Jordi Rivera: The Actuary Disrupting Insurance with Human-Focused Tech

One moment, Jordi Rivera is deftly scaling the high-stakes cliffs of corporate mergers; the next, he's… literally hanging off a mountain, gauging the climb with each calculated move. Welcome to the vertiginous life of a man who's conquered summits in business just as he has in mountaineering. Jordi is a man who reminds us that every summit, whether it's a mountain or a career milestone, starts with that first audacious step.

In the late '70s, as Spain was navigating the jagged terrain of a post-Franco world, Jordi was making headway into economics and insurance actuary studies at the University of Barcelona. The air was thick with the spirit of change, and it influenced everything—society, studies, and Jordi. The year 1975 wasn't just about textbooks and classes; it marked the budding of a lifelong relationship with mountaineering. Imagine Jordi, then a young student, setting his first anchors into the craggy rock faces of Montserrat and the Pyrenees. With each climb, he learned the value of risk assessment and strategic thinking, skills that would serve him well in his future career.

Fast forward to the age of 30, when Jordi found himself overseeing the launch of a life insurance company under Banco de la Pequeña Empresa. We're talking groundbreaking stuff here—innovative solutions like Universal Life insurance and the "Sin Humo" risk life insurance were being churned out under his leadership. Around the same time, he was taking on some of the Alps' and the Pyrenees’ most formidable challenges.

By 2001, armed with a degree in Senior Management from IESE Business School, Jordi was literally and metaphorically scaling new heights. He initiated Winterthur Health, setting a new market standard with its ‘VIP Plus' health insurance.

But one of his most defining eras was undoubtedly his tenure as CEO of DAS, a legal protection firm in need of a serious overhaul. Right after he took on Aconcagua, one of the Seven Summits, he was navigating seismic shifts in the business world. "The DAS project has been like preparing for a Himalayan climb," he admits. The transformation he led at DAS required careful preparation, strong teamwork, and strategic investment in new technologies. The result? A 50% increase in revenues and the repositioning of DAS as an industry innovator.

Jordi doesn't just keep the fruits of his experiences to himself. He’s been a guiding force for up-and-coming talent, not only as a business mentor in fintech and insurtech but also as a lecturer at the University of Barcelona. He’s also a family man, sharing the joys of mountaineering with his son Marc.

Every climb prepares you for the next, much like every job prepares you for the role you don't yet know you'll assume. Perhaps this is what has powered Jordi's ascent—not just up peaks like Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua, but also in the boardrooms of the insurance world.

But to simply call Jordi a mountaineer or an executive would be like calling Everest 'just another hill.' He's a synthesis of the two, and it's that interplay that has defined his life journey, a path marked by summits both corporate and alpine. As he steps into the next phase of his career, one thing is certain: whether in boardrooms or on mountaintops, Jordi Rivera has a knack for reaching the peak.

Can you give us an example of a holistic insurance solution that you have developed through Fintech and Insurtech collaboration? How did this solution address a specific customer need?

One of the holistic developments with legaltech was the online will. In our country, making a will requires a lawyer's advice and a notary's signature, all in person. The solution we devised with Testamenta was to create an end-to-end solution, where the client, from home, makes it considerably easier for the descendants. This solution makes it possible to create a notarial will in which the person expresses their will regarding the designation of heirs when they die. In addition, it allows us to know, with transparency and clarity, the steps to make a living will in which the person decides the medical treatments they would like to receive, the destination of their body, as well as who they would like to represent them when they are unable to decide.

The application works intuitively. It facilitates the advice of a lawyer, the drafting of the will and the appointment with the notary for its signature.

How do you balance talent management and digital transformation initiatives in your teams? Can you share an example where you have effectively aligned these two aspects to achieve exceptional results?

Without a doubt, our PEAKS project [which stands for People, Empowerment, Agility and Knowledge], which is about the cultural transformation of DAS, is a clear example of combining talent management with team-led transformation initiatives.

Communication aspects played a key role, as it is important to share the progress of the different teams with the rest of the company. Some squads are invited to participate in corporate events such as the monthly CEO Morning, where members share relevant progress or even the results of a specific initiative. Likewise, at the end of the year, a global summary is made of all that has been achieved by the different work teams. This allows, on the one hand, to motivate the members of the squads, and on the other, to encourage the rest of the organisation to participate.

Today, the transformation to agile is considered to have been fully completed, and we speak not of organisational transformation, but of cultural transformation at all levels.

The results have demonstrated the value contributed by employees and have also made it possible to easily identify high-potential profiles because giving autonomy to teams allows the natural leadership of individuals to emerge much more spontaneously than in traditional organisations.

Climbing mountains requires meticulous risk management. How has your mountaineering experience influenced your approach to risk management in the financial sector?

My love of mountaineering has helped me to approach risk management in the insurance sector with a more innovative and flexible approach.

As a leader in the insurance and finance sectors, how do you ensure that ethical considerations are at the forefront of your decision-making process, especially when it comes to advanced technologies?

The insurance and financial sector is one of the most regulated, which forces us to seek excellence in risk management, complying with regulations, making the business reliable, and complying with data protection standards, information security and confidentiality. Now with Artificial Intelligence, it requires greater transparency in the development and use of AI. The good news is the new EU AI law will regulate according to the level of risk of AI.

What valuable lessons from your mountaineering experiences have you found applicable to your role in business leadership, especially in terms of facing challenges and pursuing goals?

Setting clear objectives, knowing how to share them, and preparing to achieve them with the right team. In mountaineering, as in business, preparation and execution are key to success. In addition, decision-making and the speed to adapt to change are essential to reduce risk and reach the summit and the business goal.

The implementation of new technologies and processes is often met with resistance. Can you give an example of how you successfully managed resistance to change while driving a digital transformation initiative?

One of the innovations we introduced at DAS was to take out insurance for non-payment of rent, using PSD2, which allowed us to have an overview of the tenant's financial situation, facilitating the whole process of onboarding the insurance. The challenge was to align the legal scope of the company, the distribution channel and to comply with the RGPD, the general data protection regulation. In the end, we succeeded, but it took us six more months to launch.

Where do you see the intersection of insurance and technology (Insurtech) heading in the next 5-10 years, and how are you positioning your teams to be at the forefront of these developments?

In the coming years, we will see an acceleration in the development of embedded insurance, for example, offering insurance products at the point of sale through other consumer products or service platforms. Key to this is finding the right value proposition for the customers of these products and services.

Another major trend is the incorporation of generative intelligence to automate underwriting processes, predict customer needs and detect fraudulent claims, among other applications.

And a major disruption will be the implementation of open insurance, i.e. giving customers the power to access and share their data and insurance with third parties. This will facilitate the improvement of risk coverage for customers and adapting coverage to the customer's needs.

Insurtechs are in a favourable position to meet these challenges and expand their business.

How has your career path evolved from your experience in insurance and banking to your current role as an independent director? What factors influenced your decision to follow this path?

It has been an exciting evolution as I have grown professionally in each of the projects that I have managed over the years, developing different businesses such as Life, Non-Life, Health and Legal Protection, different teams and organisations, both international and in insurance banking, and introducing innovations with a client focus. This experience, together with the culture of these organisations, is what has led me to my current position as an independent director of Caixa Enginyers Vida. The factors that have influenced my decision to continue my career have been managing and developing growth and innovation projects in each of the companies and groups in which I have worked, and perhaps the most important factor has been the creation and development of the teams and their talent to achieve results and customer satisfaction.

Jordi, last question. What is your guiding principle in life, work and mountaineering?

Let us make the impossible possible, for a better world.

Images courtesy of: Jordi Rivera