EP39 - Leading in Uncertainty: Clarity, Competence, and the Human Factor
Leading Through Uncertainty With Rada Rodriguez
Leadership is often described as a stable set of traits. Strategic. Decisive. Empathetic. Resilient.
In this Episode:
François Jacquemin and Rada Rodriguez discuss leading through uncertainty with clarity, competence, and a human focus. Lessons on international leadership, change execution, avoiding reorg fatigue, and why AI and governance strengthen performance.
All of these matter. And yet, in practice, leadership is less a checklist and more a constant calibration. Especially when the environment becomes uncertain, and the noise becomes louder.
In my conversation with Rada Rodriguez, we explored that tension directly: how leaders hold performance expectations while navigating volatility, cultural complexity, and rapid technological change.
Many of the leaders who follow my work carry serious responsibility. They sit at the top of organizations that are regulated, complex, and exposed to forces they cannot fully control. Their mandate is not to discuss ideas. Their mandate is to deliver outcomes, protect value, and future-proof the enterprise.
In that context, leadership is not a performance. It is an operating system.
International experience is not branding, it is training
International leadership is often presented as a differentiator, almost like a marketing line. I see it differently.
Living and working across countries forces you to confront your own assumptions. It stretches your ability to read a room, to understand what is not said, to recognize when your style lands well and when it does not. You learn that competence is universal, but context is not.
Early in my career, moving into a much larger company in a different country was a shock. I did not welcome it in the moment. I had to relearn how to operate, how to influence, and how to communicate. That discomfort was not pleasant, but it was instructive. It shaped the way I lead today.
And it taught me a simple truth: range is earned, not claimed.
Tough mentorship and the value of precise feedback
I was fortunate to have a mentor who was demanding. He was not interested in keeping conversations comfortable. He was interested in making me better.
Some feedback is a gift. Some is a sour gift. In the moment, it can feel like pressure without warmth. With time, you see what it gave you: a broader skill set, sharper awareness, and higher standards.
That experience helped me develop a more flexible way of communicating. Not to manipulate, but to connect. The way you speak to a board is not the way you speak to a team, and neither is the way you speak to a client. The message must stay true, but the story must fit the room.
Rada and I also touched on how the narrative around leadership has shifted. Performance always mattered. Competition always existed. What has changed is the volume of the conversation and the public appetite for assertive certainty.
Has leadership changed, or has the world become louder
We are living through a period where uncertainty feels constant. Geopolitical tension, economic pressure, cyber threats, climate risk, regulatory expansion, and accelerated technology shifts. For many industries, competition is no longer just company versus company. It is ecosystem versus ecosystem.
Rada made an observation that I find accurate. In uncertain times, people look for clarity. That can push leaders toward more assertive communication. The risk is confusing loudness with leadership.
The best leaders remain calm. They speak with conviction, but they do not try to win attention through noise. They build trust by being consistent and by making decisions that match their stated values.
The fine line between performance and wellbeing
Rada raised a point that many leaders are watching right now. Some organizations are downplaying wellbeing, inclusion, and sustainability, as if these were accessories rather than drivers of durable performance.
I see it differently. Performance is fueled by engagement. Engagement is fueled by meaning, recognition, and the sense that the system is fair. Wellbeing is not a luxury. It is part of how a workforce sustains performance under pressure.
In insurance, this becomes tangible. Insurance can be transactional, but the strongest propositions go beyond paying claims. They include risk management, prevention, and services that reduce harm before it becomes a cost.
I have seen clients treat services as central to the relationship, and others treat everything as price alone. That choice reflects more than procurement. It reflects a company’s risk philosophy, and often its culture.
When leaders remove everything that supports people, they often discover that they did not remove the cost. They removed capacity.
Change is constant, but reorganization is not a strategy
I have always been drawn to roles with a change element. Looking back, I can say that change has been a consistent theme across my career. In insurance, the pace may be slower than in technology, but the reality is the same: stable environments are becoming rarer.
That does not mean constant reorganization is wise.
Rada described something I have also observed. Some leaders use frequent structural change as a signal to the outside world that they are acting. A reorg can look like momentum. But repeated too often, it becomes noise. It breaks informal networks that make complex organizations work, and it creates fatigue.
Often, the better approach is more practical: fix the interface.
Where does work stall. Where does accountability blur. Where do decisions bounce between teams. Where does the handoff fail. Solve that first. It may require a structural adjustment, but it does not require theatrics. It requires diagnosis and execution.
Leaders are often expected to solve everything at once. The discipline is to choose the right symbol, the right signal, and the right sequence. Progress is usually step by step.
Risk thinking and the insurance lens
Insurance is the business of managing uncertainty. We do it across long horizons, with portfolios that span decades. That reality creates a certain mindset.
You learn to think in systems, not snapshots. You learn to respect second-order effects. The obvious solution can create new risk. The simplistic prevention message can lead to unintended cost. The only way to lead well in that environment is to widen the frame.
This lens applies beyond insurance.
Cyber risk is a clear example. No one is immune. Large organizations invest heavily, and still face continuous threat. Smaller organizations can be taken offline for weeks. Business continuity has become strategic, not technical.
Climate risk is another. It is no longer theoretical. It affects underwriting, operations, supply chains, and investment strategies. It will continue to reshape value chains, not just public messaging.
And regulation, while sometimes tedious, exists for a reason. In systemic industries, trust is not optional. If trust breaks, the entire framework becomes fragile.
AI: not an elimination of people, a demand for competence
AI is often described in extremes. Either it will solve everything, or it will replace everyone.
Rada and I see it more soberly. AI increases the value of competent people. It raises the bar on governance and risk management. It rewards organizations that invest in data quality, in clear accountability, and in leaders who can connect technology with business outcomes.
Curiosity is the right posture. Not fear. And not naivety.
What leaders owe their organizations in difficult times
In uncertain environments, leaders owe their organizations three things.
Clarity. A clear view of what matters and what does not, what is known and what is unknown, what the priorities are, and why.
Competence. The ability to make decisions that hold up under scrutiny, to build teams that can execute, and to invest in capabilities that will still matter in two years.
Humanity. Not sentimentality, but genuine respect for people as the engine of execution. A change that ignores the human element is rarely sustainable.
We cannot solve every problem. Leadership includes saying what you can and cannot do. But we can choose composure over panic, substance over noise, and execution over theatrics.
That is how organizations remain credible, and how leaders remain trusted, in difficult times.
Timecode:
00:00 The Value of International Experience
01:58 Adapting to New Leadership Styles
02:53 The Evolution of Leadership
03:57 The Importance of Mentorship
04:53 Leadership in a Changing Environment
08:57 Risk Management in the Insurance Industry
16:43 The Role of AI in Modern Business
21:51 Navigating Organizational Change
34:21 Breaking Down Problems and Preparing for Change
35:17 The Ineffectiveness of Status Quo
35:37 Identifying and Fixing Problems
36:33 The Role of Big Bang Changes
37:41 Examples of Disruption: Nokia and Blackberry
39:09 Insurance Industry's Approach to Change
40:43 Risk Management in Insurance
47:07 Technology and Cybersecurity in Insurance
53:52 Climate Change and Innovation
57:52 The Importance of Values and Ethics
François Links:
Apple Podcast
Guest:
Rada Rodriguez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rada-rodriguez/
Transcript:
François Jacquemin: No, it was very interesting what you said earlier about the position you had in various countries. It's good to sometimes discuss with people who have had positions in different countries. Mm-hmm. What I've seen in my career is that it's very nice to speak about being international, but having lived internationally, having had a job in various countries and with various cultures, it really helps in bringing an understanding of the environment that we are in.
From my perspective, the first time I went I mean, I never worked in my home country.
Rada Rodriguez: Mm-hmm.
François Jacquemin: But when I went into another country, which was different culturally and also in terms of the size of the company I was in and my role before, I was managing director of a small entity and went into a much larger company in a different country. Which was a very big shock for me. And although I never accepted it at the time, it was a hard learning curve, but also it shaped me into the person I am today.
And funnily enough, the gentleman who brought me to Munich it was very tough. He was more mentor than boss. But it was very, very tough and strong and gave me a very positive hard time. So sometimes we say feedback's a gift; sometimes it was a bit of a sour gift. But it was always very interesting for me to take that not always interesting at the moment, sometimes it was hard but afterwards, I found it very interesting and very growth-oriented.
It shaped me into the person I am today. And it didn't shape me as a person only, but also shaped me as a leader. It gave me many more weapons: the ability to transform my speech, the ability to, for instance, create a real storyline, and be much more attractive in the way I speak to people, to an audience, or to a board. Which I believed I had before, but only one-sided. They brought me a much wider array of competencies. This, in terms of leadership, is so important. If you are a one-sided leader, I think you miss the point of many opportunities. You also miss the point of better leading people.
It's about being able to change the personality and the style of leadership. That leads us to a discussion we also had a while back: is a different style of leadership required today, or is today simply a continuation of the leadership style that we've seen over the last 10 years? Which is much more encompassing, much more open, leading to taking care of people, being an assertive boss, a coach, a mentor, or something else. Or although, yeah, something in between.
Rada Rodriguez: Well, so I think first, you are super happy that you had that type of mentorship. You were super lucky because that is not what often happens. So, saying that you had that experience with somebody who helped shape you and your leadership, it's a gift. And unfortunately, I didn't experience that very often in my career. I experienced this once or twice, but it's really a gift. And because I had that gift once or twice, I try to give it further to the younger generations to be the mentor I sometimes lacked in my career.
As you say, I think leadership is evolving. It's very situational. So what we need to do now as leaders in this very changing environment and this very tough environment is much different from what it was maybe in the eighties or the nineties. Then, the focus was very much on wellbeing, on integration, on inclusion. Now it's much tougher, also from the competitive situation. It's a much tougher environment. So yes, we evolve; leadership evolves.
François Jacquemin: We do. And yes, the environment changed. I take some comfort in reading about history.
Rada Rodriguez: Mm.
François Jacquemin: It's not always the leader in business, but leadership has always existed. Competition has always existed. Yes. And there have been moments in my career where I've seen, "Oh, this is a moment where the leader needs to be harder," and in different parts of my career, I found that leaders needed to be much more inclusive.
I wonder if today, with all the uncertainty on a geopolitical level and an economical level as well, if the competition in the economy is different. We don't compete only for our own company; we compete also within an ecosystem where we have some form of adversary competitors, but also our ecosystem is being competed with by other ecosystems. From far away exactly like here in Germany or in Europe the US ecosystem is very much integrated with the European one, but also competing completely in terms of the business we're in: the energy level, the geopolitical level, and all the elements that we need to take into consideration to reassure the shareholders and the employees while still pushing harder for competition.
I find this an enormous challenge, but I wonder if that challenge evolved so much since the past, or if it is simply the parameters of the environment that give us a different feeling of where we evolve.
Rada Rodriguez: Well, yeah. What I feel is that the narrative changed; the communication changed. I think performance was always important. And because we're working in a company, of course competition, as you said, always existed. Performance is necessary and has to be cultivated in a high-performance culture. But now what I feel is that the conversation, the narrative, and the communication are much more assertive. And what I'm thinking is that in this time of uncertainty, people look for clarity. And then when you come as a leader with a very assertive communication style, that might be a plus for people to understand that they have leadership because everything is so uncertain and volatile.
François Jacquemin: Yeah.
Rada Rodriguez: So I think that is changing. And also what I think is changing I don't know if you have noticed in the latest news when you hear some leaders, not only in the US but also Europeans is that they try to downplay the diversity topic; they downplay the inclusion topic; they downplay wellbeing; they even close wellbeing programs. And for me, you have to be very careful because we all know that performance is fueled and driven by engagement. So we need to make sure that our people remain engaged.
And then, of course, wellbeing is not everything. I think recognition and success are very engaging. But you cannot do it by risking the people's health. So some kind of wellbeing needs to be embedded together with success and results in order to make sure that the people remain engaged. So I think it's a tricky topic and a fine line we have to walk now. Yeah. I don't know if you have experienced that.
François Jacquemin: I've experienced the same, of course. The companies I was with were very much into wellbeing, integration, equality, and social responsibility. That's where I worked, but also my job when I was in a big German group was also to help other large companies to protect their employees. So it was about insurance. But insurance is not only about saying, "I pay you money if there's a problem," because otherwise it's purely transactional. And you're just not as good as the other one.
So what do you bring to the table in terms of service, risk management, know-how, et cetera? And what I found was that the wellbeing topic was always so important at the time of the tender. It was very important at the time of the finalist presentation: what kind of service do you provide? In terms of who's paying for it, it was always a big discussion.
There were companies that were at the forefront the Swiss multinationals, or Americans at the time, but also the Brits. They were very pushy towards saying, "I want this service included." There has to be a price we understand that it shouldn't be over the top but it must be included. There were other companies that were like, "Okay, it is very nice if you said it in the presentation, but at this stage, we don't care about that. We don't even want the service; just make sure that the transaction happens." And it was purely price-sensitive.
There was an American company that to contradict myself a big IT company; for many years, they would change their global contract for a few dollars. They wouldn't care about what the service was. But others were so adamant, and we needed to transform our offer to be able to offer special services for their employees. It was about transgender or gender reassignment; we needed to create a completely new product for them at a global level because they wanted to support that in their workforce.
So, to your point, do I see that there are companies that are much more assertive today? Yeah, I believe so. Do I think that it's going to change the evolution? I don't think so. I think that the more assertive management style has just become louder today.
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah.
François Jacquemin: And because there is less of a "politically correct" approach, there has to be a debate. But I'm convinced that companies that are inclusive and look for sustainability will remain.
Rada Rodriguez: I agree with you. I think that is definitively the direction. But as you said, the communication and the narrative are different, and it's very loud and sometimes very provocative. I want to pick up on something you said, which I feel is very interesting: how different companies look at what service they want to provide. And in the end, if I understand right I mean, you are the expert of insurance and I definitively am not but as I understand it, that is very much linked to how a company wants to manage risk.
I insure myself against a risk outside risk, but also inside risk with the people, with the employees. So I think it's interesting how different companies look at risk and how they manage it. You could see that directly in how they were approaching your services. Because I understand that you could provide a lot of services, even if it comes at a higher cost, but they were just not interested. So how they approach risk then? Because if they are not paying for the services, they go higher risk when things are happening.
In my case, as I have worked with technology companies all my life, the risk is in the product. So that's also a lot of risk management, but it's more about the quality of the product and the services, because otherwise you could damage your employees or somebody else's employees. That is a different angle on risk. But yes, coming back to what we said, the direction is to keep your people engaged, and wellbeing programs are part of that engagement for sure.
François Jacquemin: Yeah. Mm-hmm. There's something about the insurance industry, just to jump on what you just said. The insurance industry is basically managing risk, whether it's outside or inside. As an insurer, we'll take a risk on a certain company or a certain population and cover it. So you carry the risk, but you want to, of course, optimize your profit and the outcome for the client.
To optimize profit and the outcome for the client, you are trying to diminish the risk for the client as much as possible. You help the client to be as low-risk as possible. And then you, as an insurer, say, "Okay, if I pay less out, then there's more money for the shareholders or more service." Then you can also help those companies who are your clients to manage the risk better themselves not only decreasing the risk but also helping them to be better risk managers for the product or the workforce.
I was more on the workforce side, and that's why wellbeing is so important. Now, sometimes you see things that are so dramatically counter-intuitive because you say, "Okay, you know what, you're a bit overweight not you, but a person why don't you just go and do a bit more sport? Go and jog." So he goes jogging, slips, breaks a leg more cost. Or he has a weak heart, has a heart attack, and then there's more.
This is all about understanding not only one part of the risk, but the whole set of risks. As an insurer, we are used to managing risks; that's our day-to-day life for clients and for our own projects and our own people. Because the value of an insurance company is, of course, the level of the clients, but also its people. If we don't have competent people within the office, then we cannot provide the right service to the client. And the more we are competent as a company, the better we can provide the right service at the right price to the right client.
And that's very exciting. Now, I read also a lot of fear about AI. Maybe people thought at the beginning AI is just a simple tool so that we can optimize a bit at home or the way we interact with the internet. But that's not the case at all. I mean, AI has been there for a long, long time. It has been helping improve companies; I believe in the electricity or electric industries, it's been there for such a long time and has been improving and probably created competitive advantages already 10, 15, or 20 years ago. But for the general public, it's much more recent and there's much more fear because it's so much spoken about and so much faster than anything that we've seen.
Rada Rodriguez: Very, yeah.
François Jacquemin: And from my perspective, it doesn't eliminate people; it creates much more of a need for competent people to work with AI to deliver the right service for our clients. So it leads me to data, because AI will optimize the way we are using data and therefore creating that positive cycle I was mentioning earlier. Yeah. So I find that very exciting and I'm not afraid at all. I'm just curious about the future on this. In terms of governance and risk management, it creates many more challenges. I'm sure you have plenty.
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah. Oh, you said some very interesting things here. Of course, I'm not afraid either, and I'm very curious. But you said "competence," and I want to pick up on that one because especially now, when we talk about leadership in difficult times and uncertainty, I think competence is extremely important. It's important for risk management. If you have competent people and competent leaders, of course, the risk will be better managed. I'm absolutely convinced about that.
To remain competent, of course, you need also to pick up on the new technologies. AI being the new technology, as a leader you need to pick up and be good at managing it in order to remain competent. And you're right what you said because in our industry in the electrical-electronic industry and the digital industry we had machine learning as our first stage, which is also artificial intelligence. It's machine talking machine-to-machine. We have had that for 20 years. Basically, it's the "Made in Germany" Industry 4.0, but that's on the technological side.
Now it is coming into the day-to-day relation with people and with your clients. Almost all companies now, when you call, have a bot which is answering. So that's a new technology. And again, I'm not afraid; I'm very curious. And it's part of risk management. I think we cannot ignore it, but it's very much linked to competence.
François Jacquemin: Yes, it's part of risk management.
Rada Rodriguez: It's part of the management of the risk itself. So it's schizophrenic in a way that it brings us forward.
Rada Rodriguez: I think it brings us forward, but it's also difficult for many people to cope with if it's not well understood. Again, we come back to what we said some minutes ago: communication. How do you communicate on that? How do you make people follow you in the decisions, and what will be the type of decisions we will take in the future?
Especially as I see now, these difficult times for very many industries are very disruptive. When technology is disruptive and the geopolitical situation is disruptive, how do you position yourself and your industry in this environment? I think we will see over the next years many industries losing their position and many new industries coming up and reinforcing their positions or taking new competitive leadership positions. AI is part of that definitively. I think we are just at the start now, so we have to see how it evolves.
But the question I want to put to you, François, about leadership in difficult times: how do you operate in your field in the insurance world? Are you restructuring a lot? Are you changing the companies a lot? How is that working for you?
François Jacquemin: It's a very good question. In my experience, I've always looked for projects or jobs that had a change element. Without knowing it at the time it's just looking back I was looking for something new, something changing, a development. Even when I had to put a company in runoff or manage a runoff I didn't put it there, the shareholder did it was a change.
I've always lived through change and for me, change is a constant; to change is the norm. It caught up with me because 10 or 15 years ago, I saw that even in very stable insurance groups, change is becoming the norm. Whether it's a big change or a small change, the pace is different. If you're in a startup, change is there all the time. If you're in a big group, the change is not happening all the time.
What I have seen and where I've seen failure, and I can say it could be mine too is that you need to bring the people into the change. If the people are not part of the change, driving it somehow you don't need to decide for it, but they have to drive it then it's very difficult for them. The personal element is so important in change that if you forget part of it, it's always a failure. You never get it right a hundred percent.
There are things you get right and things you get wrong. But unfortunately, a fully stable environment where people always have the same type of work and environment I don't think it's sustainable anymore.
Rada Rodriguez: No, for sure. No. My experience both personal and what I see outside is that change is the normal. Absolutely. It's constant change and we need to change and I want to change. I think that I changed also a lot, so that's very positive. That's opportunity. It's not easy, of course, as you said, and you need to take the people with you. But change is, especially over the latest 20 years, really the constant normal.
What I was more thinking about is: how do we drive that? I'm not looking for stability; that's not the aspect to bring into the conversation. But what I have also seen is that sometimes, at least in the technology field where I am operating, I see companies changing the structure and the organization because it sends a positive signal to the outside world when you as a leader initiate change. A new organization shows that you are fast, you are adapting to a new strategy, you are a doer, and you are a good leader.
And that's valid, and I'm sure we have to do that every couple of years. But what I also feel is that there is another side to that. When you start to do that every 12 months or every 18 months, the signal outside might also be, "I'm not sure what I'm doing here because what I said was good 12 months ago, now I'm coming back and saying maybe it was not so good, so I need to change it again and again." I have seen companies doing these changes every 12 or 18 months over the past five to eight years. That's not good in my opinion.
François Jacquemin: I agree; it's not good. But we have to differentiate two things here. As a leader, you want to show your stakeholders that you are a doer and you get things forward. Then there are the employees who are very happy when they have goals. You arrive somewhere, change something, and say the target is this, this is how we're going to do it, and we're going to do it in this competitive environment and we're going to fight. That tries to bring the community of people together.
Then, let's say there's an acquisition coming and that changes completely everything. There, it's challenging to know whether you have to redo the Big Bang or if you want to do a smoothing of the situation. We speak about uncertainty here. There's geopolitical uncertainty: am I going to the right market, the right country, or the right continent when I'm opening a business? You consider whether it's the right time or not and if you have the right competence. That's a big change.
But also, the people themselves need to be reassured. Uncertainty when it touches the workforce is very strong. I found the resistance to change challenging, but it's much easier when you bring the team and tell them, "We are going to go into this market, in that continent, and this is what we're going to do." They like that because there is a vision; they can project themselves. That's better than telling them, "Oh, you're not going to work with Jack anymore, you're going to work with Hans here," and they go, "Oh no, I can't do that." So uncertainty itself is a never-ending challenge to manage.
Rada Rodriguez: Absolutely. You're right. The positive changes of developing as you just mentioned, an acquisition, going for new markets, going for new clients that's a very positive and engaging change because it's something you develop. Then you have other types of changes where you have to downsize, where you have to step down from a certain market or industry, or you have to divest a part of your company. That is also change and that also needs to be managed.
What I'm trying to say is that if you have a clear strategy and the organization adapts to follow it, then I think it's very positive. Whatever the strategy is, whatever the change is. But when you are trying to fix problems of your company by changing the organization which I also see happening then I don't think it's a positive thing. Those behaviors, or lack of leadership, or misalignment of incentives whatever problem you have in the company when you try to fix that by just doing another reorganization and another one, those problems remain. You will find them back in your new organization because they are not disappearing. That is the negative aspect I was thinking of.
François Jacquemin: Yeah, it is a negative aspect. It can be stylized somehow. But we need to bring the team and the organization towards a better outcome than today. Trying to solve all the problems at the same time is very challenging. Sometimes people expect you as a leader to solve everything at once. The key there is to choose the right symbol.
Rada Rodriguez: Symbols are very important.
François Jacquemin: The signals you mentioned earlier.
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah, I agree. The signal, the symbol, and motivating the people what is the end game? That's extremely important. Now, I am not trying to say that change is not necessary. On the contrary, I think change is necessary and very often it's engaging. And by the way, the people who are embracing the change are also the people you want to work with. The people who are resisting the change most of the time, you don't want to work with them.
François Jacquemin: But isn't that a mistake? I don't know. If people are resistant to change, sometimes I find that very frustrating. They are probably frustrated with me because I try to convince them to change. So that could create an interface problem. But I'm relentless in that sense. I don't think there's a recipe.
Rada Rodriguez: No, I don't think there is. It's very situation-by-situation. Basically, I also embrace change because I see more opportunity in it. And like you, I also want to have people around me embracing change. Again, I also saw something in some organizations which is like a fatigue for change. Every signal, even if it's the most positive signal you want to give, if it's just repeated too often, it becomes noise.
In order to remain a positive signal and message, it has to follow a very clear strategy. And that strategy cannot change every 12 months; that has to remain. Then we adapt because the situation requires flexibility. It's about that balance: embracing change, being fast, agile, and flexible, versus not tiring your people with constant changes to the organization.
Ironically, the more complex a business is, the more it relies on informal networks. With every organizational change, you are breaking those informal networks. You report not to John, but to I don't know who it's breaking an informal structure which was created over years. In complex businesses and models, people rely on that informal structure. If you break it too often, it's tiring for the people.
François Jacquemin: It does. I don't think a big reorganization should be too often; I agree with you. I'm more a fan of fixing the interface. It doesn't mean the company has a completely different structure, but it means the company doesn't look the same. When there's an interface problem, you can create a department instead of an interface. You might create two more interfaces and potentially two more problems, but at least you've solved the main problem of that day. And you bring the people in to solve or optimize the two upcoming interfaces. I find that usually breaks down the problem. Leadership sometimes involves this element of breaking down the problem.
The other element is preparing the organization as early as possible for potential change in the future that you don't know of yet. Because uncertainty is there and we know we are bound to change, it's better to create these discussions and this openness the ability for people to follow orders, processes, or other elements. But it's not the status quo where nothing happens; that is the worst recipe for an upcoming change.
Rada Rodriguez: We all agree on that. Status quo is definitively not a good way. You boiled it down to exactly what I think is important: you have to identify the problem. You identified an interface which was not working and you fixed that. I think that is a good recipe. At least I try to work like that: going into the depths to identify where the problem comes from and fixing it, rather than going for a new organization to fix a problem which is just an interface issue. Now, I'm simplifying it's not as simple as I'm putting it but identifying the problem and fixing it is much more effective than trying to fix several problems through organizational changes which, in the end, do not fix the problem.
François Jacquemin: It's a step-by-step process. It can happen that a "Big Bang" is the necessary solution. I've seen that when a decision is made, you just communicate it; there is no room for discussion. But it cannot be just an internal decision; it has to be a decision where stakeholders or the environment influence what the company is doing. At that time, it's easier for the manager as well because it's like in politics: "It's not me, it's Europe, it's Brussels."
Rada Rodriguez: Exactly why I totally agree with you. A Big Bang, in order to foresee a disruptive event either macroeconomic or technological is key. It's the classical example with Nokia: not seeing the disruption coming in the telephone world, and they lost leadership because they didn't see it coming. They would have needed a Big Bang.
The same with BlackBerry I was such a big fan of BlackBerry and they didn't see the disruption coming with the touchscreen. In the end, they had to give up their technology, which I think was extremely good at that time. So a Big Bang is necessary and good when you foresee disruption or adapt very fast to it. Then, as you said, you have the people, the organization, and the stakeholders with you. But it has to be motivated by something, not an internally driven Big Bang. That is what I see as a risk in coping with uncertainty.
François Jacquemin: In the insurance industry, I don't see those Big Bangs. Of course, there have been extremely successful companies that came up out of nowhere. Sometimes, if you use technology to become successful and compete with big insurance groups, it's very nice for a while, and then your technology becomes obsolete or a new one comes up, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the same situation as your previous targets.
For us, it's much more long-term. An insurance company will have a portfolio over tens of years 10, 20, 30, 40 years. That is a lot of money and a lot of contracts and relationships that you can't change from one day to the next. So that will always exist. That's why Big Bangs there are not really "bangs." It's more about critical elements that need to be integrated into a much larger ecosystem.
In the field of medicine today, so many things are happening that the insurance needs to catch up and understand. That's the risk management: how much will that cost, and how much will that help the population? It's about creating an understanding of the environment. The uncertainty of the insurer is the day-to-day: is she going to die today or not? Is he going to have a car accident? Is an electric car safer than a traditional car? Is it going to be much more expensive? Uncertainty happens all the time.
So leading in difficult times in insurance is more about being able to link people and tech, leading people in the environment, bringing information to the table, and getting as much information as possible.
Rada Rodriguez: Which is very different from what I feel. Leading in difficult times listening to you, you're right. Your industry has long-term companies which have been there for many years; big companies where you really optimize your risk management. In my field, most of the companies who are now my competitors didn't exist 10 years ago. It's another type of dynamic and another type of risk management.
The big stable companies, even if they have difficulty being flexible, are very successful because that stability has value in itself. On the other side, you have all these newcomers who eventually become very big and successful. It's a completely different angle of risk management. It's fascinating listening to you put that in relation to Big Bangs. I live through Big Bangs all the time because of technological disruption. Companies appear and disappear. Even existing ones feel they have to move and show they are moving. But in your case, it's completely different.
François Jacquemin: And also the set of legislation on insurance insurance law. Those contracts specific, special ways of making sure that... well, the big ones are systemic. You are so much a part of the economic framework of a country or continent that you need to have a certain set of rules to make sure you remain. If you receive 10 billion euros a year from clients and all of a sudden you're bankrupt, where is the money? It's gone. So it's very regulated to protect the population and the companies.
Every year there's a report where all the risk management functions, compliance, and everything is listed. What is the outcome of the assessment? What is the update from this year to last year? I don't know who is reading those except the industry, but it creates a lot of rules. Sometimes it's tedious, but this is the stability that prevents "Big Bangs." If there were a Big Bang, all those rules and protection would have no value. I'm sure some people would be very frightened by a Big Bang in insurance. The trust that money will come at some point that the insurer will pay if there's an accident would be gone.
Rada Rodriguez: Yes, it is making sure it happens. I guess that's a big difference between a regulated business and a less regulated one. Now, as for technology, I really believe it should not be regulated; you need freedom to develop technology. I'll make a break now to say that sometimes Europe is failing by trying to regulate too much too soon. I'm thinking about AI. I don't say it should not be regulated I'm not a specialist but it should not be too much or too soon. You need to give new technologies the space to mature.
But normally, technology should not be regulated in order to innovate. It's interesting to see risk management in a regulated world versus a non-regulated world. Here, I see Big Bangs much more often because the consequence of a Big Bang is not the same.
François Jacquemin: So it's a different universe. What about technology for insurance companies?
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah.
François Jacquemin: This is a super big challenge because the insurance industry is one of the biggest investors in tech. Not only AI, but everything. It's so big that if there were no regulation, you'd invest billions in software infrastructure, AI, and being able to connect with clients. Before, a client needed a piece of paper, sent it to the insurer, who had to receive it and file it in a cabinet. Now everything is electronic on a platform. But it has to be very, very safe because there could be fraud or cyberattacks.
Rada Rodriguez: Cybersecurity so cybersecurity for you is a very important, huge topic.
François Jacquemin: Huge.
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah, for everybody, I think. For huge technology companies as well, cybersecurity is extremely important.
François Jacquemin: We are threatened all the time. Some attacks are very clever simply a client whose information was accessed, and then all of a sudden we receive a request for reimbursement.
Rada Rodriguez: There's so much in cybersecurity; it's definitively a topic and I don't know one single company that would not say it is important. But unfortunately, not every company at least in my field where we have many small and mid-sized companies has the means and the know-how to cope with cybersecurity. That's one of the major risks now and has to be managed by every single company, regardless of size.
I know from smaller companies our customers who were attacked and their IT system was out for several weeks. They could not do payments, receive orders, or dispatch products, just because of a cyberattack. Even if they thought they were protected, it was not sufficient. I know from a cybersecurity consultant that this is happening in real-time. Companies with 50 million or 100 million in revenue are being completely locked and blocked from one day to the other.
François Jacquemin: Yeah. Although there's a lot of money invested and a lot of collaboration between companies. No one... I mean, there's the adversary world of those who want to attack and those who want to defend, and sometimes those lines are blurred. But to create business continuity is a strong investment.
Rada Rodriguez: Absolutely, and that is what everybody has to do and be aware of. Unfortunately, for small mid-sized ones, it's like the risk in insurance: you don't believe you will be sick. You say, "I don't need insurance now because I'm young and healthy," and you don't take the insurance or make the investment required to protect your business.
François Jacquemin: A lot of hospitals thought, "Nobody's going to attack a hospital."
Rada Rodriguez: Yeah, they are.
François Jacquemin: They are. Everywhere you can ransom something, it's happening. There was this hype 12 or 15 years ago about cyber insurance as the "next big thing" for growth. And it could have been, but risk management is different. As an insurer, I take a bit of money and if there's an attack, I will pay. But if the company doesn't do what it needs to do, or if I don't trust them, it's too risky for the insurer. Large companies cover themselves partly, putting aside money to cover those risks, but it's a very difficult risk to manage.
Rada Rodriguez: It's a very difficult risk because we don't fully understand it. And you are against criminals and criminal leagues who are so specialized. It changes all the time; you can understand it today, but tomorrow it's different. AI must be giving many opportunities for hackers, but also for defense mechanisms. Sometimes AI tools are used to program both attacks and defense, which is a bit funny. But in cyber, you have to be up to speed with what's going on and invest the right amount in the right place.
François Jacquemin: Another risk we didn't address is climate change. It is reality. COVID created an increased awareness of what a global risk can mean for the population. There are other localized impacts of climate change that impact risk management from an insurance point of view.
Rada Rodriguez: For us in technology, that's an opportunity because it's a lot of new technology being developed to cope with climate change. I think it can be an innovation driver definitively. It's a risk for sure, but as a technology provider, it's a big opportunity because of the innovation brought today in sustainability, recycling, and new business models like the sharing economy. These are "new Big Bangs," but positive ones because they involve new ways of doing business. It's opportunity for people and companies.
It's a little bit of a pity seeing that these ESG topics are not a priority anymore for many companies. Maybe we talked too much about it a few years ago, so maybe it's a correction. I saw a report this morning about board priorities for 2025; ESG was number 10 on the top 10 list. So it's still there, but at the bottom.
François Jacquemin: I think it's also a danger because for established companies, it could completely change their value chain. If your provider uses iron today, but next you need to use rare earths or some other metal, it has big implications.
Rada Rodriguez: Big implications. It's a driver of innovation, but in all these Big Bangs, some companies will emerge and some will fall or disappear. It's risk and opportunity depending on what side of the bridge you are.
François Jacquemin: I see. I'm very curious about what the future will give us.
Rada Rodriguez: Me too. I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe in humanity and that we will find our way. I'm a little more pessimist about the short-to-midterm concerned about what's happening in Europe and how we will manage to position ourselves between East and West attacking us from both sides. Where do we stay? How do we emerge strong from this battle? But long-term, we will find good solutions.
François Jacquemin: I think so too. At the end of the day, money drives, as do ethics. We have a very open economy here; we accept a lot and we provide a lot. It's about integration and diversity because if you are not diverse, you cannot do business with other cultures and continents. I think we have the right mix and ecosystem here to be successful maybe not dominant, but to have champion companies working according to our values: ethics, democracy, and integration. Competition is healthy; the challenges are healthy.
Rada Rodriguez: I totally agree. We are maybe in the best spot for humanity today, believing in values and shaping everything around them. It's a risk that other parts of the world do not see values as the main driver, but rather domination or money. It's important to see how we can defend what we stand for. Can Europe stand for that? How will we succeed in defending our values?
François Jacquemin: That's a question for politics. In business, we have our own environment with governance, competence, and opportunities. These are difficult times, that's clear. We need to be aware of that and use it sometimes to our advantage and sometimes accept that we can't solve all the problems. It's business leadership to say what I can and can't do. I think we have a good level here.
In one of your podcasts, you speak about Europe as a mosaic. I see that as an opportunity and a risk. Europe is not one; it's plenty of little environments trying to work together with some common understanding and law. There's always competition, but it's healthy. We can sell in all the markets in Europe and any country can sell here; that's a big advantage, even if it's sometimes frustrating or annoying. But the more we can navigate uncertainty, the better we can compete. Understanding diversity and mastering differences creates a competitive advantage for us.
Rada Rodriguez: I totally agree. Europe is a mosaic, but we share a set of values that brings us together. That's why the competition and the ecosystem are healthy. We have to fight to keep it that way.
François Jacquemin: Yeah.