about it an awful lot. I've experienced it. But I've also experienced the flip side of that, where a really meaningful friendship can also be the basis of a really healthy CEO-Board Chair relationship. [00:07:34] Tommy Thomas: Can you think back as to, you mentioned early on at Montreat you hadn't gotten there yet. What changed? [00:07:43] Paul Maurer: In the relationship with my board chair? [00:07:46] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, how did you make that transition from thinking it wasn't healthy to realizing that it could be healthy? [00:07:52] Paul Maurer: I guess experiencing it along the way, initially without intending it to be that, and I went, this actually works. And so, when my current chair, when I began discussions with him about, because he had led a major healthcare nonprofit and grown it from a $25 million budget to $125 million budget. He had led a nonprofit. He had worked in that sector for all of his career in healthcare, not in education. And so, I knew that I wanted him to be my next board chair when that time came. And so it was really then that I began to think in this kind of new model that maybe there's a way for and as I look back, I've actually had these like really healthy relationships with my past two board chairs here at Montreat. And gosh, what a better way to do it, and it really is possible. It eventually dawned on me that I could intentionally pursue that. [00:09:01] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a term limit for your board chair? [00:09:04] Paul Maurer: Five years, but it's year to year, up to five years. [00:09:09] Tommy Thomas: And what about your board members? [00:09:10] Paul Maurer: Nine years, the terms are three years renewable, two times for a nine year max with a one year minimum required off before renomination. One of the changes we made here was that every three-year term we do the board does self-evaluations for those that term and peer evaluations for those that come to term. There's an honest, self-reflective, peer reviewed process that goes through a committee on trusteeship every year for those at a term to ask the question, is this going well? Is this a time to continue on or a time to step off? And so it's not a nine, it's not a nine year. Every three years we talk about it. [00:10:08] Tommy Thomas: Is that fairly common in the nonprofit sector from your experience? [00:10:12] Paul Maurer: The board policy manual that we use was the work of Bob Andringa who was the CEO of the Council for Christian Colleges Universities some years ago. And Bob developed the BPM (Board Policy Manual) that we use. And as I understand it, there are 60 or 70 or 80, I think mostly CCCU schools that have adopted some version of Bob's work. And I just think it's so well-crafted and we of course made it ours with Bob's permission. And it's just a really, it's a really well done, thoughtful way to do governance. ++++++++++++++++++++ [00:10:53] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people that I talk with, there's a move toward lowering the mean age of the board and also increasing diversity. What kind of experience have y'all had at Montreat on those issues? [00:11:03] Paul Maurer: We're intentionally trying to increase diversity. We've not found that to be an easy pathway, but we are committed to it. And on age I would just gently push back on the median age lowering. I'm very much of the Aristotelian camp that young people have less wisdom. And part of what you want for board members is wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes with age and the hard knocks of life. And just the journey of life with gray hair and getting beat up occasionally. And I want younger people on the board, but that's more, that's less common. They're actually very hard to get on the board because they're less really qualified candidates in my view, and they're uber busy with career and family. So the young members I have, the 30 somethings I have on my board, I have two of them. They're like up to their eyeballs, four or five kids each, they're CEOs or leaders in their own rights and rising in the ranks. And these people have large portfolios and enormous demands on their time. Then my 70- and 80-year-olds, and even I have a 91-year-old board member who I recruited at the age of 87. And he said to me, he said, Paul, what if I die? And I said, Bill what if I die? We're all going to die. You've got a lot of gas left in your tank. You've got an enormous amount of wisdom. And you may have others who think that you're too old to be a board member. I don't think that at all. And if there comes a day when your health has slipped, your metro capacities have slipped, we'll have that conversation and we'll have it openly and honestly. Honestly, the seventies, eighties, and 90-year-old trustees I have are really easily among my best trustees. They're phenomenal. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to this quote. You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant, someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does. [00:13:39] Paul Maurer: I think I would probably not gravitate toward the word irritant, and I would say I, I'd probably substitute something a little softer than that, that you want to be objective and you want to be able to deal with the hard issues. And frankly, the CEO ought to be leading the way on that, not a board member. I think it's fine for a board member to raise difficult or uncomfortable matters, and I certainly have board members who do that, and I think that's fine and it's healthy, but I think that can come by from different means, and it can come without it being quote unquote, maybe I'm just hung up on the word irritant. I think you can have really robust, difficult, honest, truthful conversations without it being irritating. [00:14:40] Tommy Thomas: Okay. Talk about your philosophy or your use of the executive committee? [00:14:48] Paul Maurer: I think it's vital and extremely valuable in a healthy board situation, and I'm qualifying a lot of my comments with a healthy board because I've worked for both healthy and unhealthy boards. I happen to be working for a very healthy board in my time here at Montreat. And so the executive committee functionally is a decision that needs to be made quickly between board meetings and the CEO either doesn't have the authority or just wisely wants the board to help own that decision and goes to the executive committee in between board meetings for a fast decision. Early in my time here, I used that executive committee with more frequency than I do now. But I don't have the number of fires now that I had back in 14, 15, 16, 17. And so I still use the executive committee, but it's less frequent and the larger board has fully embraced the executive committee in that way. [00:16:01] Tommy Thomas: How often do you use the executive session? [00:16:04] Paul Maurer: Every board meeting, we have two executive sessions, one with the president and one without the president. Actually in inverse order - the first without the president. And then I'm brought back in for executive session with the president and where I'm told what was discussed in session without the president fully briefed and then engaging in a conversation where it's just me and the board in whatever they want to talk about freely, they don't feel free to talk about necessarily with a cabinet in the room. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:16:37] Tommy Thomas: We mentioned strategic planning a few minutes ago. Does your board, are they involved in that, or do you and your staff bring that to the board? [00:16:44] Paul Maurer: The latter in our board policy manual, the board's role is to approve a strategic plan recommended by the president and to receive updates and make sure that the CEO is making progress on the strategic plan. And so I give reports on the strategic plan, but the board is not involved in the creation of the strategic plan. [00:17:07] Tommy Thomas: How does the CEO evaluation take place at Montreat? [00:17:11] Paul Maurer: So I submit a set of goals to the board on an annual basis that are metrics tied to the strategic plan, and they're evaluated at the end of the year. And we, in our executive session, have a conversation about my delivery toward those goals. [00:17:32] Tommy Thomas: Is that on an annual basis? [00:17:35] Paul Maurer: It is in our policy manual. It is an annual activity. [00:17:39] Tommy Thomas: How have you and your board addressed board turnover? In terms of maybe involuntary or voluntary? I guess people decide they don't have time. They don't enjoy it. How are y'all doing with that? [00:17:53] Paul Maurer: We've grown our board over the years, but we've certainly had people who, I had two resignations in this last run up to my board meeting last week. And they were just personal situations that they felt like they just needed to focus on some personal matters that they didn't feel like they could do justice to their service on the board. And we regretfully accepted their resignations. But in those cases, it had nothing to do with the college or the board or it was purely personal. That's mostly what we've experienced over these years. Most of our trustees go to term and we have them term out after nine years. We celebrate them and thank them. We've grown our board from our bylaws. Say that we can have between 12 and 36. It's a very wide range. When I first got here, we were in that 12 to 15 range for a number of years. Maybe ironically, maybe not. Ironically, during covid we had just a tremendous breakthrough in people saying yes to joining the board. I do a lot of board cultivation with board members who are bringing prospective trustee names to the table. We have a very robust list of prospective trustees at all times. Somewhere between 10 and 15 on our prospect list. And some go fast, some go slow, some never materialize. We're about 20 board members today. Our target is to get in somewhere between 25 and 28. [00:19:31] Tommy Thomas: What kind of strategy do you use to keep that list at 15 to 20? [00:19:36] Paul Maurer: Probably closer to 10 to 15. Yeah. And that's really the work of the committee on trusteeship to surface names. We also have, as we recruit new board members in, they bring fresh names to that list. So we're constantly messaging like that. That's a document. That's a living, breathing document. And some people stay on the A-list, some move to the B, some move to, we ask and they said no. We've got six or eight tabs on that spreadsheet, and it's constantly a living, breathing kind of document. [00:20:15] Tommy Thomas: This might be a mundane question, but I hear it asked a lot. Do you have a board meeting evaluation fairly regularly, or how do y'all approach that? [00:20:25] Paul Maurer: Every board meeting, as soon as the board meeting is over, they get a email in their inbox asking them to fill out an evaluation of the board meeting. They've just finished. We give just a small number of days to do that so it's fresh in their minds. And then the Committee on Trusteeship takes that feedback which is both on a Likert scale as well as open comments available to, for them to make. And then that is discussed at the next committee on trusteeship meeting. And we're always trying to get better and refine and bring some changes to how the board meetings are conducted. And those surveys have served a very valuable role in that way. [00:21:09] Tommy Thomas: What did you learn through Covid that you'll take forward? That maybe you didn't do before Covid in terms of board relationships and board governance? [00:21:19] Paul Maurer: One of the observations I made during Covid was man, we're in this together. And my board chair is a public health expert, as I mentioned before and when Covid hit I remember calling him in early April and I said I don't have a clue how we're going to reopen. Can you help us? And he said I'd love to help you. And I said I've developed a friendship with the other four-year residential college presidents here in Western North Carolina. There are four privates and then a couple of major publics. Would you be willing to help them too? And he said, absolutely I would. That group of six presidents plus my board chair met on a zoom call at noon every Wednesday for a year and a half to figure out how to open residential both years of covid. And that was a powerful experience of teamwork and collaboration and friendship and setting aside the inevitable competition that exists between these institutions and saying, there's a bigger picture here, and I think the benefit of that was very great for all of us. The second thing I'd point to is that the level of fear that I observed during covid was something I'd never seen before, how widespread, how deep it was. And so the word courage became a central concept that whatever we did, we needed to really lean into the courage of critical thinking and what's best for the institution, what's best for the students and the staff here. And there was no one size fits all in Covid in vastly different circumstances in different parts of the country. Vastly different realities of the impact of covid with different age groups and so we had to make decisions for 18- to 22-year-olds in our campus and our employees. That's how we had to make decisions. And you can't possibly have state mandates or county mandates or federal recommendations fit every circumstance. And we made decisions that we believed to be in the best interest of our community. And we took some criticism for that. But overall, I would say that those who chose that kind of a pathway were probably more rewarded than not. +++++++++++++++++++= [00:24:20] Tommy Thomas: I'll ask you two final questions and we'll try to land this thing. Go to the board and the CEO's succession plan. What have y'all done there to ensure some sort of untimely succession? [00:24:35] Paul Maurer: So we're actually just starting that conversation like literally last Friday at the board meeting with kind of keyman questions. And we haven't done a lot there on the longer question of succession. I've started thinking about that. I'd like to stay longer. I don't really have an interest in retirement. Not at this point anyway. And today I'd love to go another decade or so. We'll see what happens. But I'm increasingly of the mind that the best succession plan is to bring one or more people onto your team who may have the potential and groom them. Talk openly about succession and see what happens with the possibility that the CEO can actually play a central role in the recommendation of his or her successor. The way the church does this, and the way colleges and universities do this, in my experience the pastor and the president really play very little role at all. Either limited or none. And the more I've been thinking about this and talking to peers about this, the less that makes sense to me. And again, in a healthy situation, the board I think could and should rightly lean on and engage at a very deep level, the CEO of the college to say, what do you think? Who do you think we should hire? What are the core competencies? Can we get that person on board? And so, what I'd like to do in the years ahead is get two or three, maybe even four people on my cabinet who have the potential capacity for becoming a college president and see if we can't raise one of them up into the role as my successor. Whether that works or not, I can't predict that, but that to me seems like a wise model if you can do it healthfully. [00:26:43] Tommy Thomas: What are you going to say if you get a call next week from either a friend or maybe someone you don't know that says Paul, I've been asked to serve on a nonprofit board. What kind of council are you giving somebody who's considering a nonprofit board service? [00:27:00] Paul Maurer: It ought to be done with a significant measure of time, talent, and treasure. It ought to be a major commitment of yours if you're serving on lots of nonprofit boards. Unless you're willing to put this new one at a higher level of commitment than the others, maybe you shouldn't do it. I think that the best board members of nonprofits are vested. They've got skin in the game. They're giving of their time, their talent, and significantly of their treasure. The treasure's the hardest one, I think. We ask all of our trustees to commit to Montreat being a top three philanthropic priority prior to trusteeship. And that's a stumbling block for some people. But I think in the end, it also fosters the creation of a board that has skin in the game and that really is serious about the future of the institution. It's not a casual kind of volunteering. It's a serious kind of volunteering. [00:28:13] Tommy Thomas: It has been great. Paul, this has been so much fun. Thank you for carving out an hour and a half of your time for me. I appreciate it. [00:28:20] Paul Maurer: Tommy, I've enjoyed it very much. You ask a lot of very good questions and I'm certain that your podcasts are of great value to those in leadership and those thinking about leadership. So, thank you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:28:32] Tommy Thomas (2): Next week, we're going to conclude the conversation that we started with Caryn Ryan and Episode 84. In that conversation, Caryn shared her leadership journey from BP/AMOCO to CFO for World Vision International to her current role as Founder and Managing Member of Missionwell. In next week's episode, Caryn will be sharing lessons on nonprofit board governance that she's learned over the years. [00:29:04] Caryn Ryan: There's a lot of financial literacy questions there. So how can you ask tough questions if you can't read the financial statements or financial reports and understand them? And sometimes there's issues with what's delivered to boards too, in terms of information, but sometimes it's just a basic lack of understanding. I think too, there's also a fundamental issue that sometimes with boards, they don't get enough board development or board training and they really just don't understand their key role when it comes to accountability. And so, they don't understand that it's their job to ask the tough questions. ++++++++++++++++ Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Montreat College Website The Miracle at Montreat Montreat College Facebook Montreat College Instagram Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Paul Maurer's LinkedIn Profile
Welcome to Insurance Covered, the podcast that covers everything insurance. In this episode Peter is joined by Bruce Carman, Founder and CUO of HIVE Underwriters. They will be discussing aviation war insurance.In this episode we cover:Why Bruce set up HIVE.How war insurance (risks) became separate from 'all risk' policies. How plane hijacking played a huge role in the war risks market.The impact the 9/11 attacks had on war insurance. What can be covered by the term 'war' (cyber attacks, political meddling, spying, other malicious acts). Typical exclusions and limitations from war risk policies. How war and terrorism risks are rated and the research that goes into these decisions.We hope you enjoyed this episode, if you did please subscribe to be notified when new episodes release. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Laudetur Jesus Christus - Ngợi khen Chúa Giêsu Kitô Radio Vatican hằng ngày của Vatican News Tiếng Việt. Nội dung chương trình hôm nay: 0:00 Bản tin 14:44 Kinh tế Phanxicô : Giáo dục và công bình (tiếp theo) 21:26 Gương chứng nhân : Cuộc sống truyền giáo ở Nam Sudan của cha Michael Bassano --- Liên lạc và hỗ trợ Vatican News Tiếng Việt qua email & Zelle: tiengviet@vaticannews.va --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vaticannews-vi/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/vaticannews-vi/support
We at Radio Koraput interacted with Prof.Himsnshu Mahapatra , visiting professor in Dept.of English at CUO , koraput .He spoke on the way of writing in different platform .The talk is in Odia .Media persons and those who are writing in social media could benefit from the interactin
Laudetur Jesus Christus - Ngợi khen Chúa Giêsu Kitô Radio Vatican hằng ngày của Vatican News Tiếng Việt. Nội dung chương trình hôm nay: 0:00 Bản tin 13:01 Kinh tế Phanxicô : Nông nghiệp và công bình (tiếp theo) 19:12 Gương chứng nhân : Cuộc đời dấn thân cho hoà bình của ông Merwun và bà Kirstin De Mello --- Liên lạc và hỗ trợ Vatican News Tiếng Việt qua email & Zelle: tiengviet@vaticannews.va Đăng ký nhận tin tức qua email: https://www.vaticannews.va/vi/newsletter-registration.html Theo dõi / follow Kênh Vatican News Tiếng Việt tại: - Website: https://vaticannews.va/vi.html Mạng xã hội: - Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/VaticanNewsVI - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vaticannews.vi - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vaticannews.vi - Twitter: https://twitter.com/vaticannewsvi Podcast: Vatican News Tiếng Việt - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0CPs2j2U9FGs6ktulHKcEn?si=F7LRAlscQdeYzxiGXirn6w - Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy80YWM3MWQ4MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw - Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/vatican-news-ti%E1%BA%BFng-vi%E1%BB%87t/id1551917143 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/vaticannews-vi/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/vaticannews-vi/support
JD Weisbrot and Joe Lynch discuss the JW Surety Bonds Story. JW Surety Bonds is the largest writer of the BMC-84 Freight Broker Surety bonds and the largest privately owned surety agency in the country with over 70+ employees and 50,000 customers nationwide. About JD Weisbrot JD Weisbrot is the Founder, President and Chief Underwriting Officer of JW Surety Bonds and has been in the surety industry for 22 years. In his role, JD focuses on the creation and implementation of in-house surety underwriting standards within the Underwriting Department, managing surety partner relationship, overseeing and managing surety loss trends and long term strategy relating to surety markets. During his tenure as President and CUO, JW has been instrumental in developing JW Surety into a leading player in the surety bond market. JW Surety Bonds is the largest writer of small commercial surety bonds in the United States and is the largest writer of the BMC-84 Freight Broker bond in the Country. About JW Surety Bonds Founded in 2003 by JD Weisbrot, JW Surety Bonds is a national surety bond provider that specialized in freight broker, construction, and numerous other types of surety bonds. Headquartered in Pipersville, PA JW Surety bonds is licensed on all 50 States able to offer surety and insurance products across the United States. JW Surety Bond is the largest writer of the BMC-84 Freight Broker Surety bond and is the largest privately owned surety agency in the country with over 70+ employees and 50,000 customers nationwide. Key Takeaways: The JW Surety Bonds Story JD Weisbrot is the Founder, President, and Chief Underwriting Officer of JW Surety Bonds, the largest writer of the BMC-84 Freight Broker Surety bonds and the largest privately owned surety agency in the country with over 70+ employees and 50,000 customers nationwide. In the podcast interview, JD and Joe discuss surety bonds basics along with how JD founded JW Surety Bonds. The BMC-84, also known as a freight broker surety bond, is a specific type of surety bond that protects shippers/motor carriers, which is required by the Federal Motor Carrier Association (FMCSA) to obtain a brokerage authority. To meet the requirements of becoming a licensed freight broker, you have two options: obtaining a freight broker bond (BMC-84) or a trust fund (BMC-85). They both offer advantages and disadvantages depending on the needs of you and your brokerage. Read our detailed article to determine whether you should get a BMC-84 or BMC-85. As of October 1st, 2013, freight brokers and forwarders are required to secure a $75,000 freight broker bond. However, highly qualified freight brokers may also opt for an additional $25,000 in bond coverage to provide extra protection for their shippers and motor carriers. Learn more about how you can stand out from the freight broker crowd with an excess bond. Learn More About the JW Surety Bonds Story JD Weisbrot LinkedIn JW Surety Bonds on LinkedIn Freight Broker E-book Guides About JW Surety Bonds Freight Broker Bond Guide Freight Broker Salary Guide The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube
Across every racing platform, there has been a wave of young, fearless and “balls to the walls” drivers. They challenge the old guard. This Week's Wind Tunnel shines a spotlight on two that have taken on NASCAR's “Old Guard”.Ty Gibbs burst onto the NASCAR Premier Level Scene one year ago when he took the win in his very first Xfinity start. Since then, his meteoric rise has been stuff of legends. During his stop inside the Wind Tunnel, this phenom recounts his season and why he doesn't let pressures get to him.The path to stardom for watermelon farmer Ross Chastain has been a winding one. His 1st Cuo win came this season and his playoff run is in full swing. When Chastain drops in to the Wind Tunnel he shares his “take no prisoners” philosophy and how he sees his season. If you are a dirt track Modified fan you will enjoy this week's Advance Auto Parts Victory Lap. Craig Von Dohren is Grandview Speedway's winningest driver and is considered the king of the Pennsylvania dirt modified “Posse”. He shares his passion for dirt racing and “Modifieds in the Mud.”All that and the weekly Wind Tunnel racing update on this Episode of Jack Arute's Wind Tunnel!
We hear from Hayley Robinson, global CUO at Zurich
Rich and Rob are back to preview the T20 Cricket World Cup Semi FinalNew Zealand v EnglandPakistan V Australia2 huge games of cricket in what has been an amazing T20 World Cup so far.
In the eighth episode of Unreserved, RenaissanceRe's CUO for property Justin O'Keefe and CUO for casualty and specialty David Marra sit down with Inside P&C's US News Editor, James Thaler. The reinsurance executives explain why the January renewal is likely to be tough for property and how strong underlying rate gains have to led to heavy demand and less differentiation among reinsurers for casualty quota share business. Plus, they share their thoughts on developing a view of risk in an inflationary environment.
In this episode, Alban interviews Jean Roy, Chief Underwriting Officer at Zurich Canada for an in-depth discussion on understanding the role of the CUO, the key components of combined ratio, the impact of volatility on earnings and how inflation manifests itself on an insurance company balance sheet.
In insurance and reinsurance we hear a lot of talk about partnerships, but in truth we know that many relationships are marriages of convenience or indeed opportunistic liaisons that are not designed to last. If I was a reinsurance buyer I would like my reinsurer to be committed to supporting me in the long term and someone who was unlikely to run away if I have had a bad year. I'd like to be able to confide in them and I'd really value it if they were perhaps even a little boring in their consistency. Javier San Basilio the CUO of Mapfre Re is very much the embodiment of this old school of reinsurer. I really enjoyed spending time with someone able to give a calm and considered analysis of the state of the reinsurance market today and I think you will too. Listen on for valuable insights and a sense of where Mapfre's steadily increasing influence is likely to be felt in the run-up to 1.1 and beyond. LINKS We thank our naming sponsor AdvantageGo - enabling an enterprise view of exposure: https://www.advantagego.com/ We also thank Claims Direct Access (CDA) for their support today: https://www.claimsdirectaccess.com/
Episode 14 - Your Drinking Buddies Aren't Your Friends with Tyler Newton | Segment 1 - The Intro | Mental Health Check Last week StuffFuze loses a Good Friend (RIP Kayla) Sydney McLaughlin LOX vs Dipset Mental Health in Podcasting Charlie Kirk is still an Idiot Introducing Tyler Newton Endorphins and DopamineExercising helps DepressionMen are Angry and need an outlet Authenticity vs Audacity What are your stress levels? Stress for Stress Is Alcohol controlling your Life Charleston Food and Bev Group Tyler's Wife is an amazing cook Kicks in the Dick | Segment 2 - Do We Care |Alen Hadzic is a LoserWTF is a safety plan for accused Sex Offenders?Simone Biles Had the TwistiesJoe said Cuo gotta goCuomo Be TouchyWhere there's smoke, there's fireHugs lead to HR?She Hulk with the XFInding common groundSuicide in the Racist's Attic “I'm not Racist, I just share Racist memes”| Segment 3 - Make time for your HealthTwo alpha people datingSet goals for your Health Lack of PreparednessExcuses, Excuses, ExcusesHealthy MentalityWealth is HealthCoaches need CoachesCalories IntakeAlcohol is a DrugWill meal plans fix us? Love for the Beer BelliesGardening relieves StressTyler offers discount for our listeners Pardon My Sarcasm 14 playlist: | 8 out of 10 - Drake || Bad Habits - Ed Sheeran || Ready or Not - The Fugees | |Honey - Mariah Carey feat the LOX | | Raise Hell - Sir the Baptist | |Say It Ain't So - Weezer | Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/PardonMySarcasm)
On Social Media Behaviour -Talk with Prof.Sourav Gupta , CUO, Koraput
EDITOR'S NOTE | Duy Tin Disclaimer: Để cuộc trò chuyện giữ được sự chân thật và tự nhiên, tập podcast này sử dụng nhiều tiếng Anh và có thể khiến người nghe không thoải mái. Thính giả vui lòng cân nhắc trước khi nghe! Tuần này, chị Ly và mình sẽ bắt đầu một cuộc trò chuyện để tìm hiểu và thách thức những định nghĩa về thất bại và thành công trong học tập và công việc ở những năm tuổi 20 ở Việt Nam. Chúng mình sẽ tiếp cận dưới góc nhìn của những quyết định ở độ tuổi này mà chúng ta thường trăn trở để đưa ra, có thể nói đến một số khía cạnh như suy nghĩ bỏ học đi làm kiếm tiền trước khi tốt nghiệp đại học, sự thiếu sót trong việc giáo dục phân biệt giữa nghề và ngành, sự khác biệt trong lựa chọn làm việc ở Hà Nội hay Sài Gòn, môi trường start-up hay corporate, và còn cả niềm trăn trở muôn thuở về việc đi làm nhưng không biết đam mê của mình là gì nữa. Bên cạnh đó, chúng mình cũng chạm tới khái niệm career break hay trong tiếng Việt mình hay gọi là thất nghiệp chủ động, work life balance, nhảy việc nhảy ngành sau một vài năm đi làm full-time ở những năm cuối của tuổi 20. Mình tin đây sẽ là một episode không nặng nề về cảm xúc, ít nhất là so với chủ đề của tuần trước, nhưng sẽ lại cực kỳ thực tế với các bạn thính giả đang trải qua và cùng chia sẻ những trăn trở này với chúng mình. Cuối cùng thì tuần này, cả ‘the finding audio' team đã có một buổi gặp gỡ để tổng kết lại chặng đường hơn nửa season 1 vừa qua. Chúng mình cảm thấy vô cùng biết ơn sự ủng hộ của các bạn thính giả với mỗi tập podcast được phát hành vào 6AM thứ 4 hàng tuần trên Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, hay cả những tương tác trên instagram và facebook nữa. Sắp tới, ‘the finding audio' dự định sẽ thực hiện một campaign mang tên “fail forward, fail better” (“ngã về phía trước, ngã tốt hơn”) với mong muốn lan toả thông điệp của chúng mình về việc bình thường hoá những thất bại hay sự dễ bị tổn thương, và rằng mỗi chúng ta đều là những sản phẩm đang trong quá trình phát triển và hoàn thiện (a work-in-progress). Mình cực kỳ háo hức để có thể chia sẻ kỹ hơn về những dự định này với các bạn trong thời gian sớm nhất! Cảm ơn Dreamplex Coworking Space đã đồng hành và hỗ trợ 'the finding audio' thực hiện podcast này. Host: Yênly Trần, Duy Tin Producer: Pinkie Nguyễn, Hoa Lê, Trung Dũng --- VỀ 'the finding audio' ‘the finding audio' là podcast series về chủ đề ‘Failure & Success (Thất bại & Thành công), Vulnerability & Resilience (Sự dễ bị tổn thương & Sức bật tinh thần)'. Thông qua câu chuyện của hai host Yênly và Duy Tin, cùng khách mời và các bạn khán thính giả, 'the finding audio' mong muốn bình thường hóa những thất bại hay sự dễ bị tổn thương - điều mà chúng ta ít nói tới trong cuộc sống hàng ngày, để chứng minh rằng việc đi tìm sức bật tinh thần là một hành trình mang tính cá nhân nhưng không hề một mình; cùng với đó là thông điệp ‘We are always a work-in-progress'. Season 1 được phát hành vào thứ 4 hàng tuần tại Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts. --- GIỮ LIÊN LẠC NHÉ Instagram: @thefindingaudio Facebook: The Finding Audio Podcast: http://bit.ly/thefindingaudio Email: thefindingaudio@gmail.com Do
In the 2nd Property and Casualty episode, Nick Nudo, CUO for North America Property & Casualty Reinsurance @ SCOR shares some thoughts on the January 2021 renewal season.Nick was previously Team Leader and Casualty Treaty Reinsurance Underwriter and subsequently Chief Underwriting Officer of US Treaty Operations. Before joining SCOR in 2009, he spent three years as an underwriter at XL Reinsurance America. He graduated from Illinois State University with a Bachelor of Science in Insurance in 2000. He is based in Chicago.
Prof.Sourav Gupta of CUO,Koraput speaks on Ashok Kumar & Kishore Kumar .Interesting conversation
Nick Lamparelli, Co-Founder and CUO of reThough Insurance Corporation, discusses the future of inland marine, tips for maximizing success in a work-from-home environment, and his greatest takeaways from interviewing industry giants.
Dr.Sourav Gupta , Asst.Professor at CUO,Koraput speaks on Teacher Preparedness in an e-class
This week Nick interviews RSA's Chief Underwriting Officer, Adrian Sweeney, to find out about the turnaround he has achieved during his time there as well as his advice and learnings from his previous international executive underwriting roles at Zurich. Adrian's global executive experience makes him one of the leading CUO's in the world, so this is a great opportunity to find out how he got to where he is today and what advice he has for others on a senior leadership career path. Adrian shares his philosophy of helping and empowering the people who work for him and also gives us his thoughts on how insurance business leaders should adapt to be successful in the future. Listeners can reach out to Adrian after the show via his LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-sweeney-4aab69/ or on his email adrian.sweeney@uk.rsagroup.com (although please be respectful of his time). This episode is hosted by Nick Hoadley, CEO of leading international insurance executive search firm, Insurance Search. If you would like to contact Nick about the podcast or to discuss any executive search assignments, please email info@insurance-search.co.uk or call (+44) 203 9488 501.
Future of journalism & Journalists - Conversation with Prof.Sourav Gupta , CUO , Koraput
Suggestsd books to read for Journalists By Dr.Sourav Gupta , Asst.Proffesor , CUO , Koraput
We've interviewed well over 100 people in 2019 and you can hear most of them on the InsTech London podcasts. Our guests share fantastic insights - whether on stage speaking to us at our events, or for Matthew's longer in-depth interviews. The leaders from insurance companies, the founders and CEO of technology companies (small and large) that they are working with and others that are truly influencing the shape of the industry. Over the break we've been looking to see what consistent themes have emerged during our chats to some of the leading figures from a handful of the largest and most well-known insurance companies in the world. Some of the most frequent topics that came up were: Why it's important to look at the customers' problems when considering innovation opportunities. How data is really being used, with a particular emphasis on what the future of IOT holds. The importance of partnerships between insurtech and other technology providers and insurers. The emergence of the augmented underwriter. How to encourage innovation throughout a large organisation. We're starting off the year with the specific thoughts on these topics pulled from conversations with some of our most popular guests: Sean Ringsted, Chief Digital Officer for Chubb (episode 35) Graham Elliott, CEO & Founder of Azur Underwriting (episode 37) Adrian Jones, Head of Ventures & Strategic Partnerships at SCOR Global P&C (episode 42) James Slaughter, CUO for Commercial Speciality at Liberty Mutual (episode 47) Kelly Ward, AXA Partners on stage at Instech London in November (episode 55) Michele Williams, Head of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty's central innovation unit XSE (episode 56) This episode will give you a useful taster of our full interview (or a chance to hear the highlights again) but the originals are definitely worth a listen. Take a look at the full list of episodes at https://www.instech.london/podcasts Also - find out what we are thinking each week by signing up to our newsletter InsTech London Podcast Host: Matthew Grant Produced by Simon Fyles: simon@instech.london Edited by Peter Roach: visualmonkeys.co.uk
One of our most lively and most popular events so far - in this, the second half of our "Reverse Pitch" event from The Steelyard that we held on 24th September, Matthew Grant is on stage talking to Hayley Maynard, Chief of Staff to the CUO of Allianz ACGS and Karl Stanley VP Technology Ventures, Renaissance Re. Two great guests from two of the world's biggest insurers. You can find out highlights from every speaker on the night - and what help they are looking for - on the event section of www.instech.london Enjoyed this? If you haven't found the first half yet - it's Episode 49. Please do drop us a line if you like what we are up to - or what to know how you can get involved with InsTech London (made in the UK but connecting globally) to Hello@Instech.london. And we are still offering our Insurance Insider free copy - more details here - http://campaigns.insuranceinsider.com/instechlondon/
In this episode, I sit down with Nick Lamparelli. CUO of ReThought Insurance, Partner at Insurance Nerds. Consistently in the top 50 of the most influential people in Insurance Technology….and quite possibly the busiest man in the Insurance Industry. Nick can be most conveniently found on LinkedIn: @nicklamparelli To learn more about Insurance Nerds and Nick’s Podcast “Profiles in Risk”, visit: www.insnerds.com To learn more about Chris and the Drone Trainer: www.thedronetrainer.com Facebook Twitter Instagram To support The Adjuster Show, please visit: AP-AdjustingFacebook Twitter Instagram
On this episode of The Laws of Style, Fashion Lawyer Douglas Hand sits down with the one and only Nick Graham, the Former Founder and Chief Underpants Officer of Joe Boxer, and current CEO of his eponymous line, Nick Graham. Nick shares his first foray into garment-making (it's like the premise for a Steinbeck novel), his zany adventures as CUO of Joe Boxer, shares his thoughts on the current state of fashion and marketing, and makes a HUGE revelation about a future project. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Tony Cañas is a CPCU, MBA, Insurance Nerds Co-Founder, chief motivator, blogger, insurance expert, speaker, and communicator of the millennial generation, who will soon make up over 50% of the workforce. He is from Costa Rica and moved to the U.S. in 2002—and has been in the insurance industry since 2009. Carly Burnham is a CPCU, MBA, Insurance Nerds Co-Founder, chief editor, and currently a New Product Development Manager at Explore information Services, and is involved in the Presque Isle CPCU Society Chapter, CPCU Society New Designee Community, CPCU Society Underwriting Interest Group, CPCU Society Leadership and Managerial Excellence Interest Group, and the Commercial Underwriting Training Program at Erie Insurance. Nick Lamparelli is a CUO of rethought Insurance and a partner at Insurance Nerds, he is a 20-year veteran of the insurance industry. He moved from home and auto insurance to being a commercialized broker. The three members of the Insurance Nerds join us to discuss how they formed the Nerds and the role they play in mentoring and preparing new talent for the industry. “Young people don’t get exposed to insurance like they do to any other type of industry or technology.” – Nick Lamparelli. “A lot of us in the insurance industry are searching for fulfillment in our work.” – Carly Burnham. “Today it is essential that you build a network both inside and outside your company” – Tony Cañas. Today on Spot On Insurance: How did Tony get started in insurance? What were the challenges that Tony faced initially?? What drew Carly to the insurance industry? How did Tony and Carly get to know each other? What brought Nick into insurance? How is the industry changing to accommodate younger people? How do management styles and empowerment affect working in insurance? Why are people looking towards side hustles and gigs as opposed to a long-term career? How does fulfillment and purpose play a role in careers and our working lives? How did the Insurance Nerds take form? Which insurance industry conferences and organizations offer the most value to new industry members? What is Insurance Nerds Day all about? What is some advice for young professionals that are looking to get established? Key Takeaways: Success in the insurance industry comes down to education, experience and networking You need to make sure that people know who you are both within your company your industry and outside of your industry. If you want to be successful become known Don’t be afraid to ask for the wisdom of others Connect with Tony: linkedin.com/in/tonycanas Twitter TonyCanas4 Connect with Carly: linkedin.com/in/carlyburnham Twitter CarlyABurnham Connect with Nick: linkedin.com/in/nicklamparelli Twitter Nick_Lamparelli This episode was brought to you by….. Insurance Licensing Services of America (ILSA), America’s Premier Insurance Compliance and Licensing experts. To learn more about ILSA and their services, visit ILSAinc.com. Connect, Learn, Share Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of Spot On Insurance. For more resources and episodes, visit SpotOnInsurance.com. Subscribe so you never miss an episode. Love what you’re learning, Spot Light your review on iTunes and share your favorite episodes with friends and colleagues!
En mi anterior artículo de este blog me inventé el concepto CUO para referirme a un experto en usabilidad en el mundo real. Un seguidor en Twitter, (de los pocos que se leen estos artículos), me indicó que ya existía un nombre comúnmente aceptado para tal actividad, el de CXO, es decir, un experto en experiencia de usuario. Esto me ha llevado a varias cosas: La primera y más obvia, que no lo sé todo. Lo recalco, porque algunos vendedores de humo, sobre todo en el sector de la innovación y la asesoría en desarrollo de negocios, áreas a las que me dedico, dicen saberlo todo. La segunda cuestión, es que Google no me ha servido para localizar el contenido que buscaba. Antes de inventarme el concepto de CUO estuve investigando y no localicé el puesto de CXO. Es cierto que no es habitual y hay pocas referencias al mismo, pero "no me salió nada" en el buscador. Esto demuestra que Mr.G es mejorable. ¿Cómo mejorar un buscador? Por ejemplo con Inteligencia Artificial (AI). Pero... se supone que Mr.G ya utiliza inteligencia artificial en su motor de búsquedas [Referencia 1]. Hay que recordar que el objetivo de Mr.G es proporcionarme mejores resultados para mi perfil, lo que quiere decir que intenta aprender de mis búsquedas anteriores y mis preferencias. Pero ¿qué pasa si mis restricciones de privacidad son máximas, no permito que me geolocalice, ni que guarde mi historial de búsquedas anteriores? ¿Qué pasa si hago búsquedas sobre temáticas que no tienen nada que ver con nada anterior? La respuesta es que Mr.G no sabe realmente lo que me interesa. De vez en cuando utilizo un buscador de las alternativas a Mr.G [Referencia 2], en particular el buscador Duckduckgo, sobre todo cuando quiero hacer búsquedas en otros idiomas o por otras regiones, lo cual es más complicado de lo que parece con Mr.G porque por mucho que le diga que quiero buscar en el .com en idioma inglés me geoposiciona por IP de origen de mis búsquedas y eso afecta a los resultados. No soy un experto en IA, sin embargo, si escuchamos varias charlas sobre el tema enseguida nos daremos cuenta de que hoy por hoy las IAs se plantean como inteligencias aplicadas a un objetivo en concreto, con una orientación, para un segmento del conocimiento, y nunca como una IA generalista. ¿Recuerdas la IA que Facebook apagó porque había desarrollado un lenguaje propio de comunicación? El asunto dio lugar a muchos titulares sensacionalistas en los medios menos serios. [Referencia 3] La realidad fue muy distinta, y es que la IA fue apagada porque dejó de cumplir con el objetivo para el que había sido diseñada. Así que siguiendo estas pautas, necesitamos una IA que sepa discernir lo que buscamos de lo que no cuando los términos son ambiguos. Si busco un tema relacionado con la ciencia, no quiero resultados de ciencia-ficción. El buscador debería permitirme contextualizar mi búsqueda, y la IA encargarse de descartar aquellos contenidos que se salen de mi contexto. Para esto es necesario una IA, porque no quiero que me descarte todos los textos en los que aparece la palabra "ficción", sino los que hablan de ciencia-ficción, que no es lo mismo. Referencias (puedes verlas simplemente identificándote como suscriptor de este blog): [restrict userlevel="subscriber"] Google utiliza el sistema de Inteligencia Artificial RankBrain en su motor de búsqueda.
Bienvenidos al nuevo cargo que toda empresa tendrá en el futuro. En realidad deberían tenerlo ya, pero como no es así, sólo espero que se ponga de moda lo antes posible. Ojalá veamos montones de ofertas de trabajo para el puesto de CUO, consultoras y empresas especializadas en externalización del servicio de CUO, certificaciones de calidad relacionadas... He buscado el término de CUO en Mr.G y no he visto nada parecido. Es probable que se le llame de otra forma, pero a mí me gusta CUO, le aporta importancia, suena a grande como el resto de términos anglosajones para definir los puestos de dirección de toda la vida en la empresa. Si tenemos en cuenta que este puesto como tal no existe, qué mejor que utilizar su correspondiente anglicismo para acompañar al resto. CUO: Chief Usability Officier. Actualización: Javier Alonso ha sido el único que me ha arrojado luz sobre el tema, y el cargo que estaba buscando se le conoce como CXO de Chief Xperience Officier. No, no me refiero al experto en usabilidad web, a ese arquitecto de usabilidad, a ese especialista en UX, al experimentado diseñador de prototipos visuales, no. Estoy hablando de un tipo normal y corriente que sea capaz de ponerse en el lugar del cliente allá donde vaya, y no precisamente en el mundo digital sino en el mundo físico. Repito: en el mundo físico. Estoy cansado de tiendas del revés, grandes por dentro y las colas de gente por fuera. Entradas por donde se debería salir, techos donde no hace falta y descubiertos donde debería estar tapado. Fuentes de luz inapropiadas, chorros de aire frío o caliente que impactan directamente sobre el cliente, distribuciones absurdas de espacios... Muchas tiendas no venden y no saben por qué, acaban cerrando y le echan la culpa a lo primero que se les ocurre. Da igual que sea una tienda de barrio que una multinacional con marca. A todas les pasa lo mismo. Desde la mala elección de la ubicación, pasando por la poca profesionalidad del vendedor hay un sinfín de errores que se repiten una y otra vez: si no vendes es porque algo haces mal. Y punto. Podría ser que has elegido mal el sector o el producto. Eso tiene mal arreglo. Pero salvo flagrantes excepciones eso es lo de menos, el problema es que no sabes vender y que la experiencia de usuario en tu tienda es nefasta. Hacen falta profesionales de la experiencia de usuario en tiendas físicas: ponerse en el lugar del cliente desde que llega a los alrededores del establecimiento hasta que sale de él. Y necesitan disponer de recursos económicos para hacer los cambios que sean necesarios en distribución de espacios como capacidad de organizar procesos y establecer procedimientos para los trabajadores, con el objetivo de que la experiencia del usuario sea lo más satisfactoria posible en relación a la marca. Algunos ejemplos más para el trabajo de CUO ¿Por qué pones una caja de autopago que no sabe arrastrar los billetes? Hace siglos que los cajeros automáticos lo hacen sin problemas, no puede ser tan difícil encontrar en la oferta del mercado de máquina de autopago una que funcione bien... ¿Por qué te haces el acogedor con aparcamientos para familias que suponen menos del 1% de tus plazas de aparcamiento? De símbolos no vas a vivir, si lo haces, que sirva de verdad, que el pasillo peatonal al lado de las plazas de minusválidos no sea de adorno, cosas prácticas, no simbólicas. ¿Por qué no indicas dónde está la salida, los pasillos para cambiar de sección, las escaleras mecánicas...? El cliente no es adivino. ¿Por qué tienes un mostrador de cinco metros de largo y sólo dos cajas para el pago? No es por falta de sitio.
In questa puntata parliamo esclusivamente di chimica. Dovevamo vendicarci di un'intera stagione passata a parlare più che altro di fisica, così ci siamo presi la libertà di annoiarvi più del necessario con qualche argomento interessante.Stato di ossidazione e carica relativa nel biossido di titanio. Un appassionante (zzzZzZ...) dibattito tra chimici computazionali rivede l'equivalenza tra stato di ossidazione e carica relativa del titanio, all'intero di una molecola di biossido di titanio. Non siamo responsabili di eventuali voti negativi del vostro professore.La polemica del giorno è dedicata al fenomeno Blue Whale, un altro granchio bello grosso con annessa figura di cioccolata by Le Iene. Qui trovate un pezzo interessante sul tema, scritto da Lorenzo "Loffio" Fantoni.Convertire CO e CO2 in prodotti di chimica fine. Una nuova ricerca promette di fare ciò con l'utilizzo di speciali catalizzatori CuO... Ma a quale costo energetico?Per approfondire, ecco la pubblicazione su Nature.Se vi piace questo podcast, ricordatevi che produrlo e renderlo disponibile gratuitamente ogni lunedì ha un costo. Potete supportarci tramite la nostra pagina Patreon con una donazione mensile, oppure iscrivendovi a Scientificast APS per 10 euro all'anno o ancora con una libera donazione PayPal a "associazione@scientificast.it".Immagine di copertina:In studio: Paolo Bianchi, Simone AngioniMontaggio: Paolo BianchiMusiche di: Daniele detto "Giuliano Ferrara"
Weezy and The Swish podcast 99With Episode 99, we welcome Comedian/Actor Tom Wilson, whose long list of credits includes: Laura's favorite, Freaks and Geeks, Tom's Favorite Nash Bridges and all of the Back to the Future movies. Laura is back, Ian Broyles is in the studio and Tom is hilarious. Hear for yourself... by Matt Hartley on Tue 15 May 2007 07:38 PM PDT
Fakultät für Chemie und Pharmazie - Digitale Hochschulschriften der LMU - Teil 01/06
In vorliegender Arbeit wurden unterschiedliche Katalysatorsysteme untersucht. Grundlage der Untersuchungen sind spinellähnliche Kupfer-Chrom-Ceroxide, welche eine vielversprechende Alternative zu den herkömmlich verwendeten Automobilkatalysatoren darstellen. Ein weiterer Bestandteil dieser Arbeit sind vanadium- und magnesiumhaltige Aluminiumphosphate, die aufgrund ihrer dreidimensionalen Gittergerüste und ihrer Oberflächeneigenschaften gute katalytische Eigenschaften für selektive Oxidationsreaktionen zeigen. Ferner wurde das binäre System TiO2/SiO2 untersucht, das sowohl als katalytisches Material an sich als auch als modifiziertes Trägersystem zur Verankerung von Edelmetallen auf SiO2-Oberflächen Verwendung findet. Das Hauptaugenmerk lag jedoch auf phosphorpromotierten V2O5/TiO2-Katalysatoren zur Herstellung von Phthalsäureanhydrid (PSA) aus o-Xylol. Das Hauptinteresse lag dabei neben dem Einfluss der verschiedenen Präparationsmethoden auf der Beeinflussung des Systems V2O5/TiO2 durch Phosphor als Promotor. Als Hauptuntersuchungsmethode diente die Röntgenphotoelektronenspektroskopie, die aufgrund ihrer Oberflächensensitivität Informationen über den Oberflächenzustand und damit hochrelevante Daten für die heterogene Katalyse liefert. Die Ergebnisse wurden mit weiteren Messmethoden und Spektroskopiearten ergänzt. Ferner wurden die neu ermittelten Daten und Ergebnisse in den Gesamtkontext schon bestehender Erkenntnisse eingebaut. Trotz weitreichender Informationen und Publikationen zu Katalysatoren für die Herstellung von Phthalsäureanhydrid aus o-Xylol, die auf dem System V2O5/TiO2 basieren, sind noch viele Fragen bezüglich Existenz und Funktion der Oberflächenkomponenten in promotierten PSA-Katalysatoren ungeklärt. Im Rahmen des Kapitels 1 dieser Arbeit war es das Ziel, den Einfluss von Phosphor auf das System V2O5/TiO2 zu beleuchten. Dazu wurde systematisch ausgehend von den Einzelsubstanzen über die binären Systeme bis hin zum ternären System vorangeschritten. Die Quantifizierung von XPS-Messungen mit Hilfe von Modellen lieferte Zahlenwerte für die prozentuale Abdeckung von TiO2 durch Vanadiumoxid im binären System V2O5/TiO2. So wurden für die höchste, beobachtete Dispersion bei der 20 h gemahlenen und anschließend kalzinierten V2O5/TiO2-Probe eine volle Bedeckung der TiO2-Oberfläche bei Zugabe der Monolagenmenge an V2O5 berechnet. Für das binäre System P2O5/TiO2 konnte für kleine Belegungen bis 1 Gew.% P2O5 die in der Literatur beschriebene Ausbildung einer monomolekularen Schicht bekräftigt werden. Die angewendeten Präparationsmethoden Suspension, Imprägnierung und Mahlen ergeben P2O5/V2O5/TiO2-Proben, bei denen alle Komponenten und vor allem Vanadium und Phosphor in enger Wechselwirkung miteinander stehen. Es konnte gefolgert werden, dass die Zugabe von Phosphor dabei hilft, kristallines V2O5 „abzubauen“ und VPO-Phasen zu bilden. Zur Veranschaulichung der Oberflächenzusammensetzung der gemahlenen P2O5/V2O5/TiO2-Proben wurde ein Modell für die Verteilung der beiden Oberflächenkomponenten in Abhängigkeit von der Mahldauer und der Kalzinierung entworfen (Abbildung 4–20). Eine Kalzinierungsdauer von 5 h bei 450 °C wurde als ausreichend erachtet, um P2O5/V2O5/TiO2-Systeme zu erzeugen, die gegenüber weiterer Kalzinierung stabil sind. Ergebnisse, die aus quasi-in-situ XPS-Messungen resultierten, seien an dieser Stelle besonders erwähnt. Mit ihrer Hilfe war es möglich, eine gänzlich neue Aussage bezüglich der Rolle des Phosphors im System P2O5/V2O5/TiO2 zu treffen. Dem schon bekannten Einfluss von Phosphor auf das Säure-Base-Verhalten des Katalysatorsystems konnte der Einfluss von Phosphor auf das Redoxverhalten von Vanadium in P2O5/V2O5/TiO2 hinzugefügt werden. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass der Zusatz von Phosphor den Wechsel der Oxidationsstufe zwischen V +5 und V +4 im System P2O5/V2O5/TiO2 über mehrere Oxidationszyklen hinweg erleichtert. Anwendungsbezogen bedeutet das, dass der entsprechende Katalysator eine höhere Langzeitstabilität aufweisen sollte. Auf dem Wege der Copräzipitation hergestellte Cu-Cr/Ce-Oxide, über die schon weitreichende Informationen zur Festkörperzusammensetzung aus Röntgenbeugung- und EXAFS-Messungen bereitstanden, wurden erstmals mit XPS bezüglich ihrer Oberflächenzusammensetzung analysiert. Die gefundene Tendenz der gemessenen Oxidationsstufen stimmt mit den für die bei den verschiedenen Kalzinierungstemperaturen zu erwartenden und mit Festkörpermethoden bestimmten Oxidationsstufen überein. Es wurde festgestellt, dass neben der geforderten Spinellhauptkomponente noch weitere Phasen wie CuO oder Cr2O3 vorliegen. Dies steht im Einklang mit den Messergebnissen der Festkörpermethoden. Die Anwendung der XPS lieferte Informationen über den Oxidationszustand der an vanadium- und magnesiumhaltigen Aluminiumphosphaten beteiligten Elemente. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass in unkalziniertem VMgAPO-5 vorhandene V 4+ -Spezies durch thermische Behandlung weitgehend zu V 5+ oxidiert werden. Es konnte gefolgert werden, dass Vanadium in kalziniertem VMgAPO-5 nicht nur innerhalb, sondern auch außerhalb der AlPO-5-Struktur vorliegt. Dieses Vanadium liegt wahrscheinlich in Form von V2O5 an der Oberfläche vor. Das binäre System TiO2/SiO2 wurde bezüglich seiner Oberflächenzusammensetzung und seines Oberflächenzustandes untersucht. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass Sauerstoff im System TiO2/SiO2 prinzipiell drei verschiedene Koordinationen aufweisen kann. Neben dem von Silicium umgebenen Sauerstoff, wie er im Trägermaterial vorliegt (Si-O-Si), existiert bei niedrigen Belegungen auch Sauerstoff, der sowohl Silicium als auch Titan als nächste Nachbarn hat (Si-O-Ti). Bei hohen Belegungen kommt zunehmend Sauerstoff vor, der nur Titan als nächste Nachbarn aufweist (Ti-O-Ti). Dies steht im Einklang mit Untersuchungen an Modellsystemen, die in der Literatur dokumentiert sind. Es konnte eine Grenzbelegung bei 3 Gew.% TiO2-Belegung ermittelt werden, ab der die nahezu ideale Dispersion auf dem verwendeten Präparationsweg nicht mehr aufrechterhalten werden kann. Diese Beobachtung konnte anhand von Oberflächenmodellvergleichen bekräftigt werden, nämlich dass bei höheren Belegungen neben Partikelbildung und damit einer herabgesetzten Dispersion eine weitere Abdeckung des Trägers durch Titanoxid stattfindet.