Nine leadership questions for Sean Hanlon, Executive Director, BrightRock
Posted on 1 Jul, 24 by BrightRock
After studying teaching and drama, I found my passion when I joined the life insurance industry as a broker consultant in the early 90s. I’ve worked in senior positions in financial services for over 30 years, having set up and run distribution for major life insurance operations in South Africa and the United Kingdom.
1. For how long have you been Executive Director at BrightRock?
I teamed up with my co-founders to establish BrightRock in 2011 and have been an Executive Director since inception. We set out to change the life insurance industry and to create products that would better meet the needs both of financial advisers and consumers.
2. Briefly take us through the early days of BrightRock, your responsibilities, what the vision was, and how this vision has evolved over the years.
Starting BrightRock has been the most challenging and most rewarding experience of my career. I had to build a sales team from the ground up, which was difficult as a new player in the market with no track record, no brand, and a completely new product technology. It required a back-to-basics approach, knocking on doors and braving rejection and even ridicule. My team and I had to visit a lot of brokers and not only sell them a new product and brand, but a completely different way of selling to clients as well.
BrightRock’s goal is platforming brokers’ advice through our needs-matched product. And that was a fundamentally different shift. We had to change the way in which life insurance products were used in the advice process. We’ve refined that process over the years and are continuously exploring how we can best support advisers to meet their clients’ needs and enable their financial advice through our needs-matched life insurance offering.
3. As founding member of BrightRock, how have your previous roles within the insurance industry, and outside of the sector prepared you for the challenging entrepreneurial journey … Any challenges, highlights, or learnings?
I don’t think anything can fully prepare you for this entrepreneurial journey – some things you learn along the journey. You have to be adaptable and learn from, and embrace, change. The biggest highlight has been starting from a zero-base start-up 13 years ago, to now being one of the top four risk insurance providers in terms of new business market share in the independent financial adviser market over the past 12 months (according to the NMG Risk Distribution monitor).
More importantly, we’ve paid over R5.8 billion claims to our clients, helping them navigate difficult change moments in their lives. I am so grateful to the financial advisers who have partnered with us. Who believed in our vision and embraced it, who have helped us refine our product offerings, and have pointed out where we can improve. We are constantly learning from the independent financial advisers we work with, and from our clients. I can’t overstate how much we appreciate their support.
4. Over the last 13 years at BrightRock, how would you characterise the effective leadership qualities that have helped the organisation to deliver on its mandate?
I think the qualities shared by BrightRock’s founding team include commitment, perseverance, and the ability to work together as a team to collaborate and co-create. It’s not always been easy, but we’ve remained clear on our vision and what we’re trying to achieve. But we’ve often had to go back to the drawing board, to rethink and refine our strategies. So I would say a combination of flexibility and a willingness to listen along with an unshakeable, shared commitment to our purpose are what have brought us this far.
5. BrightRock launched in 2011 and is still going strong. What would you point out as the most important traits in an organisation that attracts talent, and enables it to retain it? And how can this be spread across the industry?
It’s definitely a challenge to retain employees, especially in the distribution and sales space, where our industry competes quite fiercely for talent. Often, the focus is on lucrative packages, but in my experience, employees want more than that. I think some of the things that have attracted talent to BrightRock is the clear vision we had – we have a core of deeply committed employees who share in our desire to deliver better outcomes for financial advisers and their clients.
We’ve tried to empower our employees, and to give them the ability to provide input on the product, to collaborate with other business areas. As the business grows, it’s vital that we do the same for our newer employees, who have not walked that same journey – this is something I am acutely aware that we need to keep driving and focusing on.
6. Technology now plays a big part of the insurance value chain. How has BrightRock viewed the advent of insurtechs and fintechs, and how these will play bigger part in back-office processing, product development and distribution in the next few years?
As disruptors in the insurance industry, we value and welcome innovation, and we’ve been able to harness technology to create a highly sophisticated, customisable insurance product. We believe in building products that can precisely match clients’ needs today and change with them as those needs change. We also believe that the best way to get these products to clients is through quality advice from accredited advisers.
Technology has always been a key enabler in our business and we’ve used it to improve efficiencies, to make doing business easier, and to deliver a more user-friendly experience for our clients, but it is no replacement for the power of personal, face to face financial advice.
7. What would you point out as key areas of concern for the life insurance industry for the next three to five years?
This is a big question but I think the key areas of concern are staying abreast of regulatory changes, the ability to harness technological advancements such as AI and machine learning, keeping up with consumer demand for personalisation and convenience, and finding ways to support and enable financial advice in this changing landscape.
I think the key is to remain focused on our purpose and to keep putting clients at the centre of what we do. At the most basic level, the insurance industry needs to keep up with the changing customer and how they want to interact with our products. It’s essential to keep our finger on the pulse of a rapidly changing landscape, to continue to harness technology to tailor products to clients’ needs and to support quality advice in everything we do.
8. If you could go back and give your 18-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?
The only time you give up is when YOU decide, not when others decide. Persevere.
9. What is the one book you would recommend to your audience, and why?
Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill. Great guide to liberating the power of the human mind.
This article was originally published on Insurance Biz on 26 June 2024 and is attributed to Kwanele Sibanda. Click here to read the original version.
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