Scouting for Growth

Brian Childress: The Fractional CEO

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Brian Childress, a seasoned technology executive & fractional CTO with over 15 years of experience helping businesses in healthcare, finance, education & more develop and scale their technology solutions.
In this episode, we dive into Brian's journey to becoming a fractional CTO, the most common technology challenges businesses face, his advice for non-technical founders, and his predictions for the game-changing technologies of the future. We'll also explore topics such as mitigating the risks of outsourcing development work, best practices for application security & scalability, strategies for closing the tech talent gap through global hiring, & the importance of collecting the right data to leverage AI effectively.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Fractionality is a trend in which you seek access to high-level expertise even though you may not have the work or capital to employ them full-time. If we’re honest with ourselves, there’s not 40 hours' worth of work to do in a lot of organisations or in a number of roles, so if I can come in & make high impact in an organisation for a fraction of the cost, that’s really valuable.
One of the biggest things that’s helped me is that day-to-day I do software engineering work, but through most of my career I’ve been freelancing & moonlighting on the side, so I’ve doubled the amount of exposure & experience I’ve been able to gain in my career by working with a number of different organisations, teams, projects & technologies. I’m drawing on every single one of those experiences to help & support the teams I work with.
One of the biggest challenges I see for non-technical founders is determining which advice to follow. Technology can be a black box that’s really hard to understand, & for non-technical founders, there are a lot of people who look & sound like they understand technology, but unfortunately, they could be giving bad advice. 
We make things too complex too early. Many of us think we have the next great idea & it’s going to be huge right out of the gate, so we need to build so we can support millions of customers from day 1. That’s never the case. But a lot of the guidance that’s out there comes from the Googles and the Netflixes of the world, and we build our architecture around these organisations. But we forget that they have thousands of people supporting those architectures & their complexity, & millions of users to support. 
BEST MOMENTS
‘It’s a fraction of the cost, not the expertise.’
‘Don’t follow the advice of the first person to come to you, it puts a lot of founders and companies in bad positions.’
‘Building in complexity from the outset hurts us all the way through the growth of our business.’
‘What is the simplest set of technologies & solutions that we can put together that solves a real business need? A lot of those boring technologies can be scaled up to support millions of users & billions of requests, we just have to be smart about the way we do it.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Brian Childress is a seasoned technology executive & fractional CTO with over 15 years of experience helping businesses in healthcare, finance, education, and more develop and scale their technology solutions. 
As a technical advisor with a strong background in software engineering, cloud computing, & cybersecurity, Brian is experienced in helping CTOs & CEOs make the right technical decisions for their organisations.
Summit Labs
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Scott Ritzheimer: Scaling Predictable Success

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Scott Ritzheimer, the co-founder of Scale Architects and author of "The Founder's Evolution".
In this episode, Scott will share his wisdom on breaking through the common challenges founders face, wanting to grow faster despite constraints, overcoming the limitations of being the bottleneck to scaling, and building an organization that can thrive beyond the founder's direct involvement.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Business is hard; there are challenges that come up, of course, but at one point, while the company was growing really fast, the challenges started popping up faster than we could fix them. It felt like it got really hard again, which didn’t make sense because we were doing the same things that had spurred phenomenal growth over the last 5 years. The year-end financials have been declining for two years in a row despite cutbacks. We had no idea how to fix it because there wasn’t one obvious reason for it.
Every organisation goes through a stage called ‘whitewater’, where the complexity of the business causes us to cause problems; there’s no one problem to fix, it’s the complexity of everything that has built up, and it’s exceeding our ability to manage, lead, and deliver consistent quality for our customers. That gave me hope when my business felt like we were flailing.
There are things you need to do organisationally, but you also need to change how you show up personally as a founder, CEO, and leader, and how you build, structure, and architect your organisation. You have to do both. By doing this, my company tripled its bottom line in a single year & went on to open 2 multi-million dollar business units & increased profit margins by 5% for the next 2 years.
For founders/entrepreneurs/CEOs/leaders, there’s so much more on the line than just us. When we get it wrong, it’s not just about my profit margins, it’s about my life, my family’s life, my leaders’ lives, my teams’ lives, it’s about our ability to deliver quality for our customers & their experience. The opportunity we were able to create after achieving predictable success was night and day from the struggle we had in whitewater.
BEST MOMENTS
‘If you don’t have profit, you don’t have anything to invest with.’
‘Folks need to know how & when to hire a coach & what to look for when they do.’
‘I don’t want any founder out there to not know what their next level is.’
‘Predictable success is the set of 7 stages that every business goes through, by understanding it we can accurately predict what challenges we’ll be facing & the highest leverage strategies we can implement.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Scott Ritzheimer is a seasoned entrepreneur and co-founder who has helped start nearly 20,000 new businesses and nonprofits.
Scott founded Scale Architects to help other founders and CEOs identify and implement the strategies that fast-track their organizations to predictable success.
Through his work, Scott identified a universal pattern that consistently created success. He distilled these insights into the Founder's Evolution framework, which outlines the seven stages every founder must navigate.
This roadmap equips founders with the clarity to understand their current stage, intentionally plan their growth trajectory, and focus on the critical strategies for each phase.
Scott is dedicated to helping founders overcome the common challenges of wanting to grow faster despite constraints, of being the bottleneck to scaling, and of building an organization that can thrive beyond the founder's direct involvement. Scott’s unique blend of entrepreneurial experience and passion for enabling founders' success brings valuable insights to help listeners navigate their growth journeys with greater clarity and confidence.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Oliver Wyman Series: John Johansen – Leveraging the startup culture within legacy corporations

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to John Johansen, a senior technology executive & operational leader with over 25 years of experience in consulting & executive roles. She is also joined by Steven Abel, partner at Oliver Wyman.
In this episode, the two guests want to challenge & change current operational mindsets within large enterprises. They dive into the known tech challenges existing within our currently fast-evolving digitalizing insurance space, why an experimentation culture is critical to drive the relevance & resilience business needs today, what are the most effective paths for evolution, reinvention & consideration, & insights on how businesses can leverage tech ecosystems to scale digitally-driven revenue models.
KEY TAKEAWAYS         
I started creating business applications when I was 13 years old & have been writing software ever since. I’ve been doing this in the insurance world for about 30 years. With Oliver Wyman, we’ve been able to create a team that builds tools at speed that really improve our clients’ businesses.
InsurTechs have admirable qualities of being able to run experiments & take them to investors & get feedback even in the early days, then pivot on the back of those results. They can quickly create real, tangible products that people can touch, feel & react to, which creates a new round of experimentation, including more people giving feedback, more experimentation & more changes. We wanted to bring that into a corporate environment that didn’t have that level of agility.
The idea of responsible innovation is super important. There’s nothing wrong with the big corporate machine because it does many things well. It protects the risk agenda; it enables bulletproof, very stable technology. We have a very large client we’ve worked with on innovation, and we’re beginning to scale that in the enterprise. We’re not thinking of this in three lanes: The innovation group, the BAU support group, and the enterprise architecture group.
One of the things that’s fraught with peril in any IT organisation is the transition from development to beta tests, to launch, to production support. Are we doing those things better? Is there less drama? Thinking through those early experiments & really demonstrating to people that the process is yielding that benefit/business change faster, with less investment, than an 18-month requirement process, an 18-month build & then a 12-month implementation. With the right experiments & stakeholder team, we are seeing those metrics trending in the right direction.
BEST MOMENTS
‘We’re still seeing some bureaucracy, which means it’s hard to maintain momentum. We wanted to break the bounds of the culture and progress in weeks, not months.’‘There’s a lot that we can do to improve business processes & be responsive to our business users by running small experiments.’‘The most important part of measuring success starts with picking the right experiments up front.’‘We can begin to measure by throughput: Is this process of experimentation actually getting us to faster, better business results, implementations and hand-offs?’
ABOUT THE GUESTS
John Johansen is a seasoned senior technology executive & operational leader with a proven track record of success. Based in Naples, he brings extensive experience in driving growth & innovation within the technology sector. As part of Oliver Wyman, Johansen specializes in helping legacy corporations leverage startup culture to foster agility, accelerate digital transformation, & unlock new opportunities.
Steve Abel is a dedicated partner at Oliver Wyman, leveraging his 25+ years of consulting & executive experience to help clients tackle intricate challenges & lead teams in delivering reliable insights. With a strong focus on smart technological implementation, Steve has a proven track record of generating value for organizations.
His extensive expertise encompasses program management, operations, shared services, enabling technologies, business process reengineering, finance best practices, insurance products & data, actuarial platforms, machine learning, artificial intelligence, cloud solutions, & business & technical architecture.
Steve's passion lies in helping clients achieve their strategic objectives & optimize performance, while cultivating a collaborative, innovative, & high-performing work culture.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Oliver Wyman Series: Brian McDermott – Inside Victors $3bn InsurTech Success

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Brian McDermott, Chief Information Officer at Victor Insurance.
This podcast will be a little bit different. Steven Abel will join us to highlight Oliver Wyman's relationship with Victor Insurance, a Marsh McLennan subsidiary. Indeed, in the complex world of business, speed to value when delivering technology is critical & Victor Insurance has found a critical partner in the Oliver Wyman team.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
An MGA is a company appointed by the insurer, typically the carrier, to exercise supervision & oversight on specific & targeted insurance programmes. We do everything an insurance company does, but we don’t source the capital; the carrier provides the capital for us, and they manage the risk associated with it. We underwrite the risk on behalf of others & handle a lot of the administration on behalf of the carrier, including claims processing, servicing, transaction processing, connecting with the broker, handling insurance fees, & processing any financial aspects.
We operate in 8 countries. The majority of the revenues & premiums derive from the US, around 80% left-side of the globe, 20% right-side. But we do see immense opportunity on the right side of the globe, as it’s an untapped market for products & service offerings we can provide. That’s a key strategic focus as we proceed.
Typically, InsurTechs’ challenges include having a great product but limited premium running through the platform because of the leverage they have with their carriers to bring those products onto the platform. 
We differ from Marsh McLennan in that we’re a full, front-to-back insurance company: we place products through our digital portal experiences, provide policy servicing, process claims, report data, perform analytics, & underwriting. Marsh McLennan is a re-insurance broker; they don’t typically do underwriting. Our technology environments differ in that they’re built for different scales – we’re low-premium, high-volume; March McLennan operates in a different market segment: enterprise and high-end businesses; we operate in a small/micro market. We have to build scalable, fast products, whereas Marsh is more of a heavy-touch, relationship-based business with their clients. So it’s difficult to align with them completely, but there are a number of areas around complementary services.
BEST MOMENTS
‘We’re trying to become the Amazon for brokers in the small, commercial & speciality marketplace.’
‘One of the key challenges I have is to make sure that we can modernise while we integrate as we go on our journey towards the future.’
‘We sit in the middle of the value chain with the broker on the left-hand side, supporting the insured, & the carrier on the right, they provide the capital to us.’
‘We need to make sure that we harvest the data insights that we have: historical claims & underwriting data - & augment it with tools like machine learning, AI, data ingestion & enrichment.’
ABOUT THE GUESTS
Brian McDermott was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Victor Insurance, a leading global provider of specialty insurance programs & a subsidiary of Marsh McLennan.
Brian brings a wealth of experience to his role, with a career spanning more than 30 years in diverse industries such as retail, insurance, finance, & government.
Known for his disruptive thinking and innovation within the IT field, Brian is constantly exploring new ways to leverage contemporary technology & drive digital transformation within the insurance industry.
In his role as CIO, Brian is keen to embrace modern technologies & help drive the agenda within the broader Marsh McLennan corporation. His unique perspective, stemming from Victor Insurance's position as a high-volume, high-transaction business, enables him to provide valuable input on the digital connection between the market & the brokers & clients he works with.
As a partner at Oliver Wyman, Steve Abel helps clients solve complex problems & lead teams to deliver insights that you can trust. Steve acquired over 25 years of experience in consulting & executive roles, delivering value to organizations via smart technological deployment.
Steve’s specialties include program management, operations, shared services, enabling technologies, business process reengineering, finance-leading practices, insurance products & data, actuarial platforms, machine learning, AI, cloud solutions, and business & technical architecture. 
Steve is passionate about helping clients achieve their strategic goals & optimize their performance, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, & excellence.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Oliver Wyman Series: Steve Abel – Reinventing InsurTech to Yield a Competitive Edge

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Steve Abel, Partner at Oliver Wyman. In this episode, they dive into the insurtech world & determine how to reinvent the InsurTech space by Leveraging Commoditized Tech for a Competitive Edge.
On this episode, they discuss:
The common mistake InsurTech startups make when investing in technology components is failing to develop well-thought-out architectures.
How InsurTech startups can leverage commoditized technology to focus on building unique value propositions.
The strategies for effectively orchestrating & assembling tech components into a symbiotic whole for faster go-to-market.
How InsurTech startups can focus on monetizing their algorithms rather than building the full tech stack.
The changing concept of differentiation in the InsurTech sector & how startups can leverage this to their advantage.
Useful links:Cyber Security and Captive InsuranceSelf-insured actuarial servicesCapital modelling
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There are a couple of errors that founders make. The first is that you need to hire technologists to build everything for you in an undifferentiated way. Most of what you’re bringing to the market is not proprietary or unique.  It’s a drag on money, speed & you may lose focus on what’s important to your business model. You don’t need to hire them; with the pace of tech change, a year from now you’ll need different talent because the tech will be different. Rent tech talent at the beginning.
Most innovation that occurs in the InsurTech space is from founders & companies that you may be innovating or own, you’re the force of innovation in this sector. That’s important for your investors because they want a return on their investment. It’s important for the sector because the huge advancements in the distribution & carrier space, to your customers are because of you.
Critically assess what technical talent is absolutely necessary to be core to your vision; it’s as important as thinking about your architecture & tooling in terms of what is generically available & what’s going to be part of your secret sauce.
InsurTech’s burn through time & capital fast, how can you assemble your solution in a way that you can test a market as quickly as feasibly possible? A lot of founders lose time tripping over boring, platform tech.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Modern tooling, especially cloud-based, already scales. The idea that you need to buy a specialised infrastructure or server is no longer important as it once was.’
‘Getting something in your customer’s hands as fast as possible to find out what they’re going to find valuable & pay for.’
‘If you’re a founder with a great idea, everything that’s core to that great idea you need to own.’
‘In order to make money, it’s important to understand how your product is going to be used & sold. These are not the same thing & that can be a very costly mistake.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
As a partner at Oliver Wyman, Steve Abel helps clients solve complex problems and lead teams to deliver insights that you can trust. Steve acquired over 25 years of experience in consulting & executive roles, delivering value to organizations via smart technological deployment.
Steve’s specialties include program management, operations, shared services, enabling technologies, business process reengineering, finance-leading practices, insurance products & data, actuarial platforms, machine learning, AI, cloud solutions, and business & technical architecture. 
Steve is passionate about helping clients achieve their strategic goals & optimize their performance, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, & excellence.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Oliver Wyman Series: Steve Abel – Unlocking Legacy & Transforming Tech in Insurance

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Steve Abel, Partner at Oliver Wyman. In this episode, they dive into the challenges & solutions related to legacy debt & system modernization for incumbent insurers.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A few decades ago, there weren’t as many or as complex systems in the insurance landscape. Generally, there was 1 or several admin systems that did everything. The cost & complexity of IT were relatively low compared to now. The proliferation of systems that solve business problems, the complexity of those systems has increased exponentially in part because of the sheer number of systems, but also because the landscape has evolved to accept that implementing a claims/administration/finance system should take years or months.
A lot of carriers have made successful bets in the past; they’ve bought a system, customised it & to a large extent, historically, they have fulfilled their promise to the business. Perhaps they were a little expensive or hard to implement, but at the end of the day, the stakeholders got what they wanted. 
Take a hard look at your technology. A lot of these programmes fail – between 30% and 60%, depending on who you ask. Ask yourself: Is it worth the investment for my business? If you have a generic business, the cost of customisation might be very low, but if your business customises a lot & you’re done, you end up with a lot of spreadsheets, maybe that’s not a great idea.
BEST MOMENTS
‘There’s an emerging opportunity for insurance carriers to leverage a new ecosystem of tooling & providers that isn’t as monolithic & doesn’t require so many months & so much cost to implement.’
‘In modern (mostly) cloud-based technology, it’s possible to think of data as an enterprise/ecosystem asset, so you can keep that data in a structure that works for multiple business processes/calculations.’
‘Speed is now more important than ever in thinking about technology in an ecosystem. It used to be that you could pace your development choices in years, now technology is moving so much faster – years and months instead of decades.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
As a partner at Oliver Wyman, Steve Abel helps clients solve complex problems & lead teams to deliver insights that you can trust. Steve acquired over 25 years of experience in consulting & executive roles, delivering value to organizations via smart technological deployment.
Steve’s specialties include program management, operations, shared services, enabling technologies, business process reengineering, finance-leading practices, insurance products & data, actuarial platforms, machine learning, AI, cloud solutions, and business & technical architecture. 
Steve is passionate about helping clients achieve their strategic goals & optimize their performance, while fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, & excellence.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Oliver Wyman Series: Unlocking Value by Leveraging Commoditised Tech

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL introduces the a series of podcasts featuring Steve Abel, Partner at Oliver Wyman, Brian McDermott, Chief Technology Officer at Victor Insurance and Esther Becker, Partner and Captive Actuarial Leader at Oliver Wyman.
The objectives of the following four episodes are to:
create an all-rounded viewpoint of what is happening in insurance 
demonstrate how an insurance managing general agent has grown its business to over 3 billion dollars in Direct Written Premiums (DWP)
and how the world of captive insurance is evolving when emerging risks are so present in our day-to-day lives.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Legacy system optimization is crucial for insurance companies to not only reduce costs but also to enhance the value of existing investments. By addressing historical oversights and implementing effective strategies, insurance companies and carriers worldwide can unlock comprehensive value from their legacy systems.
Insurers out there… You've made substantial investments in your core systems, but it's possible that some of our decisions weren't aligned with the best long-term outcomes for your business or enterprise. Revisit past decisions critically to assess whether they still serve your company's current and future needs. Look for signs that you've been locked into proprietary solutions, which may hinder adaptability or interoperability in the long term. I have talked about those with many insurers, and this is certainly an area of concern today.
Implement APIs that enable more flexible interaction with your core systems, and introduce modular upgrades that add new capabilities without a complete system overhaul. These targeted improvements can significantly increase value and extend the lifespan of your core systems, helping you stay competitive in a rapidly evolving insurance market.
Finally, I wanted to dive into the world of captives, and self-insurance programs offer a strategic approach to managing emergent non-insurable risks. A captive’s ability to navigate complex technological challenges and optimize technology choices is crucial to reinforcing the relevance and efficiency of its operations.
BEST MOMENTS
‘To unlock the value from your core systems, adopt a three-pronged approach: Simplify. Innovate. Collaborate.’
‘When you invest in technology startups, scaleups and growth ventures… recognizing the common missteps is going to be essential to avoid them.’
‘In leveraging commoditized technology, your goal should be to build more relevant applications. Utilizing established technologies allows you to focus on innovation without reinventing the wheel.’
‘By proactively shaping your approach to these areas of advancement, you're preparing to meet the demands of 2030 and propel the insurance and insurtech sectors forward.’
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Romaney O’Malley: Disrupting Financial Strategy in InsurTech

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Romaney O’Malley, Group CTO at bolttech, an InsurTech unicorn that is quite literally electrifying the InsurTech space, now spearheading solutions in 35 markets across three continents.
In today’s episode, we explore a multitude of topics, including: The Journey to the Top: What were the critical turning points in Romaney's impressive career? Master Strategist: How does Romany approach challenging strategic decisions at bolttech? Industry Titans: What's the inner fabric of companies like Bolltech, as well as traditional companies such as AIG, Swiss Re, and GE Insurance?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In 2008, my husband and I decided to move to Johannesburg so he could take an opportunity with a bank in South Africa. That was a big deal to move away from London & a great job with SwissRe, but this was a really unique opportunity that ended up being one of the best decisions we’ve made for both of our careers. It exposed me to very different markets across Africa, which was invaluable to the rest of my career. Taking risks is important.
One of the fascinating things about emerging markets is that they can leapfrog the steps that have shaped mature industries. The use of mobile technology & telcos in banking in many parts of Africa is far more advanced than we see in developed countries, because they have skipped many of the evolutionary steps that some older economies have taken. Those markets & consumers are at the sharp end of innovation.
You can’t approach things as 1 decision. Your leadership team/board is never going to make 1 linear series of decisions; the complexity comes from multiple decisions & how they interact with each other. You should approach these problems as multi-dimensional & you’re always going to be balancing different things. Strategic decisions are about trade-offs & maximising the point at which you ensure you’re delivering a range of things to different stakeholders without getting out of balance.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Moving to London from Sydney on secondment gave me the opportunity to see the scale & the size of the opportunity in the rest of the world.’
‘I always knew the future of insurance was technology-based.’
‘Play to your strengths but surround yourself with a team of people that are really good at the things that you’re not so good at.’
‘The stronger we can build an ecosystem across the opportunity in InsurTech, the more effective insurance industry we’re going to have.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Romaney O’Malley, Group CFO at bolttech, an international insurtech company that is revolutionizing the way we think about insurance and technology. Her unique blend of leadership skills and financial acumen is drawn from a 25+ year-career at the apex of the insurance industry.
Romaney's depth of experience is not limited to the insurance field; she has also ventured into reinsurance, finance, and consulting.
When the numbers are crunched and the strategies laid down, Romaney finds her escape in the great outdoors. Whether planning her next exciting travel adventure or unwinding through the meditative art of yoga, she's a perpetual explorer—of landscapes, of limits, and of life.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Anika Jackson: Amplifying Your Brand Power

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Anika Jackson, who wears many hats with enviable finesse. Currently, Anika is professor, a VP of operations for Full Capacity Marketing, a full-service agency dedicated to uplifting workforce development and educational institutions.
Today, Anika will share with us her insights about growth, drawing from her multi-faceted experiences and achievements.
KEY TAKEAWAYS         
Everything changes every day with digital. AI has been around for 20 years, but only last year its popularity rose for everyone to understand what the technology is & start utilising it for marketing or efficiencies in our systems & processes. We have to keep on top of everything. My students range from 20s-60s & they want to learn how to manage everything that’s happening.
Podcasting is the only omni-channel marketing that we have nowadays; you have video content, audio content, you can create blog posts, thought-leadership pieces, hundreds of pieces of content for social media. There are so many ways to utilise each episode. Not only that, it’s business development, every time I’m on a podcast or have a guest on my podcast not only do I learn something new from them but that’s another person I can now call on in my network.
I’ve leaned into learning more about a lot of different things so I can better advise people on how to make the best use of their dollars. Especially for small businesses, it’s not easy to get financing unless you have someone already backing you – most small businesses don’t. We at the Intuit Small Business Council are going to speak to Congress in a couple of weeks about AI & small businesses & making sure they have access to tools – digital equity.
A lot of people don’t want to use their own voice, but in this day & time everybody wants to know who are you? I’m buying into you as a person & a founder. Yes, you have the product that’s going to solve something, but I want to know about the person, the authenticity factor. You have to believe in the person & that their solution is really going to solve your problem. Don’t think about it as ‘you’, think about it as you’ve got something people need to hear because what you have to offer & the solution you’re providing is going to help revolutionise things, help with access to something, or change somebody’s life that’s really important to them at this time. Take the ego out of it.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Who are you & what are you doing here? That needs to infuse everything that you do. It helps people decide if they take a job, can work with you, if you’re aligned with them. ’‘I’m learning as much as I’m teaching.’‘This is a world where you have to think omni-channel, you have to be integrated, & you can’t be siloed, you have to work together, that’s the world we live in.’‘Reserve all of the names across the socials but don’t scatter your attention, really be focused and niche down.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Anika Jackson is a mother, community volunteer, philanthropist, marketing and communications professional, podcast host, and graduate adjunct professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. As a marketer, she has done it all, including experiential marketing/event production, launch marketing, public relations, digital, and influencer marketing throughout her multiple-decade career.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Nektarios Liolios: Driving FinTech Innovation and Mental Health Advocacy

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Nektarios Liolios, a true FinTech trailblazer, a passionate entrepreneur, and a dedicated mental health advocate.
In this episode, we'll dive into Nektarios' wealth of experience and insights on the evolution of FinTech, building thriving startup communities, investing in early-stage ventures, and fostering a more inclusive and mentally healthy entrepreneurial landscape.
KEY TAKEAWAYS         
When I started the accelerators, we were riding the first wave of glorified entrepreneurship in 2011-13. Startups were cool, & we created artificial pressure around building things faster than in the wild. There were glimpses of people struggling, but I really didn’t take them too seriously. The real understanding of how bad people's mental health was affected in the early stages of building a business wasn’t something I was fully aware of. But it became clearer to me as we progressed with building these programmes.
In 2018, I lost my Dad the day after I finished work at the accelerator. I had to deal with the mess that comes with leaving behind a big chunk of my identity. I thought, perhaps there’s room to do something about this & I joined a woman I knew who had started Founder Anonymous within the VC fund she worked with to give founders the space to talk about how hard it actually is.
There’s a bag of things: identity, loneliness, imposter syndrome, and co-founder conflict. There are so many things that naturally happen in life, concentrated in the world of building a startup, & these people are completely left to their own devices to deal with these challenges. I got into entrepreneurship in my mid-40s, so I already feel I was a little better prepared for these things than younger entrepreneurs who haven’t had much life experience. But I wasn’t expecting my identity to be so messed up.
The challenges faced by someone working in the corporate world and someone working in the entrepreneurial world are different, especially for founders. You don’t have the same support system. In the corporate world, you can take some time off and talk to HR; there may even be support initiatives. But founders are very specific kinds of animals; it takes a particular type of makeup to become one in the first place. Research shows that entrepreneurs are more likely to have anxiety, depression, and neurodiversity manifestations (ADHD, bipolar) in their family history.
BEST MOMENTS
‘The outside picture is that startups are cool & the hustle is cool & you need to ruin yourself because the potential returns of a successful startup aren’t comparable to corporate life, I want to demystify that.’‘We were part of the problem; we cared about the business, we didn’t care about the people behind the business.’‘We want to build a business where we don’t want to kill ourselves. That doesn’t mean we’re not working hard; it means being allowed to say I’m struggling. Authenticity is important.’‘There’s a link between wanting to be your own boss & experiencing certain mental health issues.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Nektarios Liolios is a visionary FinTech entrepreneur, investor, ecosystem builder, and mental health advocate, passionate about driving positive change.
His work has taken him around the globe, where he has closely collaborated with hundreds of entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses in London, New York, Singapore, Dubai, Amsterdam, and Melbourne. His dedication to entrepreneurship, collaboration, and improving lives has earned him recognition as a FinTech veteran and a spot on the Pride in FinTech Powerlist 2023.
LinkedIn
Innovate Finance
The Future Farm
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Nicky Billou: Elon Musk-Style Thought Leadership Strategies for CEOs

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Nicky Billou, who shares his expertise on how startup CEOs can leverage thought leadership to accelerate business growth, stand out in competitive markets, & create lasting impact in their industries.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
My parents took us from a legacy of tyranny, in Iran, to a legacy of freedom in Canada. This is a very profound & important thing for an entrepreneur to understand: Entrepreneurship is only possible where you have free enterprise, free enterprise is only possible where you have free expression, free expression is only possible where you have freedom. The bedrock foundation for the success of any entrepreneurs in an environment that allows for freedom.
We are living in an era where for you to really make an impact, for you to have your brand/organisation to be known, you can’t do things the way they’ve always been done. People are smart now, they can see when you’re being disingenuous. What all people crave, everywhere, is authenticity, being real, being honest, coming from the heart. As a founder/CEO you need to understand that & it must be first & foremost in your mind.
Elon Musk is somebody who has taken the time to create for himself a persona, a brand. Everyone knows Elon Musk. Why? Because Elon Musk stands for something more than “I want to sell more cars.” He got into Tesla because he wanted to change the world. DO you want to be the unknown CEO of your company or the Elon Musk of your industry?
Being a guest on a podcast is like doing a TED Talk; you’ve got 18 minutes, you can’t waste 1 word, & you need to know what you are & aren’t going to say. Podcast guesting is an important tool in thought leadership. You also need a team to put out your content in the form of videos, written quotes & longer-form posts. CEOs should also have their own podcast but it shouldn’t be about your business, it should be about you so you raise your profile. Finally, you need to write a book (you could hire someone to co-author it with you).
BEST MOMENTS
‘It takes an immigrant to show people the value of freedom. There are a lot of people in the West that don’t appreciate how precious & wonderful freedom is & how it doesn’t exist everywhere.’
‘Life is about people, even business is about people, not money. The purpose of business is to solve problem for people for a profit.’
‘My superpower is I’m a professional believer, I believe in people, I pour into people, I Love people.’
‘If you want to sell more, have the best employees working for you, have access to investment funds to grow & scale, thought leadership is the accelerator that will get you there faster than anything else.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Nicky Billou is an author, thought leadership expert, & host of the Thought Leader Revolution podcast. Over the past decade, Nicky has established himself as a leading authority on personal branding & business growth strategies.
As the founder of eCircle Academy, Nicky runs a year-long mastermind & educational program, working with entrepreneurs from various industries to position them as authorities in their niches. 
His insights have helped numerous entrepreneurs add 7-9 figures to their businesses & build powerful personal brands. With a passion for helping startup founders & CEOs become thought leaders in their industries, Nicky draws inspiration from visionary leaders like Elon Musk. He believes that by developing a solid personal brand, entrepreneurs can attract more investors, customers, & top talent to their ventures.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Yannick Even: A GenAI Visionary and the Future of Work

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Yannick Even, a visionary at the intersection of AI, analytics and Generative AI. With over two decades of experience in transforming global organizations into data-driven powerhouses, Yannick's journey has taken him from the corridors of management consulting across Europe and Asia to pioneering roles at Swiss Re, where he led the charge in integrating innovative tech and data insurance products into the market.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Insurance is very traditional. Even 15 years ago there were a lot of forms, paper, very siloed. Nobody could really track a customer throughout their journey, everyone was very focused on their part of the journey. This is also true in terms of technology and data. It created a lot of misunderstanding for the customers & even the brokers about the future of insurance & how to leverage technology & data. This resulted in a lot of data gaps in the core of the system, from CRM to data management. It’s taken until recently for the industry to realize we need to do much better.
In the last 5 years at Swiss Re, I’ve witnessed & been part of a transformation to a data-driven company. We built a common data foundation where we agreed on even the common definition of data, built a catalog of data and assigned data custodians. On top of this foundation, we built the governance layer & tried to take out the silos making data available to everyone, not stuck behind barriers. The most important layer was the cultural layer, around the people, we upskilled them around data and AI literacy.
You need to really understand the market, I've seen too many people build fancy solutions with the latest technology available, but not spending enough time checking the product is what the customer needs.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Customer expectations are used now to have a much more engaging, personalized digital interaction with banks, retail, restaurant, any service which is at their fingertips.’
‘Data transformation is the base to start the journey in AI enablement. If your data isn't in the right shape, you can't leverage the value AI can bring.’
'We look at where tech & data can augment & bring value at scale into the way we do business.’
‘Not every problem will be solved by GenAI, there are a lot of problems that traditional AI will solve. It's also important to understand which problem will be solved by which technology & make it efficient across all the different parameters.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Yannick Even is a distinguished expert with over two decades of experience in transforming global organizations into data-driven powerhouses, emphasizing the responsible use of Data & AI. His journey in management consulting spanned 18 years across Europe and Asia, including a 5-year tenure at KPMG China.
Recognized as a thought leader in Insurtech, Generative AI (GenAI), & Responsible AI solutions, Yannick has garnered a following of over 12,000 innovators worldwide. Currently based in Zurich, he is leveraging his vast expertise in dual endeavors. He is at the forefront of developing top-tier Generative AI upskilling programs for corporates, including The Digital Insurer Global GenAI Explorer program supported by Microsoft.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.
If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.
And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures