EP 57 – Natalia Kozyura – Head of Innovation Center, FWD Insurance – Innovation Needs to Be Decentralized

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Michael Waitze worked in Global Finance for more than 20 years, employed by firms like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, primarily in Tokyo.  Michael lived and worked in Tokyo from February 1990 until December 2011.  Michael always maintained a particular focus on how technology could be used to make businesses more efficient and to drive P/L growth. Michael is a leader in the digital media space, building one of the biggest and fastest-growing podcast listener bases in the region.  His AsiaTechPodcast.com show has listeners in more than 170 countries and his company, Michael Waitze Media produces some of Asia’s most popular podcasts.

Leading FWD's regional Innovation Center to develop new products and features powered by emerging advances in tech such as AI, Blockchain, and IoT. Product Management and Innovation Leader with 15 years of experience in driving product development and strategic partnerships across US, Asia, and Europe at large tech firms and startups. Passionate about enhancing customers lives by defining product strategy, leading cross-functional teams, and building innovative products.

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In this episode, Michael Waitze talks to Natalia Kozyura, the Head of Innovation Centre at FWD. Natalia comes from a tech background. Before joining FWD Natalia has worked for Tech giants Microsoft and Amazon as well as tech startups in Southeast Asia. At FWD she now oversees a tech team prototyping and building tech solutions for FWD. 

Natalia explains that FWD is looking into tech in order to shape how customers are perceiving insurers and change the way people think about insurance. She gives insight on how big data and AI is streamlining insurance operations and how tech enables better customer service by, for example, implementing predictive analytics powered by IoT data or by using chatbots and messenger apps to file insurance claims fast and simple. 

Natalia also explains how technologies Blockchain technology is relevant to insurers. With FWD she and her team have built blockchain prototypes on Waves and Ethereum with the aim to protect customer data. Furthermore, they are looking into ways to streamline the buying as well as the claims management process by putting them on a blockchain ledger. However, at this point, the team does not see a use case to implement the tech into the current operation. One reason being is the costs of running a Blockchain platform.

Other companies mentioned in this episode:

PolicyPal, Facebook Libra, LINE, Whatsapp, Raspberry Pi,

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