Andy Marcell, CEO of Reinsurance Solutions, Aon. Image: Aon
Ahead of Future Human, we sat down with Andy Marcell, CEO of Reinsurance Solutions at Aon, to chat about using innovation to manage risk in an ever more complex world.
How do you embrace the intellectual inquisitiveness of humans, the desire of entities to understand risk, and modelling mass amounts of data while employing all the technological advancements that are available to the industry today?
That’s the question Aon’s CEO of Reinsurance Solutions says we need to be asking ourselves as we work within the parameters of an ever more volatile world.
At a time when we are seeing supply chain disruptions, a climate crisis and war, Andy Marcell says bringing understanding to risk and being able to measure it is one of those places where Aon can make a difference.
It’s one of the reasons Aon has teamed up with Future Human this year as the Silicon Republic event returns to an in-person format on 12 and 13 May, albeit with limited numbers and many more attendees from all over the world expected to tune in online.
From his previous role as head of strategy for Reinsurance Solutions at Aon, Marcell was appointed CEO back in 2018. In this position, he plays a wide role in managing the global business and works with clients and colleagues to support the company’s ongoing growth strategies.
“If you embrace innovation – which is what Future Human is all about – if you understand that the future employee is going to have understand and embrace technology, not only as to how you understand risk but how that risk is even distributed digitally, then data capture becomes essential in creating solutions that solve some of the really big questions like supply chain,” says Marcell.
“If you think of supply chain, it’s an immensely complicated, interrelated set of circumstances that may not seem as interrelated as they first appear,” he adds. “But you can follow technology around network theory, which speaks to the interrelating of industries together and, if there’s a particular event, how that impacts many industries at the same time.”
Trying to quantify that and bring stability to that distribution chain is vital, Marcell says. In our interview, he cites the example of food distribution.
“When you start thinking, it’s a fascinating but enormous task the insurance industry is taking on, so we hope at Future Human to make people see the possibilities and embrace technology and innovation.”
It’s about becoming the professionals of the future and understanding how critical this is, he adds. “We can’t just show up to the office every day and do the same thing we used to do and expect to solve a series of increasingly complex issues – and that complexity is increasing almost like Moore’s Law. It’s dynamically increasing and multiplying all the time.”
It is one of many themes that will be picked up at Future Human, when Aon president Eric Andersen will be doing an exclusive fireside chat with Silicon Republic co-founder and event curator Ann O’Dea.
Future Human is Silicon Republic’s international sci-tech event focusing on the future of work, climate, entrepreneurship, leadership and the web. The event will take place on 12-13 May 2022, and in-person and online tickets are available at the Future Human website. For more information, you can also sign up to the Future Human newsletter for event updates and special offers.
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