Sharon Fox: Creating a Conducive Environment
On the latest episode of Risk Management: Brick by Brick, Jason Reichl is joined by expert in insurance, Sharon Fox. As the Vice President of Partnerships & Strategy at TrustLayer, Sharon plays a crucial role in driving the company’s growth and success. She focuses on creating programs that aid channel, strategic, technology, and data providers on their digital proof of insurance platform.
In this episode, Jason and Sharon engage in a fascinating discussion covering the impact of technology in the insurance industry, Sharon’s personal journey leading to her current career path, and the significance of staying updated with the latest technological advancements.
To find out how TrustLayer manages risk so that people can build the physical world around us, head to TrustLayer.io.
Technology and Data in the Insurance Industry
Over the past ten years, there has been a new focus on a new wave of technology that enables organizations to work more efficiently rather than disrupting their jobs. Sharon sees there as being two approaches from the technology side of things: the front office client experience and the back office employee experience. There has been a great deal of evolution and innovation surrounding the client experience, but the same cannot be said for the employee experience. Legacy technology companies are making valiant efforts to evolve, opening up systems to APIs, but data capture is falling behind compared to other industries.
Sharon goes further to say “I think something we’re sleeping on in the industry is just how much data the insurance industry takes in about different companies, their risk profiles, and how that’s utilized. So I think we’re sleeping on the data that the industry sits on, how it’s utilized and then the actual products that can be built out of some of the data that we sit on.” Risk managers need to utilize the data that is being drawn in to appreciate all the risks around them.
Visibility into All Elements of an Organization
Sharon sees risk managers as “the quarterback” of a team, overseeing and helping with all company risks, ranging from financial to business operational risks and further. However, risk managers are not necessarily experts in all of these elements, and so having this visibility can be hugely challenging. This is where Sharon believes that tech can step in to help. They can provide the collaboration and visibility that is paramount to building a strong enterprise risk management program and relieving some of those pressures from the risk managers; “visibility into all of those company risks, I think is one of the probably biggest challenges [risk managers] face today.”
Further, Sharon believes that it is important for everyone in the insurance industry to stay curious and ask questions to everyone around you. Insurance isn’t just the old white guy sitting at a desk, it can be so much more. Always looking for information two levels below the surface level can broaden your horizons and open up new experiences. It also just might help with your visibility and understanding across the organization, helping you to excel within the risk management field.
So, ask questions, stay curious, and keep an eye on what technologies might help you out!