Alan David Walker

I led a review of a top-three US insurer's existing change management center of excellence, including its people and its associated methods, processes, and toolsets—benchmarking them against leading practices and recommending changes and improvements.

The critical dimensions examined were leadership engagement, stakeholder engagement, organizational alignment, communications, change readiness, reskilling, and culture change.

The recommendations have now been implemented, improving the performance of the center of excellence materially and positioning it to support multiple change programs across the insurer.

I advised the national subsidiary of one of the world’s largest Insurers on how to design, structure, plan, and implement major business and technology transformation programs.

My deliverables included the change management tools and techniques to be used, the circumstances in which each was appropriate, and the structure and governance of the change management center of excellence.

The recommendations were accepted and implemented.

I directed a multifaceted $50-million program for a major insurance group in difficulties with the financial services regulator. The work included a large change management component.

The two-year program of work included fixing the immediate problems, completely redesigning and implementing new company-wide compliance processes, and delivering the required technology services to support the new way of working.

A major component of the program was the change management required to weave a new culture into the fabric of the business, and this workstream received particular focus form both executive leadership and the regulator.

The program was a success, the required changes were achieved, and the client was "signed off" by the regulator.

I led the change management around a major Canadian insurer's core platform transformation.

The deliverables included branch readiness assessments, roadshow design and management, discovery session design and management, written communications, training program development, and train-the-trainer roll-out.

The work was all delivered using the agile methodology.

The roll-out was subsequently given high satisfaction scores by all stakeholders.

For a Fortune 50 financial services group, I helped senior executives to develop and gain buy-in for the company's digital vision and customer experience priorities, design key customer journeys, establish the people, process and technology capabilities required, design the target operating model and governance mechanisms, and agree on the five-year roadmap for delivery.

The program roadmap included tracks for processes, operating models, data, technology, and change management with a total program budget of $300 million.

All phases of the work were delivered using agile (scrum).

The strategy was accepted, and I stayed on to kickstart the delivery of the program—which is now delivering powerful results.

I led the design and implementation of a center of excellence for robotic process automation (RPA).

The work included operating model design, role descriptions, governance RACI, and change management requirements.

I went on to help define the roadmap for RPA over the coming months and to help get the center of excellence up and running.

All of the work was delivered using agile methodologies.

I helped design an enterprise transformation strategy and roadmap, with a focus on customer data and CRM, to be delivered using scrum.

My role included establishing potential business requirements, achieving alignment of key stakeholders as to the priorities, and helping to design the key user stories, product backlog, the overall roadmap for delivery, and the initial agile sprints.

I helped the insurer to launch its enterprise-wide artificial intelligence (AI) initiative.

The work initially involved educating client management about AI, exposing them to existing insurance AI use cases, discussing the potential, and the challenges of AI in insurance and developing a long list of potential use cases specific to that client.

I went on to help them refine and clarify their potential use cases and down-select to a small number of use cases to take forward to proofs of concept. This included a software selection exercise via a request for proposal (RFP) process.

All of the work was delivered using agile methodologies.

The initiative is ongoing.

On behalf of the CEO, I directed a program to implement a revised distribution strategy for the UK subsidiary of an overseas insurer.

The assignment included program planning, program staffing, program governance, program direction and the running of the program management office for the design and implementation of a new operating model, a new organization structure, and new products.

The program was delivered successfully.

I managed a program to retrain and recertify the entire sales teams of two life companies within 30 days.

My responsibilities included developing the approach, overseeing the design of compliant sales processes, managing people and venues across the UK, and implementing the plan.

Each sales team was back at work within the 30-day target.

I provided program oversight to the CEO of a diverse financial services group undertaking a large-scale transformation program.

Areas covered include a regular review of progress against expectations, analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of key client executives and program members, and advice on the recruitment specification for a new transformation director.

The program remained on track.

For this major UK bank, I directed a program to migrate several thousand processes and procedures to a new content management platform.

The program was delivered both on time and within budget.

I reviewed, at regular intervals, a program to replace core insurance systems and migrate all policies to the new system.

I highlighted previously unseen risks and issues and helped the insurer to avoid and/or mitigate the consequences.

As a member of the supplier board for the bank's internet banking integration program, I provided advice on ways that the program's management could be improved.

My advice helped improve the performance and contribute to the success of the overall program.

I led a review of the existing organizational change management (OCM) function, its people, and its associated methods, processes, and toolsets. I also benchmarked them against leading practices across seven key dimensions.

The recommendations are now being implemented, improving the performance of the function materially.

For a listed financial services company, I directed an assignment to spot re-engineering opportunities in its end-to-end processes, developing value propositions for delivering multiple millions of recurring savings and additional revenues.

Most of the recommendations were adopted, the targeted revenue increased, and savings were realized.

As the industry leader for a company implementing new core systems at major insurers, I was responsible for overseeing multiple data migration projects and programs.

In the life insurance industry, this is particularly complex because of the length of the data history (a customer can hold an individual product for decades) and the huge number product variations.