Sumit Bahukhandi

Founder and CEO — Darwin Insurance

RBS, one of the banks I used to advise (as a banking consultant at Boston Consulting Group), were required to sell off their insurance division. I joined DLG, a newly formed large public insurance company at that time, to help the exco with strategy, with a plan to go back into banking after two years. Then I started to love insurance.

It is a great industry that plays a very complex and important role for the society as a whole. In fact, if you chart the course of history, it is partly the ability to spread the risk of the unexpected over time and between more people that has allowed society to progress. I think there is so much opportunity to do this job better and, therefore, have a big impact on the lives of people.

Perhaps it uses too much lingo and set ways of doing things, which makes it harder for more people to engage with the industry.

Building an excellent team and forming great partnerships to launch and scale up Darwin.

Navigating uncertainty and regulation in a way that allows us to stay true to the core purpose of insurance and be there for our customers when they need us.

There is just so much opportunity to provide better value and easier insurance to more and more consumers. Oops — on this one I am like a kid in a candyshop — I can't decide which is the biggest — we want to grab them all!

My Phone — unfortunately.

I don't follow a team.

Probably a Radiohead album.

The eternal search for good wine.

Long walks with our dog, and procrastinating to avoid all chores until the following weekend.