Jonathon Valentine, CIO & Co-founder, Thingco, Top 10 CIO UK 2023 Award Winner

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Welcome to CIO Leadership Live UK.
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I'm Lee Rennick, Executive
Director of CIO Communities for CIO
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and I'm very happy to welcome
Jonathon Valentine, CTO of ThingCo.
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Jonathon, please introduce yourself
and could you tell us a little bit
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about your current role?
I everyone I'm Johnny Valentine.
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I am the CIO and co-founder.
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Thingco we are a
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connected car data company
focusing on the motor insurance sector
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use in driving data to save lives and help
people get cheap car insurance.
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The very interesting business model
that you have
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and I'm really looking forward
to talking about it
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and I really appreciate you
joining us here today.
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Jonathon.
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We've created this series
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to support the senior technology leaders
in their tech and leadership journey.
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So the first question, and I ask everyone
this question,
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can you please tell us a little bit
about your own career path
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and provide some insights
or tips on that road path?
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Are there any lessons learned? Yes.
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So my background is a bit of a weird one.
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I got involved building company companies
in a very young age.
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I started designing websites
from the age of ten, 11 commercially
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from the age of 13,
all because I saw some man rip off my Mum.
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And when he tried to sell
some of our website for a business.
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Unfortunately spending your teenage years
at a computer
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and made me hate the industry
I never wanted use it for GCSCs
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I didn't use it for A-levels.
I wanted nothing to do with it.
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But like a boomerang, you end up
just going back to what you're good at
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and what you're actually passionate about.
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I think I just got a bit burnt out.
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I went to university
like everyone does with no qualifications
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purely off my portfolio,
but left after a year for an opportunity
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to go work for this new insurance company
that was coming soon
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where they needed a coming soon page
for telematics motor insurance.
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No one had no idea what it was.
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So I went to go meet
these bunch of mavericks and took a punt
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and left university
to go become the Head of Web development
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for Insure the Box which went on to sell
a million insurance policies in the UK
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being bought
before being bought by Amazon AD
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and that was as a 19 year old
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that was a crazy way to learn about IT and
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technology leadership.
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When you're watching these four leaders
of insurance build a company from scratch
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and spending millions and millions
building this company
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from nothing to 400 people
in a call center,
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most offices in Gibraltar, London,
Newcastle And I was extremely fortunate
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to sit on the fringes of that and watch
and just absorb and learn.
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And that's how I really got into
all this was I was just fascinated.
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And you could by now and my blood is
telematics and insurance and technology.
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I think myself as a techie, but
I'm probably more of an insurance person
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who's just good at tech
rather than the other way round.
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That's really interesting background.
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And I know when we spoke
you said you started at a very young age
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and you know, a lot of people
get really motivated at young ages
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around like computer games and software
and learning and all of that stuff.
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And it seems
it seems like it really you know,
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you brought your career together that way,
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but as you said,
really involved in the insurance sector.
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So that really segues very well
into our next question, which is around
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cross-sector learning.
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So a lot of the CIOs I speak with
talk about the opportunity to build
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skills and learn skills
working across sectors.
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As mentioned, you started your career
in tech at a very young age
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and you really diversified your knowledge
to working in various sectors.
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So I was wondering if you could provide
some insights on this
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in relation
to how cross-sector learning supported
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you building knowledge
in your technology role?
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So at Insure the Box
what's my role was quite unique.
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And in fact I reported directly to the CEO and
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and my job
as Head of Innovation was purely to
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look at
what was going on across the business
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and try to see how we could use technology
to solve a problem.
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And it didn't have to be AI,
it didn't have be as something fancy.
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It was just how could we automate
something that was a problem?
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An example of that was we were in the pub one
night, at Insure the Box we had,
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We went to the pub
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If it was a good day,
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things went well and if it was a bad day,
we went to the pub to fix it.
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So some days we went twice a day.
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and so we were in there
and they had a problem
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with the call center and the fact that the
wait time was too long.
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We were we were getting very, very,
very successful.
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But the call center couldn't keep
with the call volume, I said, Why don't we do live chat
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And it was 11:00 at night.
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And we went in what we call the director's
corner garden.
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And that was it.
We went to a mindset to do it.
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And so 11:00 at night,
I went back to the office
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and we implemented live chat.
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We a we use live person solution.
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There's no point
building things from scratch
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when there is a solution out there
already made, you can plug in
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and the next morning
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the people in the operations call center
got an email saying, right where
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your log in details for live person,
we're going to start taking live chats.
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And we got it into the website.
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We saw a massive drop off in call volume.
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We saw agents able to handle
five people instead of one phone call
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and it was kind of been involved
in the listing into a problem
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that a department had, that I was able to solve it
and just some out of the box,
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not out of the box, but thinking about it
from a non BAU perspective,
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someone who was a teckie.
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And I think that's the way
I like to get involved in every department
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and what they're doing
because if you have worked in an industry
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or done a job for 20 or 30 years,
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you'll think that
the only way you can do it
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when actually if you're using it,
is slightly different, that you can now
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automate Google sheets.
We can do that part of your job.
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But some people
get quite protective because
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they do a job for 8 hours a day
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and some idiot move some young
and I'm not going to swear
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comes along and says we can automate
that part of your job.
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They're going to
they're going to be affronted.
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No, this is my job.
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But actually, we need to go now.
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Let's let's sort out the bit you don't like
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and let me
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spend more time in the bit
that we need you for which is your brain,
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which is your intelligence,
your human aspect.
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And so that's all I did.
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And suddenly that gives you the ability
to understand operations and understand the back
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end of how things work
and whether it be on claimed back
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and it gave me a real incentive on
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How will work. But also
how to approach people in terms of
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if you tell someone
you going to automate their job,
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they respond to you saying, right,
you'll get rid of me,
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but now you want to automate
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all that stuff as much as possible
so that the humans can do the human work.
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And that's why I think that
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being involved in getting involved in
looking at tickets, looking at all that kind of stuff
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gives you that ability to understand
what's going on, on that on the floor
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so you can help. Right.
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And so and in your case,
I mean when we chatted
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you've worked in various sectors
so really like you've been really in tune
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with what's happening
with the customer journey and experience.
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And and I really wanted to talk about
that.
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I'm just around customer
centric technology.
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So, you know, a lot of the I was sitting
on the roundtable, I tell the story a lot.
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We were talking about cloud
and cloud implementation.
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And one of the CIOs was there saying,
you know, and, and the customer journey.
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So those two together.
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And one CIO was sitting there saying,
you know, the thing is, is that customers
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now expect the Amazon experience. Which is
like I order and the next day I get
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I need. Right?
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So you and I talked about that.
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We discuss the ways you approach
innovation for the customer journey
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and really how you're really building
customer centric
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technology to ensure that the customer is
the most important part of your business.
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So could you talk a little bit
about the ways
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you do that in your technology
leadership role?
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I think the end user
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is the most
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important person for us
because if you think your car insurance
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is something that you legally have to have
and so you've been told to install
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this device
as part of your insurance policy
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and you want to prove
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that you're the best possible driver
to get cheaper car insurance
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and you might get frustrated
because it's not representing you.
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Maybe the fact that the speed limit
is wrong on the road.
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And so it penalized you.
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And so you've had to tell the insurance company.
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That's speed limits wrong. It used to be a forty,
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Now it's a 60. Because you want
cheaper car insurance and you want to prove
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you're good driver. And
and so my view is I don't want to see an issue
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or we we go I go to the customer
or I'll drop randomly to the customer
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that did a ticket and we'll go see them
we'll talk to them and you learn so much
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because they're on it.
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I've had people
that some really unhappy customers,
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whether it's for something really
random maybe the app couldn't download
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from the App Store for that version,
of the phone, really angry.
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And if someone says
we don't get to see them.
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You go see them and suddenly
you have to have a conversation
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with them. Others have
their point of view on understanding.
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And actually you learn a lot
and they become testers of your product.
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So my biggest endorsers are people
that actually,
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I don't know, have the experiences
we spoke to and we understood.
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And then suddenly they
they're testing out new features for us.
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They're coming up with ideas that texting
to me on Saturday night at 10 p.m.
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with an idea they've had
and suddenly we're now in a position where
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you can turn that
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negativity into into a positive part
of your business.
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We review tickets all the time
because we don't even though
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they're not our customers,
the insurance companies,
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because I want that their brands
be represented as well as possible,
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every insurance company.
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So we look
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at what people are talking about,
what's there, and then we reflect on that.
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We're, right?
What can we do to improve that?
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So it's always a cycle of learning
what the customer wants, what their issue,
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the fact that there is right,
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there's a wide screen some about that
person looking at yeah let's look at
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it was a different the speed and speed
limits is one that really
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and resonates with me.
Because it's not fair for someone
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to be threatening
to have their insurance canceled
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because they did something
naughty on the roads.
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What actually wasn't their fault at all,
that the data was invalid
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and when we're working with third parties,
you need to.
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So for me to right,
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hold off third parties to account, to
go, look,
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this customer's had a really bad
experience.
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They've been told by their insurance
company they're going to get canceled
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if they drive at the speed again
on this road.
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But the road allows the speed
limit is incorrect.
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You still have a data
that this customer is going to
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that's going to be financially
impacting them for years.
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And so I think for us, because we're,
we can have such a big impact on someone's
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financial life in terms of that
will cost them more in the future.
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Our suppliers have to realize as well
that we're customer centric and it almosts
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drags them into a journey as well
because they need to be.
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But I think
when you're talking about that,
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I know we didn't talk about this question,
but it really
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it says to me that you, as a service
provider tech, not tech aspect of that
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your customer, the insurance companies,
is that you're really ensuring that
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what they're producing,
how they're approaching their business
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with their customers,
will be really successful.
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So it must be extremely,
extremely valuable.
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The work that you're doing
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with the insurance companies
at such a granular level for them,
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because I know many large companies
are looking at focus groups and,
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you know, user testing
and all of that stuff in, in a way,
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you're you're working with the clients
directly on the ground
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to talk about ways in which to improve
that user and user experience.
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So I think that's that's phenomenal.
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I mean, it must be extremely rewarding.
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I think so, yeah. So we start off as B2B.
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And when you say B2B
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customers, you're dealing with businesses
and you're a service provider.
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I heard the term is that I on Twitter
and I really like it.
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It was a it was a vertical SAS
and I quite like that because
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it's our device,
our hardware, it's our firmware
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and we do everything
all the way through the white label
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apps that are used by
the customers are provided by us.
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So it's almost like we provide
an entire solution out of the box.
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And I like that.
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And I wouldn't do it any other way
because we tried to in B2B at first
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without talking to the customer.
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And the insurers do a really similar the
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the job wasn't done properly,
the data wasn't used properly,
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which means that it's a bad experience
for insurance
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companies,
a bad experience for the end user.
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Who is the person
who's got this device in the car.
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They've got the app
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and they're the ones
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who are going to get cheaper,
or more expensive car insurance.
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So that's where we took the decision
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look, let's bring it in-house,
let's do everything.
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The insurer
gets a better experience
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and I can be more confortable at night knowing
that data is being used properly
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because if the
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data not being used properly, then
it's just a very expensive paperweight.
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Yeah, I know. That's amazing.
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It must be very, like I said,
very rewarding.
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All right.
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So now we're
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you are talking about data,
and I wanted to talk a little bit
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more about innovation.
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So, I mean, obviously,
since last November,
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the world has transformed a little bit
technologically with Gen
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AI and large language models,
you know, so prevalent in discussions
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right now around innovation
and data and cloud and everything.
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So could you share your views on Gen
AI and LLMs and perhaps
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some of the ways you're looking to deploy
or what you're seeing in market?
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Oh, it's good to see.
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It's going to change everything at some level.
We'll insurance for a second and
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we'll focus on, I think, and obviously
that's a whole talk about ChatGPT got dumber, all the things
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you've got done there and all these
going on like that. Overall is amazing.
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And I bought the API access soon
for the business, as soon as we could
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because we could start.
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We've got a lot of data
using an insurance policy normally
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just like one row an Excel spreadsheet,
we capture 9000 bits a day for a second.
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The average person does 21 minute trips
three times a day.
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That adds up to a lot of data.
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We've got and obviously trying
to turn that into value.
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There's a there's a lot of value
that can be generated out of data
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without the need for machine
learning models.
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And I think
sometimes you can jump to using AI,
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when actually there's a lot more value
that can be got out of something
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with some intelligent thinking
and some common sense.
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But it does have its place.
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And where
now the plug ins, for example,
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that you can plug in to TripAdvisor
or you can last minute
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and you can actually have it plan a trip
for you and is actually incredible.
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Insurance is a difficult one, though,
because it's a regulated market.
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And if you're saying, right
Lee your your insurance
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premium is £1,000 and mine is £2,000.
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We should have the right to understand
why why that premium is up.
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And no one wants to hear that
because the black box said that
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this is some algorithm
that we can't understand
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because it is said that
yours is a thousand and mines 2000,
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because that's not fair on individuals,
because so insurance
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has got a difficult thing to play.
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It can be really helpful
for, let's say, counter fraud
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or claims or things
where you're trying to find patterns.
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But I think one area that does
is that we need to make sure that we don't
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use this to
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penalize
individuals because what will happen
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if you think, people who pay
for their car insurance monthly
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are deemed to be a higher rate than people
who pay for the car insurance annually.
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But people who pay for the car
insurance monthly tend to be less well off
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and people pay annually,you know. Like it's
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the same as people are going to do food
shopping five times
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a week are higher risk than people
who go food shopping once a week.
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Well,
suddenly a model is going to look at that
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and it's going to penalize those people.
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But suddenly all we're doing
is penalizing the less well-off.
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And we've created as a
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regulator, regulations going to be
really interesting in this sector.
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I know there's quite a few people
looking at looking at it.
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Insurance in the UK have got quite a few
members in that space, but
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I'm really excited to see where it goes,
But that just needs to be
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some I think regulation around
the financial aspects of it.
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Where it's impacting people's premiums
and their financial activity.
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Personally like we love it, I think,
and then we've got, for example,
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we're now scanning news articles
across the entire web.
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We're going to work out
right have there been any car accidents,
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what type of vehicles are involved,
where did that occur,
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and look at our database, if we had
any people nearby at that point in time.
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So there are quite a few bits
that I can't mention that we do.
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but it's going to change the way we work.
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But I don't think it's
going to get rid of engineers.
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I don't think it's going to get rid
of developers or anything like that.
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It's just going to make our life easier.
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You look at GitHub, Copilot.
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A prime example of that is just helping
developers do their job more efficiently.
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Like I spoke about earlier, automating
the process so humans can do the human stuff.
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And you know, that's you're saying this
and this is our last question.
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But you know,
I just think that when you talked about
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Thingco of being a vertical SaaS,
I'm sure, you know, when you're primarily
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focused on insurance. Right.
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But I think of Gen AI and
LLMs will probably maybe transform,
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which, you know, companies you work with
in which sectors you work in.
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Right. As a business.
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Yeah, I think it's going to have
a massive impact on what we can do to date
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and start looking at the data.
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So now we're absorbing
data from third party sources.
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We would never absorb data from before,
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but from models we want to use before
it's make it.
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If it's going to help us
become more intelligent in what we do.
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Because humans can only go so far.
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Go so far, models can only get you so far.
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But now these new models
will allow us to do a lot more.
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But it's very early days.
We are not experts.
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We are pure, just admirers and users
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and we're only just
scratching the surface.
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But I'm excited to see what more is
given to us.
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That's awesome. Well,
that's a great way to end this interview.
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Thank you so much very much, Jonathon,
for joining us today.
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I really appreciate it now.
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Thanks for having me. Really enjoyed it.