On a recent episode of the Insurance Coffee House Podcast, Martin Blake, Managing Partner Program Lead sat down with Insurance Search CEO, Nick Hoadley to discuss the opportunity for insurance executives.
Martin combines heading up the Managing Partner Program with his role of supporting insurance executives exploring new leadership roles.
Nick Hoadley: What is the Managing Partner Program?
Martin Blake: It’s something I’m really passionate about building out.
” Here’s your opportunity to do things differently “
The Managing Partner program is really aimed at ambitious and high performing insurance executives or insurance recruitment consultants, head hunters who are motivated to build their own business.
They may have had thoughts around doing this themselves before and maybe stepped back from that because of some of the challenges like working on your own without any of that sort of support, back office or even peer support.
So, the Managing Partner program is really to enable them to launch, build and scale a business with ongoing support.
In essence, it’s building out something for themselves, but in an environment where they’re going to be provided support, both on-boarding and ongoing.
And that’s for both insurance recruiters, head hunters who’d like to set up their own practise, but also for insurance executives who maybe want to use their contacts and experience that they’ve built up across their career.
It’s an exciting opportunity to have something that provides some autonomy.
Maybe someone that’s thought, I’d love to do this myself.
Some of those decisions that sometimes you have to live with when you’re in a large corporate environment. As a corporate citizen, you have to go with them, but thought maybe you’d do things differently.
Here’s your opportunity to do things differently.
NH: What type of people are you targeting for the Managing Partner Program?
MB: It’s either someone who’s either a current or former insurance executive that has a network they could leverage and bring that gravitas.
Or a someone with a background in recruitment, servicing the insurance sector, a senior experienced recruiter.
NH: That’s really interesting because that’s the actual path that I took in my career. Listeners will know that I used to be a broker myself and wanted to be entrepreneurial.
But setting up a brokerage is very difficult and challenging. There’s a lot involved in building that book of business, but also maintaining it, looking after the clients.
There’s a lot of regulatory aspects. And then if you’re on the underwriting side, it’s even more challenging, with the capital requirements, or even to launch an MGA.
It’s a path that I’ve trodden myself and it’s been really interesting actually, to use those skills to benefit clients.
Why is the Managing Partner Program important to Insurance Search?
What’s great is it’s a very symbiotic sort of relationship because the program allows us to bring on those highly experienced senior and credible insurance executives and recruiters.
” What we know from the clients we work with, is they expect and deserve the best “
They can then support our clients and drive best practice across the business.
They will be successful for the clients and ultimately for themselves and what we know from the clients we work with, is they expect and deserve the best.
But what they often get if you look at our competitive [executive search] landscape, people will often bring in fairly inexperienced people. They won’t necessarily know recruitment.
They won’t have insurance knowledge, and they’ll be aligned to an account and with the best will in the world, they’ll do as good a job as they can.
But by bringing people in through this program, we’re making sure that we can deliver the very best in service to our customers.
That in itself is why this program is so critical to our continued success. It gives us access to individuals who can really add value to our customers.
And that’s both on the insurance executive and on the headhunting side.
NH: There’s a lot of really strong insurance executives out there and there are a lot of good head hunters out there, so what key attributes does a Managing Partner possess?
MB: What we’ve talked about is potentially quite a broad talent pool.
I think if we go beyond the fact that they’ve got that network, I think it’s credibility.
Credibility is absolutely essential.
Also, the shared values. We talk a lot internally and project externally – honesty, transparency and excellence.
I think having someone in the business who’s going to represent Insurance Search with those shared values is really key.
Then there’s the industry experience.
We’ve talked about energy. We both know some really senior execs who just bring so much energy and we know energy is contagious.
So I think having energy, having that appetite to build something for themselves.
Beyond that, someone who’s comfortable selling solutions. Ours is very much a solution led interaction with our clients, so I think implicit with the experience and credibility is just the ability to manage senior stakeholders.
A lot of work we do is at C suite level, so someone who’s comfortable interacting at that level and can manage and influence those sorts of stakeholders.
They could sit across the business. They could sit across HR or procurement but it’s really having that ability to be comfortable interacting with those senior stakeholders.
NH: Thanks Martin.
If there’s an insurance executive who’s listening and maybe had a thought about running their own business within the insurance space or there’s a head hunter or senior insurance recruiter now who thinks this Managing Partner program might be a good fit, what would you say is the key opportunity?
MB: As I said, it’s a fantastic opportunity to build something for yourself but within an established business and a really respected brand.
That in itself is a really key point.
The other thing, and this is true for both the insurance executives and will really talk to some of those insurance recruiters and head hunters, is this very much customer facing.
This is about engaging with customers, driving dialogue around their search requirements.
But this is also then supported by a world class centre of excellence for delivery here in the UK.
This is not a 360 role, so they can really focus on driving those relationships, identifying opportunities and then doing a comprehensive handover to the delivery team that we have here, which we know is excellent.
That frees them up to really drive those relationships, drive those customer interactions, knowing you know, that there will be a delivery team behind them.
NH: And I know that’s been a key factor in the decision making for some of the insurance executives that we’ve already brought on board in New York and in Bermuda.
Being able to be consultative with those clients, with those insurance companies, but not having to go and then deliver or execute on those discussions.
And where do you have open positions for Managing Partners at the moment?
MB: We’re very open to all locations across the US, but if I think about some of the places that would jump out.
New York, Boston, Atlanta. From a state perspective, Florida, Texas and California and then we’re always open to talking to people that are very active in the London market as well. All the key insurance hubs.
NH: What are three things you look for in your first conversation with a potential Managing Partner?
MP: Look, three things that I would really be looking for would be that credibility.
So, being able to demonstrate a strong peer to peer network, high degree of knowledge of the insurance sector that can really benefit our clients.
The energy that we talked about and then those shared values. It’s really important that anyone we work with is honest, transparent and strives for excellence.
NH: And how do people find out more about becoming a Managing Partner?
MB: What I’d say is, if you’ve got the drive, the vision, the energy and the ambition to truly build something for yourself, just get in contact.
You can contact with me via LinkedIn, or add your details here in and I’ll be in touch to set up a time to speak.
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