John Pelle welcomes Acrisure's Chief Digital Officer, Tamara Zaichkowsky, and Steven Mandis, Senior Academic Advisor with FIFA, author of The Real Madrid Way and Chairman of Payments, Capital and Data Analytics at Fintech firm Kalamata Capital. They discuss how to take winning to the next level in successful organizations, from international fútbol sensation Real Madrid to innovative global Fintech Acrisure.
"What I learned very quickly is that winning is important, but it's actually much more than that." - Steven Mandis
Listen here to discover why these two organizations chose moments of success to reimagine what's possible for fans and clients. Subscribe to the "Limitless Possibilities Podcast" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Key Takeaways
[1:40] The evolution of Acrisure's digital marketplace.
[3:10] Steven's journey connecting investing, finance and sports and entertainment.
[9:15] Why Real Madrid elected to transform despite a period of success.
[11:44] What to do when winning is not enough.
[15:14] Behind the scenes of Acrisure's digital transformation to create better client experiences.
Further Reading:
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
JOHN PELLE
Welcome back to the Limitless Possibilities Podcast presented by Acrisure. Very fun conversation planned today. First, I'm going to introduce our Acrisure guest, our Chief Digital Officer, Tamara Zaichkowsky. Tamara, welcome to the program.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
Thanks John. Glad to be here.
JOHN PELLE
Tamara, we've been trying to book you as a guest for quite some time, so the fact that you are on is awesome. So, thanks again for making the time. And also, as a sort of teaser, bringing on an equally exciting guest to join our conversation here in a minute. So before we bring Steven on, Steven Mandis, you could Google him, he's a Google-able entity, so if you're curious, you could look him up. Tamara, he was also your professor way back in the day. How does it feel to have him on in that capacity? Is there any angst or anguish, are you regretting this decision? You were probably great in school.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
No. I mean he can speak to that. I don't know actually how good I was, but no, it's obviously great. He's been a great friend and mentor for quite some years. It was a great class. I certainly enjoyed it. I actually took two classes with him. And so yeah, I'm super excited to have him back and chatting about this.
JOHN PELLE
Wonderful. Well, Tamara, before we bring Steven in, maybe just a rundown for folks listening. What is your role at Acrisure? What have you been doing. You mentioned transformation, obviously Chief Digital Officer role, your role is a transformation-oriented role. So what do you do here? Maybe just give us a quick elevator speech.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
I've been with Acrisure for about a year now and the main focus the last year is really building out the digital marketplace. So as we go direct to consumer with our insurance product offerings, it's building out the technology related to that. In addition to really pulling together, the servicing, the digital servicing center, which is inclusive of all the activity that relates to the digital marketplace, in addition to enhancing and modernizing the digital servicing center for all platforms. So as we start to build that out, also inclusive of that as well.
JOHN PELLE
Wonderful. Well, Tamara, it's great, working with you has been phenomenal. You have a great team. Acrisure's definitely a better company for you being here. And I think at this point Steven, we'll welcome you onto the program. Steven is a Senior Academic Advisor with FIFA and today serves as Chairman of Payments, Capital and Data Analytics at Fintech firm Kalamata Capital. So Steven, welcome to the program.
STEVEN MANDIS
Thank you very much for having me.
JOHN PELLE
So Steven, we obviously teased sports, and there's just so many interesting conduits and touch points between you and Tamara and Acrisure, but I think what would be most exciting is just hearing a little bit about your journey. To go from that world - I know you've had a pretty circuitous and interesting career into sports and entertainment and Real Madrid, which we'll go into in depth. But would just love to hear a little bit more about you and your journey before we dive into some of the questions.
STEVEN MANDIS
Great. I grew up in Chicago and then I actually went to high school coincidentally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which I loved and was a great environment and town to grew up in. My Greek immigrant parents emphasized excellence in academics and sports. So I wound up going to University of Chicago, studied economics and played two sports. I did not play soccer or as most of the world calls it fútbol. And when I graduated I started working at Goldman Sachs in New York in investment banking first. And then I moved into private equity and then ultimately proprietary trading at Goldman. And then after almost 13 years at Goldman and all my stock vesting from the initial public offering, I left to co-found an asset management firm which Goldman invested in or provided capital to. And then after a few years I sold my shares and at 38 years old, I started working on a PhD at Columbia so I could become a professor and make my Greek immigrant parents proud.
And so I became an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, and that's where I met Tamara who was a student in my Strategic Issues Facing Banks class and my European Economic Crisis class. And then eventually my PhD thesis when I was getting my PhD is called "What Happened to Goldman Sachs?" And it's not good or bad about Goldman, but what it talks about is really as a company gets larger, more global and more complex, which I'm sure the company can associate with now because of the phenomenal growth. The PhD thesis was actually bought and published by Harvard Business Review and then unbeknownst to me, which is now getting into the sports aspect of it, the son of the Chief Financial Officer of Real Madrid worked at Goldman and he bought the book as a present for his father. And then his father read the book and enjoyed it so much that he shared it with other members on the Real Madrid management team.
And I had no idea that this was happening. And then a few later years later, just coincidentally, I moved my family to Madrid and then I met a board member of Real Madrid who happened to be at a lunch that I was at. And when I introduced myself he said, "Oh, I know who you are. You're a professor at Columbia Business School and you wrote this book, 'What Happened to Goldman Sachs.'" So I initially thought that he was in finance or something and he's like, "No, no, no, I'm actually on the board of Real Madrid." And then he told me this story. And at the time I didn't know anything about Real Madrid or European soccer or anything like that, but he invited me to the stadium and to meet the executives. And in a surreal experience, they were asking me to autograph their books and they wanted to have a whole session to ask me questions about it.
JOHN PELLE
They don't ask the finance guy to sign autographs. Right? Does that happen in Europe?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
JOHN PELLE
Is that common in Europe? The finance guys are signing the autographs and the players are waiting in line for the autographs?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, I was there. My kids are saying, "Hey dad, go get Ronaldo's autograph while you're there," or something that they could have some street credibility with, and meanwhile they were asking me for autographs. I was in shock.
JOHN PELLE
I wonder which line was longer the Ronaldo line or the Steven Mandis autograph line? We may need to find some photos of that. I mean that's incredible. And it's a good segue because it hearkens back to a conversation, we had Soz Vatikiotis on the podcast recently and he talked about Acrisure and how as a disruptor in and of ourselves, we're not really waiting to be disrupted or waiting for a reason to transform. We're looking at the next 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 years out and how we could exist and continue to transform. And similarly you know Real Madrid a lot better than I do. But they were a very successful organization as you started to get involved with them and cover them, if that sounds right.
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah. So they had the most European Cups, which is like the Super Bowl for those in soccer and Europe. And I didn't know any of that, but what I was fascinated with was this disruption and the innovation that was assigned with "Moneyball." So the book and the movie "Moneyball" had been fascinating to me because I did enjoy sports, American sports. So when I was meeting with them, I was saying, "Well, it must be data analytics that's making you successful." Or, "It must be money or talent that's making you successful." And they said, "No, it's more complicated than that." And that sort of fascinated me. And as we became friends, I started spending more and more time on the business aspect of how they actually run a club, manage a club, think about the club. And I thought it was really interesting.
JOHN PELLE
So what were your initial observations? Because obviously getting to prepare for this episode, learning about you, reading about your perspectives on the club, you had mentioned that they had I think won two of the last three championships. What was interesting for me to learn was the fact that they elect a president of the club and this president, who had won two of the last three, who may have been a shoo-in, actually lost. Is that right?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, so it was a fascinating thing. So many people don't realize this, but Real Madrid is actually owned by about 92,000 members. So it's very similar to the Green Bay Packers. I actually own a share in the Green Bay Packers, and we don't get to vote who's the president or the general manager of the Packers. But here at Real Madrid every four years there's actually an election. So you can imagine that in American sports that if you can for your favorite team say, "You know what, I really don't like this general manager or president, I think we should switch." So Real Madrid has that ownership structure. Barcelona has that ownership structure, but it's very unusual like in the states there's only one club, the Green Bay Packers. So when they told me that, I was kind of fascinated by it from an organizational structure perspective.
And then when I said, "Well how did you get elected in this?" And I started doing the research and understanding it more, the incumbent had won two out of the last three years at the Champions League, which was phenomenal. So he had won it in 1998 and in 2000, and then there was an election in 2000, literally a month after winning the second trophy. So the media and everybody just assumed that he would win because he had just delivered what everyone said the fans must want, which are trophies. And then lo and behold, in this remarkable upset that current president Florentino Pérez beats the incumbent Lorenzo Sanz in an election and it shocks everybody. And when I got further into why that was, I myself was shocked.
JOHN PELLE
So Steven, I guess this is where this would be a good segue and I'd love to start to get your and Tamara's thoughts on the word transformation. It gets thrown around a lot. We use it at Acrisure. A lot of companies refer to digital transformation or change and to get under the hood. So following the election of this new president, which is so funny, talking about a soccer, fútbol team, I have to catch myself. So a fútbol club, they've elected a new president. What did this person uncover as a reason why he was elected in the first place? Because I'm sure that must have been like it was a shock to you. Was it a shock to this person? Did he expect to win?
STEVEN MANDIS
Right. I don't know if he expected to win. But what he showed me was kind of under the hood what was happening and under the hood, even though the team was winning, they were not selling out the stadium unless they were playing Barcelona, which is a big rivalry with Real Madrid. And that's shocking. I mean, could you imagine the Red Sox winning the World Series and then the next season they're not selling out the games? Because people would assume if you're winning, then people want to come to the stadium and watch this winning team. So we actually saw the attendance dropping as well as the people resigning their membership. I mean, I can't imagine when I was living in New York, when the New York Yankees were on their tear, could you imagine that people were giving up their season tickets to watch the Yankees? And the reason behind that was because he felt that the people were obviously happy with winning, but they weren't winning the way that they wanted to win with the players that they wanted to win with.
So the players, some of them were referred to as the Ferrari boys. So they were going out late at night clubbing and driving around in these fancy cars and people. And Madrid didn't really identify with those players, the values of those players. So that was one example. And some of the style of the play, the way they played and other things, just the people did not feel this connection with the team, as strong as you would assume winning would dominate. So what I learned very quickly is that winning is important, but it's actually much more important than that.
So I asked him, "What was the first thing you did as president?" And I don't know, I'm thinking that we're going to renovate to transform the data analytics department to pick better players or to improve the financial operations or whatever it is. And he's like, "Oh, the first thing I did was is I put out surveys to the fans to ask them what they wanted from the club, what values did they want emphasized in the club, what players did they think were the iconic players that represented them, and what players should we get?" So could you imagine the Boston Red Sox owners saying before the draft or the NFL, the New England Patriots saying, "Before we draft anybody, do the fans want anyone in particular that you want us to take or draft?"
JOHN PELLE
Yeah. And it's like, this is where we could start to do the famous sports and business parallel. I mean, Tamara, you want to draw parallels to you coming in, right? You had just said you're about a year in at Acrisure. The company you joined was wildly successful and here you are standing up a digital marketplace. And I'm sure there actually probably was an email or a survey that you had done with Matt Marolda and team on understanding customer sentiment and how they want to buy from us. So I'd love... What's your reaction to the incumbent coming into something successful and having a remit that may surprise people?
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
Certainly from welcoming perspective, they were certainly welcoming. There's no challenges related to that. But what we had to do is kind of rethink the way the organization worked, not only the industry in and of itself. So digital, obviously with the pandemic and many other reasons kind of had propelled forward, so we had momentum as it related to that. But a lot of the changes had to come obviously the way we do business and the way we think about things. So the work that we did was really to gather data to support the understanding of the evolution we needed to make, particularly as the businesses run through brokers and agents and they have that connective relationship with the customer. And we have to figure out how do we create a direct connection via a digital outlet. And so evolving the way we think about things took some time. So we did a ton of data as it related to the research to figure out how to effectively do that, but also to generally educate everybody on the benefits of doing it that way.
And then in addition to that, because we know we're on a journey here, plenty of things to do over the next couple of years basically to implement everything. Everything we put in place has feedback loops. So it allows for customer feedback, it allows for our own iteration to occur because ultimately we're trying to get things out the door so we're in a place to progress and make progress. But we know we've got to evolve and continue to evolve that. So we're utilizing not only the applications we put in place, the feedback that's coming from that to ultimately build out better products and provide greater customer service. So that's A, the way we did it in terms of identifying the path we took, but also the way we continue to do it to ensure that we're going down the right path.
JOHN PELLE
Well Tamara, it's really interesting to hear you draw those parallels between what you're doing here on the Acrisure side center around clients, and then as Steven you explained centering your transformation around the fan experience and fan engagement. Before we dive in a little bit deeper, I know we want to hit on things like results and how you measure and quantify all of this. Before we do that, we'll call it at this point and then we'll pick up on part two airing next time on the Limitless Possibilities Podcast. We'll just pick this conversation right back up where we left off. So Steven, Tamara, thanks for joining and we will continue this conversation for our listeners next time.
Important Information:
For additional information, please visit our website at Acrisure.com. Products or services identified herein may not be available in all jurisdictions. The information and descriptions contained herein (a) are not necessarily intended to be complete descriptions of all applicable terms, conditions, and exclusions of the policies referenced, (b) are provided solely for general informational purposes, and (c) should not be viewed as a substitute for legal, regulatory, or other advice on any particular issue or for any particular reason. The advice of a professional should always be obtained before purchasing any insurance product or service, and you should not rely on the information provided herein for the prevention or mitigation of risks or as a full and complete explanation of coverage under any insurance policy. While the information contained herein has been compiled from sources believed to be reliable, no warranty, guarantee, or representation, either expressed or implied, is made as to the correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained herein.
© Acrisure, LLC. All rights reserved.
"What I learned very quickly is that winning is important, but it's actually much more than that." - Steven Mandis
Listen here to discover why these two organizations chose moments of success to reimagine what's possible for fans and clients. Subscribe to the "Limitless Possibilities Podcast" on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Key Takeaways
[1:40] The evolution of Acrisure's digital marketplace.
[3:10] Steven's journey connecting investing, finance and sports and entertainment.
[9:15] Why Real Madrid elected to transform despite a period of success.
[11:44] What to do when winning is not enough.
[15:14] Behind the scenes of Acrisure's digital transformation to create better client experiences.
Further Reading:
- The Real Madrid Way by Steven Mandis
- Acrisure.com
- Acrisure on LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter
- Send your ideas, questions, and suggestions for future episodes to [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT BELOW
JOHN PELLE
Welcome back to the Limitless Possibilities Podcast presented by Acrisure. Very fun conversation planned today. First, I'm going to introduce our Acrisure guest, our Chief Digital Officer, Tamara Zaichkowsky. Tamara, welcome to the program.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
Thanks John. Glad to be here.
JOHN PELLE
Tamara, we've been trying to book you as a guest for quite some time, so the fact that you are on is awesome. So, thanks again for making the time. And also, as a sort of teaser, bringing on an equally exciting guest to join our conversation here in a minute. So before we bring Steven on, Steven Mandis, you could Google him, he's a Google-able entity, so if you're curious, you could look him up. Tamara, he was also your professor way back in the day. How does it feel to have him on in that capacity? Is there any angst or anguish, are you regretting this decision? You were probably great in school.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
No. I mean he can speak to that. I don't know actually how good I was, but no, it's obviously great. He's been a great friend and mentor for quite some years. It was a great class. I certainly enjoyed it. I actually took two classes with him. And so yeah, I'm super excited to have him back and chatting about this.
JOHN PELLE
Wonderful. Well, Tamara, before we bring Steven in, maybe just a rundown for folks listening. What is your role at Acrisure? What have you been doing. You mentioned transformation, obviously Chief Digital Officer role, your role is a transformation-oriented role. So what do you do here? Maybe just give us a quick elevator speech.
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
I've been with Acrisure for about a year now and the main focus the last year is really building out the digital marketplace. So as we go direct to consumer with our insurance product offerings, it's building out the technology related to that. In addition to really pulling together, the servicing, the digital servicing center, which is inclusive of all the activity that relates to the digital marketplace, in addition to enhancing and modernizing the digital servicing center for all platforms. So as we start to build that out, also inclusive of that as well.
JOHN PELLE
Wonderful. Well, Tamara, it's great, working with you has been phenomenal. You have a great team. Acrisure's definitely a better company for you being here. And I think at this point Steven, we'll welcome you onto the program. Steven is a Senior Academic Advisor with FIFA and today serves as Chairman of Payments, Capital and Data Analytics at Fintech firm Kalamata Capital. So Steven, welcome to the program.
STEVEN MANDIS
Thank you very much for having me.
JOHN PELLE
So Steven, we obviously teased sports, and there's just so many interesting conduits and touch points between you and Tamara and Acrisure, but I think what would be most exciting is just hearing a little bit about your journey. To go from that world - I know you've had a pretty circuitous and interesting career into sports and entertainment and Real Madrid, which we'll go into in depth. But would just love to hear a little bit more about you and your journey before we dive into some of the questions.
STEVEN MANDIS
Great. I grew up in Chicago and then I actually went to high school coincidentally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which I loved and was a great environment and town to grew up in. My Greek immigrant parents emphasized excellence in academics and sports. So I wound up going to University of Chicago, studied economics and played two sports. I did not play soccer or as most of the world calls it fútbol. And when I graduated I started working at Goldman Sachs in New York in investment banking first. And then I moved into private equity and then ultimately proprietary trading at Goldman. And then after almost 13 years at Goldman and all my stock vesting from the initial public offering, I left to co-found an asset management firm which Goldman invested in or provided capital to. And then after a few years I sold my shares and at 38 years old, I started working on a PhD at Columbia so I could become a professor and make my Greek immigrant parents proud.
And so I became an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, and that's where I met Tamara who was a student in my Strategic Issues Facing Banks class and my European Economic Crisis class. And then eventually my PhD thesis when I was getting my PhD is called "What Happened to Goldman Sachs?" And it's not good or bad about Goldman, but what it talks about is really as a company gets larger, more global and more complex, which I'm sure the company can associate with now because of the phenomenal growth. The PhD thesis was actually bought and published by Harvard Business Review and then unbeknownst to me, which is now getting into the sports aspect of it, the son of the Chief Financial Officer of Real Madrid worked at Goldman and he bought the book as a present for his father. And then his father read the book and enjoyed it so much that he shared it with other members on the Real Madrid management team.
And I had no idea that this was happening. And then a few later years later, just coincidentally, I moved my family to Madrid and then I met a board member of Real Madrid who happened to be at a lunch that I was at. And when I introduced myself he said, "Oh, I know who you are. You're a professor at Columbia Business School and you wrote this book, 'What Happened to Goldman Sachs.'" So I initially thought that he was in finance or something and he's like, "No, no, no, I'm actually on the board of Real Madrid." And then he told me this story. And at the time I didn't know anything about Real Madrid or European soccer or anything like that, but he invited me to the stadium and to meet the executives. And in a surreal experience, they were asking me to autograph their books and they wanted to have a whole session to ask me questions about it.
JOHN PELLE
They don't ask the finance guy to sign autographs. Right? Does that happen in Europe?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
JOHN PELLE
Is that common in Europe? The finance guys are signing the autographs and the players are waiting in line for the autographs?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, I was there. My kids are saying, "Hey dad, go get Ronaldo's autograph while you're there," or something that they could have some street credibility with, and meanwhile they were asking me for autographs. I was in shock.
JOHN PELLE
I wonder which line was longer the Ronaldo line or the Steven Mandis autograph line? We may need to find some photos of that. I mean that's incredible. And it's a good segue because it hearkens back to a conversation, we had Soz Vatikiotis on the podcast recently and he talked about Acrisure and how as a disruptor in and of ourselves, we're not really waiting to be disrupted or waiting for a reason to transform. We're looking at the next 3, 5, 10, 20, 50 years out and how we could exist and continue to transform. And similarly you know Real Madrid a lot better than I do. But they were a very successful organization as you started to get involved with them and cover them, if that sounds right.
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah. So they had the most European Cups, which is like the Super Bowl for those in soccer and Europe. And I didn't know any of that, but what I was fascinated with was this disruption and the innovation that was assigned with "Moneyball." So the book and the movie "Moneyball" had been fascinating to me because I did enjoy sports, American sports. So when I was meeting with them, I was saying, "Well, it must be data analytics that's making you successful." Or, "It must be money or talent that's making you successful." And they said, "No, it's more complicated than that." And that sort of fascinated me. And as we became friends, I started spending more and more time on the business aspect of how they actually run a club, manage a club, think about the club. And I thought it was really interesting.
JOHN PELLE
So what were your initial observations? Because obviously getting to prepare for this episode, learning about you, reading about your perspectives on the club, you had mentioned that they had I think won two of the last three championships. What was interesting for me to learn was the fact that they elect a president of the club and this president, who had won two of the last three, who may have been a shoo-in, actually lost. Is that right?
STEVEN MANDIS
Yeah, so it was a fascinating thing. So many people don't realize this, but Real Madrid is actually owned by about 92,000 members. So it's very similar to the Green Bay Packers. I actually own a share in the Green Bay Packers, and we don't get to vote who's the president or the general manager of the Packers. But here at Real Madrid every four years there's actually an election. So you can imagine that in American sports that if you can for your favorite team say, "You know what, I really don't like this general manager or president, I think we should switch." So Real Madrid has that ownership structure. Barcelona has that ownership structure, but it's very unusual like in the states there's only one club, the Green Bay Packers. So when they told me that, I was kind of fascinated by it from an organizational structure perspective.
And then when I said, "Well how did you get elected in this?" And I started doing the research and understanding it more, the incumbent had won two out of the last three years at the Champions League, which was phenomenal. So he had won it in 1998 and in 2000, and then there was an election in 2000, literally a month after winning the second trophy. So the media and everybody just assumed that he would win because he had just delivered what everyone said the fans must want, which are trophies. And then lo and behold, in this remarkable upset that current president Florentino Pérez beats the incumbent Lorenzo Sanz in an election and it shocks everybody. And when I got further into why that was, I myself was shocked.
JOHN PELLE
So Steven, I guess this is where this would be a good segue and I'd love to start to get your and Tamara's thoughts on the word transformation. It gets thrown around a lot. We use it at Acrisure. A lot of companies refer to digital transformation or change and to get under the hood. So following the election of this new president, which is so funny, talking about a soccer, fútbol team, I have to catch myself. So a fútbol club, they've elected a new president. What did this person uncover as a reason why he was elected in the first place? Because I'm sure that must have been like it was a shock to you. Was it a shock to this person? Did he expect to win?
STEVEN MANDIS
Right. I don't know if he expected to win. But what he showed me was kind of under the hood what was happening and under the hood, even though the team was winning, they were not selling out the stadium unless they were playing Barcelona, which is a big rivalry with Real Madrid. And that's shocking. I mean, could you imagine the Red Sox winning the World Series and then the next season they're not selling out the games? Because people would assume if you're winning, then people want to come to the stadium and watch this winning team. So we actually saw the attendance dropping as well as the people resigning their membership. I mean, I can't imagine when I was living in New York, when the New York Yankees were on their tear, could you imagine that people were giving up their season tickets to watch the Yankees? And the reason behind that was because he felt that the people were obviously happy with winning, but they weren't winning the way that they wanted to win with the players that they wanted to win with.
So the players, some of them were referred to as the Ferrari boys. So they were going out late at night clubbing and driving around in these fancy cars and people. And Madrid didn't really identify with those players, the values of those players. So that was one example. And some of the style of the play, the way they played and other things, just the people did not feel this connection with the team, as strong as you would assume winning would dominate. So what I learned very quickly is that winning is important, but it's actually much more important than that.
So I asked him, "What was the first thing you did as president?" And I don't know, I'm thinking that we're going to renovate to transform the data analytics department to pick better players or to improve the financial operations or whatever it is. And he's like, "Oh, the first thing I did was is I put out surveys to the fans to ask them what they wanted from the club, what values did they want emphasized in the club, what players did they think were the iconic players that represented them, and what players should we get?" So could you imagine the Boston Red Sox owners saying before the draft or the NFL, the New England Patriots saying, "Before we draft anybody, do the fans want anyone in particular that you want us to take or draft?"
JOHN PELLE
Yeah. And it's like, this is where we could start to do the famous sports and business parallel. I mean, Tamara, you want to draw parallels to you coming in, right? You had just said you're about a year in at Acrisure. The company you joined was wildly successful and here you are standing up a digital marketplace. And I'm sure there actually probably was an email or a survey that you had done with Matt Marolda and team on understanding customer sentiment and how they want to buy from us. So I'd love... What's your reaction to the incumbent coming into something successful and having a remit that may surprise people?
TAMARA ZAICHKOWSKY
Certainly from welcoming perspective, they were certainly welcoming. There's no challenges related to that. But what we had to do is kind of rethink the way the organization worked, not only the industry in and of itself. So digital, obviously with the pandemic and many other reasons kind of had propelled forward, so we had momentum as it related to that. But a lot of the changes had to come obviously the way we do business and the way we think about things. So the work that we did was really to gather data to support the understanding of the evolution we needed to make, particularly as the businesses run through brokers and agents and they have that connective relationship with the customer. And we have to figure out how do we create a direct connection via a digital outlet. And so evolving the way we think about things took some time. So we did a ton of data as it related to the research to figure out how to effectively do that, but also to generally educate everybody on the benefits of doing it that way.
And then in addition to that, because we know we're on a journey here, plenty of things to do over the next couple of years basically to implement everything. Everything we put in place has feedback loops. So it allows for customer feedback, it allows for our own iteration to occur because ultimately we're trying to get things out the door so we're in a place to progress and make progress. But we know we've got to evolve and continue to evolve that. So we're utilizing not only the applications we put in place, the feedback that's coming from that to ultimately build out better products and provide greater customer service. So that's A, the way we did it in terms of identifying the path we took, but also the way we continue to do it to ensure that we're going down the right path.
JOHN PELLE
Well Tamara, it's really interesting to hear you draw those parallels between what you're doing here on the Acrisure side center around clients, and then as Steven you explained centering your transformation around the fan experience and fan engagement. Before we dive in a little bit deeper, I know we want to hit on things like results and how you measure and quantify all of this. Before we do that, we'll call it at this point and then we'll pick up on part two airing next time on the Limitless Possibilities Podcast. We'll just pick this conversation right back up where we left off. So Steven, Tamara, thanks for joining and we will continue this conversation for our listeners next time.
Important Information:
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