About Us

Bought By Many is creating better insurance for everyone. We’ve been doing it since 2012 when we started creating groups for people with specific insurance needs and negotiating deals and discounts with established insurers.

We launched our own unique products in 2017 – pet insurance for cat and dog owners, and travel insurance for people with medical conditions – and there’s more to come.

Technology is at the heart of our offer and we’re proud to be at forefront of fintech innovation. In 2016, we were featured in the European FinTech50 list and in 2017 we were named as one of 15 ‘Ones to Watch’ companies by The Sunday Times Tech Track.

Our rapid growth has seen co-founders Steven Mendel (CEO) and Guy Farley (CTO) build a team of over 70 people, acquire the UK’s leading provider of insurance for exotic pets and pet businesses, work with more than 30 insurers around the world, and win numerous awards.

Our customers have grown with us; we have over 400,000 members and more than 300 insurance groups. And they love what we’re doing - at the end of 2017 we had a Feefo score of 4.8 from over 1,800 reviews.

All our achievements are underpinned by our values - being dedicated to customers, open, and working collaboratively to improve an industry that can do so much more for people.

Our vision of better insurance includes improving prices, expanding what people can get cover for and delivering exceptional customer experience. The changes we’re making have a real impact on people’s lives. We’re allowing people with medical conditions to travel and covering pets that have been rejected by other companies.

If you’d like to find out more about Bought By Many, check out our help centre or get in touch.

How are you different?

Meet the team

Abi Slater

Customer Experience Coordinator

Abi works on the frontlines of the Bought by Many customer experience. She’s passionate about making sure it meets the high, customer-centred values of the company. In her spare time, Abi goes dirt and mounting biking and frequently hits the gym.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a customer experience coordinator – I am responsible for ensuring that all the customer-facing systems are working in a way that makes for a great customer experience.
I oversee and keep the communication lines between different departments open and active in order to make sure the customer experience side of things is top notch across the board. I am like a buffer between Bought by Many, Pet Plan Sanctuary and Exotic Direct. I spread the word when we get feedback from customers and if there’s something that we’re missing, an area in the customer experience journey where we’re underperforming I flag it so that we can improve.

How did you get into insurtech?

Completely by accident. Someone recommended the position to me as I was working for a Christian media organization at the time and my job there was to oversee the customer experience team. What attracted me to insurtech was the liveliness, great communication, and the customer-obsessed culture. There’s just a lot more to get your teeth into, which I find really exciting. Bringing clarity to insurance and the large amount of business terminology, applying what you know in principle to put the customer at ease is a wonderful aspect to Bought by Many. And I think the best thing about working here is how open everyone is with each other and willing to engage and collaborate.

What are you excited about working on?
Making sure that the members promises are maintained and that we’re true to the values of the business. Bringing all the newness and development and expansion to a level where everyone is on the same standard and they are all delivering a great customer service and delivering the product the way it’s meant to be delivered.

How would you describe the team?

Awesome! Friendly, charming, easy to work with. People are really open, and they seem to want to work with you not against you – they are there to help you. Everyone works together as a team and aligns each other's activities.

More about Abi

Ajit Kanagaratnam

Group Accountant

Ajit is our group accountant. When he’s not working, he likes to spend time with his family and friends. He loves football and plays every week.

What do you do at BBM?

I am the group accountant for Bought by Many, which means looking after financial reporting and controls within the business. We’re a small team of three. We take care of the general points that are important to our underwriters and the financial management of the back end of the system. We make sure we collect all the money and that it all adds up. We pay our suppliers and employees.

How did you get into insurtech?

I wasn’t looking at anything that was insurance or finance-based, but my recruiter said, ‘give them a go, they are a bit different to what you think’. So, I came to London, did the first interview and it went really well. And it really wasn’t what I expected. I was offered the job on the spot in the second interview. It is different – other jobs you follow a plan, there’s a methodology you can take it, put it onto another industry and follow – so it’s nice that it’s different.

What are you excited about working on?

I’m interested to see how our new policy admin system works and how it can do things our current system can’t do. Our other systems have been inherited, so this is the first one that we’ve entirely build ourselves.

How would you describe the team?

The finance team is really cool, it’s small, we get things done; we’re all very different but we all get along. The job gets done. It’s nice. The bigger team is really good; it’s different because it’s a bit more of a casual attitude to certain things, which is a good thing. You don’t seem to get the barriers you normally get in this industry in terms of hierarchy.

More about Ajit

Alex King

Head of Customer Support

Alex is our Head of Customer Support. He looks after our customer teams to ensure we deliver excellent customer service. Outside of work he likes to ride his motorcycle, spend time with his kids and play video games.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am Head of Customer Support – I look after our support teams: the travel team, which is newly created for the new product, so, very exciting; the existing cat and dog Bought by Many team, and what I consider the Brooks Braithwaite brand, which is Exotic Direct, Golden Valley and Pet Plan Sanctuary. We are looking to stabilise and improve our performance, so we can deliver excellent customer service. What I also do alongside that is look for opportunities for growth and development for all the individuals that I work with. I try to find opportunities for them to get where they want to go professionally.

How did you get into insurtech?

I’ve been head of customer service for the last 10 years. Part of that was working at made.com, where we integrated our communication challenges in Zendesk and became a case study for using zen desk and capturing the voice of the customer, which led to me speaking at a Zendesk conference about the art of customer satisfaction. When Bought by Many needed help with contact centre systems, I was brought on as a consultant. We use Zendesk and want to integrate the systems to get a 1-point communication area for the customers – this is something we’re working towards.

What are you excited about working on?

So much, there’s so much. The thing that always springs to mind is expanding the remit and responsibilities and developing the members areas of expertise. The first thing that comes to mind is the learning and development opportunities that we’ve already opened for the team. Not every company has these opportunities and even if they do they don’t give them out, but we do. I’ve been here for two and a half months and I’m already doing it. I’m also excited about a lot of other technical things – developing the policies admin system, building a greater customer experience, seeing where the company goes. I’d love to increase our sales and revenue – I’m into that, that’d be fun.

How would you describe the team?

Dedicated, bright, committed, we do have fun. We’re enthusiastic, certainly dedicated – that’s number one – these guys work hard.

More about Alex

Alison Garrod

Commercial and Retail Team Leader

Alison is Team Leader of the Commercial and Retail departments. She’s recently taken on the position and is looking forward to making positive changes. When away from the office, she loves spending time with friends and family and going to the cinema.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am Team Leader for the retail and commercial departments. I’ve recently been promoted, and my new role is quite different to the one I had before. I used to answer customer queries on the phone and online; now my job is to stir the team in the right direction. For the first time in my new role, I've been doing interviews. Looking to meet new people from different walks of life and just sit on the other side of the table. It’s interesting; I am challenging myself at the age of nearly 46, so that’s quite good. Exciting times ahead.

How did you get into insurtech?

I started working in insurance when I was 17 and got into insurtech when Bought by Many bought Brooks Braithwaite in 2015. It’s very different; technology has changed the way we work and communicate with our customers. Back in the day, the system was rather convoluted, it is more simplified today, and I am looking forward to it becoming even more sophisticated. We are working on a new policy admin system, and that’s going to benefit all of us when it’s all in place. Hopefully, we’ll have even more technology to be able to be even more helpful. Anything that makes the customer journey better is always great.

What are you excited about working on?

There are some processes that I’d like to improve. For example, in Zendesk we have something called a ‘macro’ where we send emails to clients that are ready-written. Looking at them, I think they’re not as friendly as they could be, and I think it could be quite nice to put a more human touch into them, so they’re less regimented and boring. I am also excited about making changes that will allow us to devote more time to every single customer and helping everyone on my team to grow and develop professionally.

How would you describe the team?

My team are great. They’ve all got different abilities; they’re different ages. They’re fun and hardworking and supportive. They’re willing not just to help each other out but other people as well; they are team players I love them.

More about Alison

Andrew Mantle

QA and Test Lead

Andy does all the testing at Bought by Many – he makes sure all our systems work correctly. Away from the office, he loves visiting new places, spending time with family and friends and going to Arsenal games. He also owns a fully-grown bonsai tree.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am Head of Testing and Quality Assurance. This means engaging with the users of the internal Bought by Many systems to discover enhancements or issues, working closely with internal and external teams to resolve queries and correctly and effectively overseeing the testing of new changes and their implementation.

How did you get into insurtech?

Accidentally! I started in an insurance call centre, then worked as part of a live operations team within the same company. Loved the environment and quickly migrated into testing before working as an Application Specialist shortly before joining Bought by Many. What attracted me to this company was the relaxed environment and the drive to do well and really make a difference in the industry. There is always a lot going on day to day, we achieve a lot and are always striving to be the best we can be. We find a good balance between work and celebrating our success but more importantly to me, we get results.

What are you excited about working on?

Improving our current product, improving the way we do things for customers and working on new ventures to achieve even more in the future.

How would you describe the team?

Driven and hard-working, quite simply a quality bunch of people achieving great things every day!

More about Andrew

Annie Judd

Customer Support Executive

Annie enjoys days out with friends and family, cooking and going to music events.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I’m a Customer Support Executive for Travel and SME. I handle customer enquiries relating to our Travel and Business insurance, provide quotes and assist customers with purchasing policies. I interact with customers over live chat, email and over the phone ensuring they receive excellent customer service throughout.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I was with my last company for three years and felt like I wasn’t really moving forward as much as I would have liked to due to lack of opportunity. I was then recommended Bought by Many by a recruitment agency, so I looked them up and I was impressed with their values and objectives and so I put myself forward for the job. So glad I did as I am loving it here, it’s a nice, relaxed working environment and we all work hard together as a team.

What are you excited about working on?

Being a part of the Travel team where we offer our own unique type of Travel Insurance designed for people with Pre-existing medical conditions is very exciting. I feel like this really differentiates us from other insurance providers and continues to add to Bought by Many's very customer-focused approach. I am also looking forward to getting to know other departments and products. I believe having a better understanding of how other departments operate adds to a better customer experience.

How would you describe the team

Very friendly and inclusive. You feel like you are a part of a big team who works hard together and is dedicated to the mutual goal of doing the best for our customers. It is also very supportive, we all help each other and everyone is very approachable and more than happy to help.

More about Annie

Claudia Rodriguez

Head of Compliance

Claudia heads our compliance department; she watches over all areas of the business to make sure we’re always putting our customers first. In her spare time, she plays netball and loves to explore as many different types of cuisine as possible.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am Head of Compliance for Bought by Many; I make sure that the departments that we have here are always considering what’s best for our customers. I think about how we can make sure that our customers are being treated fairly and that we're taking what they're telling us on board and using it to drive forward improvements.

How did you get into insurtech?

This is my first insurtech role. I’ve worked with insurers previously and had become slightly disenfranchised with how they treated their customers. I decided that the next company I wanted to work for was a company that cared about their customers, a company that had a compliance department because they wanted one not because they were told they had to have one. Another main attraction was the innovative product list. I remember going home after my interview thinking ‘wow this company's doing great things!’

What are you excited about working on?

I'm looking forward to working with the customer service team - this area is where most of our customers interact with us. I'm also interested to see if we can make any improvements to our products, including T&C, and how we can pay out more claims. It might be that there aren’t any changes to make, but the opportunity to get to know the business, see where we can improve on things in order to provide better outcomes for our customers is something that I'd love to do.

How would you describe the team?

I am amazed at how smart the team is. Everybody knows what they’re doing. We also have such an open way of working. The directors don’t have PAs or EAs; If you want to talk to them you just do, it’s a flat structure; it’s brilliant.

More about Claudia

Daisy O'Sullivan

Customer Service for Pet Plan Sanctuary

Daisy is one of our brilliant Customer Service Executives. She guides our customers through the buying journey. When not at work, she acts in amateur theatre productions and spends time with her friends.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Customer Service Executive for Pet Plan Sanctuary. I used to work for Exotic Direct for a year and a half, and then I decided to leave to take on a new job. I was there for two months, and I hated it – the atmosphere was horrible. It was very different from here and not in a good way. I didn’t like it, and I really missed Bought by Many, so I decided to come back.

How did you get into insurtech?

I sort of fell into it. I did a lot of job hopping after I left university. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and then I came across Bought by Many. The years of job hopping came in handy because I could instantly tell that it was a good company. It’s a very human place – everyone knows each other, everyone speaks to each other. I don’t feel like I can’t go to Steven and ask him a question. It’s a very inclusive atmosphere. When I was unhappy at my old job, I didn’t feel any embarrassment calling Oke and asking if I could come back.

What are you excited about working on?

I’ve only just started again two weeks ago in a different department, and I am excited to get to a point where I know two products extremely well. There has been a lot of changes – we’ve moved offices - it’s beautiful here. The company is growing, and they’ve got great ideas. It’s exciting; you don’t know what’s around the corner. We want to do what’s best for people in insurance rather than just sell them things – it doesn’t feel like a sales job - it’s actually interesting!

How would you describe the team?

Supportive. The managers are always helpful – questions are encouraged and not seen as a sign of incompetence. It’s how we learn. Especially in this niche of the industry – Exotic Direct is the only company in the UK that insures exotic pets. So, we learn from each other. We all have to put our heads and ideas together, share information and really work together.

More about Daisy

David Cochrane

Head of Technical Operations

David ensures that Bought by Many is fully operational when it comes to the systems our company utilises every day. In his spare time, he coaches kids rugby and cricket, enjoys cycling and good food and wine.

1. What do you do at Bought by Many?

I’m Head of Technical Operations at Bought by Many. I manage a lot of the technology that keeps the business operations ticking along, as well as those that help our teams deliver a great customer experience. It’s got lots of moving parts – I look after our network, our laptops/desktops and software, our telephony platforms for the customer service, our CRM and customer interaction systems, just to name a few. More are being added every day as we seek out innovative ways to support our rapidly scaling business whilst still putting the customer experience at the forefront. We’re almost exclusively cloud-based and will become entirely cloud-based in a few weeks, which changes the way you manage your estate, protect customer data and safeguard against risks.

2. How did you get into tech?

I’ve had a wide variety of roles in technology, operations and strategy operations for many companies both in-house and as a consultant. I was introduced to Bought by Many by our COO who I'd worked with previously, and as soon as he started to explain the vision and the plan, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to be. There’s a lot to be proud of – we’re building something from the ground up. Everyone’s friendly and relaxed but we all roll our sleeves up and get involved. No one says, ‘that’s not my job’. We’re scaling so quickly - I love that.

3. What are you excited about working on?

We are working on building and evolving so many different aspects at the moment, there’s always something to learn or a new way to do things – I love that. There are loads of themes where we want to be challenging ourselves daily – from understanding customers' requirements and behaviours better to making operational systems easier to use. From creating intuitive technology that customers can interact with easily to using customer feedback to improve things from an internal perspective and make their experience better.

4. How would you describe the team?

Passionate would be one word I’d definitely use. Energetic, united by a common desire to make a difference. Good people!

More about David

David Woodfield

Head of Partnerships

David heads Bought by Many’s Partnerships department. He looks after our relationships with other insurers and oversees Bought By Many’s own insurance products. When he’s not working, he enjoys competitive cycling, cooking, skiing and classic cars.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am responsible for two things: our relationships with insurance companies and developing our own products to meet customer needs. Working with partner insurers, we negotiate better deals for our members than they'd get on their own. We also do our own investigation to make sure the insurer is good for customers. Where an insurer cannot build a product, we design our own to fulfil customers’ needs. It’s our job to make sure that our customers are satisfied with the insurance they're getting.

How did you get into insurtech?

I came across Bought by Many through a mutual connection. The more I heard about the company and what they were trying to achieve, the more interested I got. Having a background in financial services was quite helpful because it helped me judge whether it could be useful and successful. I liked the idea and I liked the people involved, they were knowledgeable and interested in what they were doing. The opportunity to revolutionise insurance was exciting; back then, there were no ‘insurtech’ companies, not in the UK at least; I reckon we sort of started it.

What are you excited about working on?

What keeps me coming in every day is the opportunity to have a truly blank sheet of paper when designing and building insurance products for people. In some cases, it might be just a small tweak to the way insurance is already provided to people – in other cases, it might be a real fundamental change. And I like that because we have a lot of freedom of thought and the ability to bring our ideas to life. It’s motivating to think that we now have a situation where insurers are starting to notice what we do, and if they copy us then we can say we really did change the industry for the better.

How would you describe the team?

I know that many others would have said the atmosphere is fun, collegiate, collaborative and friendly, and that’s all true. But the thing that’s distinct here to me is that people share a strong moral compass and apply it to what they are doing. I don’t feel like we’re an organisation that’s out to screw people over to get a few extra pounds in the revenue line. People tend to believe that if you focus on serving the right customers well and meet their needs in a fair way, then income for the company will follow.

More about David

Derek Livingstone

Head of Finance

Derek heads up Finance at Bought by Many, looking after the company's assets and ensuring the numbers add up. He spends his time away from the office chasing after his three kids, travelling, playing squash and climbing mountains.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am Head of Finance at Bought by Many. I am responsible for the finance team, which means making sure we have suitable controls and financial processes, collect customers money efficiently, pay suppliers and provide performance reporting. I am also responsible for looking after our offices.

How did you get into insurtech?

My previous job was in business development at a huge firm. Having left a very large business, I was looking for the opportunity to work with an early stage fast-growing startup, where I could make a difference and see the impact of my work. I came across Bought by Many on social media. Got in touch and we hit it off. I joined initially on a part-time consultancy basis to help get the finance sorted out and support fundraising. Eventually, I came on board permanently.

What are you excited about working on?

I enjoy the diversity of the role which brings new challenges and things I’ve never done before. The broader the role, the more often it is that you have to get your hands dirty and I love being able to do that. What’s exciting for me is supporting the company’s growth – building and scaling to help it grow as rapidly as possible.

How would you describe the team?

Social. It’s a nice place to work. People are friendly and care about each other. We’re very dynamic; there’s always lots of stuff going on. Things change all the time, so it’s exciting. Everyone is collaborative; it is very non-political, we work together to solve issues and create new products.

More about Derek

Digby Bodenham

Content Marketing Manager

Digby oversees all of our content and makes sure Bough by Many has the right messaging and the best answers to insurance questions. In his spare time, he likes going to gigs, running and adding to his vinyl collection.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am the Content Marketing Manager. I look after all of our SEO content and make sure that people searching for information about insurance can find answers to their questions. I also work on the marketing campaigns to ensure that we have the right messages for people and hopefully show them something that fulfils their unique needs.

How did you get into insurtech?

I used to work in the publishing industry for about 8 years in production for trade magazines. I decided I was ready to leave publishing behind and Helen and Sam were looking for someone with my expertise. I thought it sounded like a great company. It was very small at the time and it was great to learn new things – a baptism of fire. It was all hands on deck and a great learning experience.

What are you excited about working on?

Going back to what I said earlier – if anyone in the UK has a question about insurance it is exciting to make sure that we are the ones answering it rather than other companies. It is great to work for an insurance company that is at the cutting edge of changing an industry that people have poor views of and creating something better for them.

How would you describe the team?

Diverse, intelligent and all working towards the same goal of creating the best products and services for people. They’re always fun to be with and fun to learn from.

More about Digby

Gordon Chi

Digital Strategy Manager

Gordon is our PPC genius, manning our search and display advertising on Bing and Google. When not at work, he helps animal charities with fundraising, travels, takes a lot of pictures and enjoys downtime with his two rescue cats Noodle and Toby.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I work in the marketing team. I look after Google and Bing ads and I do quite a lot of work for our international business partners, such as demand analysis, account audits and paid search marketing. I’m also responsible for performance analysis and the budget we spend on the paid advertising in general. I take care of our wallet.

How did you get into performance marketing and insurtech?

I studied psycholinguistics at Cambridge, so I understand the intent behind search expressions and I am used to dealing with gigantic amounts of behavioural data. I’m very good at finding patterns in numbers and telling the story behind the data. Bought By Many approached me in 2015 and I was instantly excited about the business and what they stood for. I met everyone and was soon warmed by their friendliness and impressed by the work they were doing so I decided to come on board.

What are you excited about working on?

At the moment I’m excited about planning and launching our new products and our expansions into international markets.This goes back to what I studied – cognitive psychology, bilingual lexicon and linguistic nuances. I see myself as someone who has a very good understanding and appreciation of cultural differences because of my background so I am looking forward to putting what I know into practice.

How would you describe the team?

Our team is very small but very tight. We have a very intimate relationship with each other, we all multitask and help each other out. We get along really well. We work hard but we also have a lot of fun together – all part of the team spirit.

More about Gordon

Guy Farley

CTO and Co-Founder

Guy is the author of the first-generation technology used by Bought by Many. He now steers the tech ship in the right direction. Outside the office, he’s a devoted father of two and is looking forward to sharing his passion for sailing, climbing and skiing with his kids once they’re old enough.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am the CTO of the company. In the early days of Bought by Many, my role was to build the first generation of the technology and now, as the company has grown, that’s changed to finding the right people for our amazing tech team and providing software design direction. We’re on a mission to build a properly customer-centric insurance business: products people want and understand, world-class user experience across all channels and tech platforms that allow us to keep innovating products and experience. In the insurance industry, generally, it can easily take 18 months or more to create a new product – we did seven Cat & Dog products in six months. But by the middle of 2018, we will have the technology do it in weeks.

How did you get into tech?

I did engineering at college and started working in manufacturing – building computer production lines, but then realised that software was where all the growth was happening and decided to switch from hardware to software. We started Bough by Many before insurtech was a thing. Steven and I had many conversations about how in financial services there’s a disparity between how individuals and companies get treated when buying the same services. People pay more than companies. We concluded that if you can use social media to get enough people together we could get them the same treatment as a company. Then insurtech came along and we were already doing it. The company had developed massively since those early conversations, it turned out that insurance is more ‘disruptable’ and people more willing to insure with a disruptor than we thought.

What are you excited about working on?

The thing that I love about the role and what we’re doing is the opportunity to rethink both how we design insurance products and how we design the technology that supports them. We have an opportunity to improve and simplify the product before we then get into building the technology that supports the product. The most interesting techy side of my job is the solution design – it’s figuring out what technologies to use and how. Insurance has some weird problems like every product has a completely different schema, and policies last for years with schema changes over their lifetime, and lots of versions of products and pricing need to coexist. These are all problems that are really hard to solve on relational database stacks. We’ve had the opportunity to rethink that and use a completely different solution.

How would you describe the team?

We started the company with three people with completely different skill sets. We don’t overlap at all, I’ve been in companies in the past where people have been far too similar and that hasn’t helped. As we’ve grown the team we have tried to maintain that diversity of skills and it is working great. Within the tech team, a few very good engineers will outperform a large number of average ones every time, so we keep it small. Whenever we have a big design decision to make we get everybody who’s involved in that area of the system around the table and spend two or three hours discussing it and come up with a design between us. It’s an incredibly productive way of working through to the answers rather than just one person working through it, rushing and then delivering it to everybody. I think we make some bold tech decisions, for example, we decided late 2016 to go entirely serverless, so now all of our microservices run in AWS lambdas.

More about Guy

Hayley Curran

Customer Support Executive

Hayley is one of our fantastic Customer Service Executives. She works in the claims department and helps Pet Plan Sanctuary and Exotic Direct customers with their claims. She loves going to music festivals, the gym and cooking.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Customer Service Executive in the claims department. At the moment, I am working with Pet Plan Sanctuary and Exotic Direct. I am handling a lot of the claims that come in. I review vet documents, make sure conditions aren’t pre-existing, answer claims queries and make sure the approved claims get paid.

How did you get into insurtech?

I was with my last company for six years and needed a change. There is a lot more opportunity here. The values of the company are amazing, and I am proud to work for Bought by Many. It’s also a nice relaxed environment.

What are you excited about working on?

I just volunteered to be part of the social events team – sorting out social events for the company. That’s quite exciting. I am also looking forward to learning about other departments. It makes your job easier when you know more about how the whole operates.

How would you describe the team?

Fun, hard-working and supportive. Everyone is willing to help, and we’re all there for each other.

More about Hayley

Heidi Abela

Social Media Manager

Heidi is Bought by Many’s Social Media Manager. She is the first point of contact for our customers when they have issues or questions and adores it when they send her pictures of their pets to say thank you.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a Social Media Manager and I handle customer queries across various channels: FB, Twitter, Instagram, live chat and email. I also create content for our FB page. I converse with our customers to resolve any issues they might have, answer their questions and give them information if they need it.

How did you get into insurtech?

Somebody I know said their friend was looking for a social media manager for their startup so I joined part-time. I really liked the company, the people and the flexibility of working here. I liked their approach to customers and the message they were putting out on social media. Their customers were really happy, which made my job easier and was really nice for a change. After six months they offered to make it permanent and I happily accepted. I got to create the voice and the tone of how we'd speak to customers and this is something that I’m really proud of. Bought by Many is the least ‘corporate’ company I’ve ever worked for. We really care about our customers. We don’t put it down to numbers: it’s about quality, not quantity.

What are you excited about working on?

I am excited to see what products we come out with next and how our customers respond to them. I am looking forward to seeing where Bought by Many goes next because our pet insurance products are amazing. And as always, I enjoy listening to what the customers are looking for and feeding that back to the people who could create the product that would help them, or introduce the improvements that would make the current product more useful. I love it when happy customers send me pictures of their dogs on social media – my favourite part of the job!

How would you describe the team?

It’s very varied, there are many different people: people of very different backgrounds – people who have travelled a lot, people from different cultures, people who have had different careers, worked in different fields and industries. It’s nice that everyone has got together united by their desire to work in a company that, unlike too many other companies, puts its customers first.

More about Heidi

Helena Mary Long

Designer

Helena is one of our talented designers. She makes our digital products intuitive and easy to use. Helena is obsessed with colour, shape and typography. She designed the energy bill for EnergyAustralia and illustrated a children’s book.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I deal with the UI and UX of Bought by Many. That’s concerned with how people interact with the digital interface. My main goal is to make sure that the product allows the customer to carry out whatever task they might have, in the simplest way. This is something that insurance in particular benefits from because it is quite difficult to understand and sometimes even unclear in purpose.

How did you get into insurtech?

Funnily enough, I never wanted to work in finance or insurance, but I realised that what put me off insurance as a field were the very things that Bought by Many were trying to eradicate. They are genuinely making a change in the industry by making Insurance better and more accessible for everyone.

What are you excited about working on?

Interesting problems and things that allow me to make a difference. The opportunity to be creative in a traditional industry and be part of the journey insurtech is on.

How would you describe the team?

I see the team as the voice of the customer embedded within the company, making sure that their needs are met. We are interested in how they think and feel, their experiences - this really informs the product and the product design. The tech team at Bought by Many y are some of the best and most knowledgeable people I've worked with; I’m glad to be here every day working with them and learning from them.

More about Helena

Irina M. Wells

Content Marketing Executive

Irina writes content for our website and puts our weekly newsletter together. In her spare time, she reads voraciously, plays the piano and the guitar, listens to music and watches science documentaries.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Content Marketing Executive. I write articles and content for our members to help them navigate the murky waters of insurance, discover something interesting about subject matters that concern them and support our organic efforts. We use search data to unearth the information people are looking for and then do our best to provide it. I also put our weekly newsletter together and help keep things up to date.

How did you get into insurtech?

Completely by accident. I was a freelance writer/copywriter for a long time before I got my first in-house job in February 2017, at a company with a model of management and operations so outdated that it was almost feudalistic! I didn’t like freelancing but didn’t want to work for another company that treated its customers like numbers and its staff like race-horses. I had just quit that job when a recruiter contacted me about a content position at Bought by Many. And it was love at first interview! They were eradicating the things that made most people cringe at the thought of insurance and office jobs and were actually trying to help people.

What are you excited about working on?

I am excited about writing high-quality, useful content for our users and seeing our current projects come to fruition. I am grateful that I work at a company that is making a difference – our new travel products will help people with pre-existing medical conditions go on holiday with the peace of mind that they’re covered no matter what – I’m looking forward to the launch.

How would you describe the team?

There's an incredible intellectual diversity within the company – I think it’s this variety that’s made the company the force of innovation that it is. A lot of lateral thinking and original ideas. We are very conscientious and passionate about what we do. All the obstacles to creativity and productivity often imposed by corporate culture are non-existent here. Steven, our CEO, believes that people are their best when they feel comfortable and are themselves, and the company is a living proof that this, indeed, is true.

More about Irina

Jack Blinman

Customer Support Executive

Jack enjoys video games, TV and films and also regularly plays Airsoft

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I’m a customer support executive on the Cat and Dog team. I am also cross-trained for the SME team. As well as helping customers with their insurance I also do several other things, mainly creating training videos for the new members of the team.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I actually got referred for the role by Sarah Birtwhistle. I had not done anything like this before so it’s all new to me!

What are you excited about working on?

I really enjoy creating training videos with Jessica Russell, together we make Jack Russell Productions!

How would you describe the team?

We work hard and we play hard. Everyone gets on together really well and support each other in getting the job done!

More about Jack

James Dickinson

Commercial, Search and Social Analyst

James scours the international market for opportunities for Bought by Many and our partners. He’s really into travel and has visited over 30 countries around the world.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am the Commercial, Search and Social Analyst, which means that I spend most of my time doing data analysis on search and social data to identify new products and marketing opportunities in international markets for Bought by Many and our partners. To date, I have worked with insurers in Canada, Italy and Mexico. As part of my role, I also work to assist the performance of our partners and our pet insurance product in the UK.

How did you get into insurtech?

I worked in financial service consultancy for five years and got fed up with doing projects that never went anywhere – never seeing any results, everything was too difficult and complicated, and fear of change held our clients back. So, I quit my job and started looking for some more exciting opportunities. I came across Bought by Many and loved the fact that they were trying to do something really good for customers in an industry that you only heard bad things about.

What are you excited about working on?

I’m excited to work with partners in new countries and learn about the specifics of their markets and their challenges and find ways to overcome them.

How would you describe the team?

A really good bunch of people. Easy to work with and also challenging in a very constructive way. You feel like you’re encouraged to do your best work – there’s brainstorming, feeding off each other’s ideas – very collaborative.

More about James

Jess Russell

Customer Service Executive

Jess is a make-up artist in her spare time; she loves singing in the car and going to drag races.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I help Cat and Dog customers to find the best pet insurance policy for them. In the process I get to talk about cats and dogs a lot, which is great.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I was approached by a recruiter and was asked how I would like to talk about cats and dogs all day and I made it my mission to do just that.

What are you excited about working on?

It’s been fun watching the team grow from three to now eleven or twelve? I’ve trained most of the team members, so I‘m excited to work with my colleagues to create learning centre videos as part of Jack Russell Productions on our learning hub.

How would you describe the team?

Like a box of chocolates - I’m going to say Heroes for personal preferences. We’re a small but mighty team, there may be some chewy Eclair moments, but we work hard to turn it into those silky Caramel moments. Sometimes we have some system errors, but we Fudge through it and keep each other from crumbling like a Twirl. We’re a bubbly and fun team and won’t Wispa about it, but at the end of the day, we’re pretty solid like a classic Dairy Milk.

More about Jess

Jim Trenowden

Site Reliability Engineer

Jim is a film nerd. He likes writing and is learning to play the guitar in his spare time.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a Site Reliability Engineer. I write automated end-to-end tests for our website using Selenium and Cucumber, integrate them into our CI pipeline and champion the adoption of Behaviour Driven Development within the company. I am also responsible for analysing the performance of our live site and ensuring that there are no traffic bottlenecks.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I started out as an insurance underwriter, working in Group Risk. After being asked to carry out a large amount of User Acceptance Testing, a move into a testing role seemed like the natural next step. After eight years in the insurance industry I took a brief detour into workforce management software, however when Andrew Mantle, our QA and Test Lead, told me about the great company he was working for it was hard to not want to be a part of it!

What are you excited about working on?

It’s exciting to be working for an insurer at the cutting edge of the industry, embracing new technologies and new product options to change people’s opinions of what insurance should be.

How would you describe the team?

Passionate, intelligent and hard-working. They’re an incredibly friendly bunch of people who are a pleasure to work with.

More about Jim

Dr Jose Peralta

Python Developer

Jose is on a mission to unite all the microservices of the Bought by Many platform. When he’s not working, Jose likes to read, work on personal projects and spend time with his wife Jiwon.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I ensure we have a world class continuous integration and deployment system and are automating everything we do in terms of the software development and release cycle process. We use many different platforms and tools: CourtShip, GitHub, Python, Bash, AWS and we're also working on a custom tool to manage the deployment. We use lots of AWS tools for the platform – we also use Heroku to host the website and our own custom tools. We have integrated that with a continuous integration system. We leverage AWS for these monitoring and trigger alerts.

How did you get into tech?

While doing my PhD I had to go through tonnes of historical texts, more than any one person can read in a lifetime. And I thought if we could use software to find the precise data that we need in those texts we’d save so much time. The existing tools for text mining couldn't work with historical Arabic. So, me and a colleague created one that could. I joined Bought by Many because I was intrigued by the idea of moving the website to microservices with AWSLambda. The challenge of bringing together such a big distributed platform was very appealing to me.

What are you excited about working on?

Expanding my skills as a DevOps engineer, owning more bits of the system and being responsible for the operations. The most exciting thing I like working with is the AWSLambda, finding a way to make a very distributed application something manageable.

How would you describe the team?

The team is very interested in best and modern practices. Fast-moving, brave and forward-thinking. And with a very high level of technical accomplishments and competence. The atmosphere is cool, amicable and encouraging.

More about Jose

Lyes Benouniche

Performance Marketing Manager

Lyes is one of our talented performance marketers. In his free time, he likes exercising, eating out, and playing records for his friends.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

My job is to drive quality traffic to our website and lower our costs of doing so. I work on paid social, paid search and affiliates.

How did you get into insurtech and performance marketing?

I joined Bought by Many over three years ago. They needed help creating Facebook campaigns, so I did that for a while. I enjoyed the live element of digital marketing - instant feedback and measurable performance. A small tweak in a campaign can drive an incredible uplift in performance. It’s all about finding the right “tweaks” and I find it super exciting. In addition, It is exciting to work for a company that is dedicated to disrupting the industry and making a huge positive impact. I believe that we’re succeeding and that’s amazing.

What are you excited about working on?

I’m excited about finding ways to slash our CPA. So, testing different things to see how they impact our users’ behaviour and ultimately our costs is super exciting.

How would you describe the team?

The Bought by Many team is quite diverse, educated; we all learn from each other. People here have a great sense of humour, but all in a different way, which is quite refreshing. Everybody is very knowledgeable and competent. We’re really close; it’s a good environment. Not feeling like part of a machine but feeling like you’re working with other humans is great.

More about Lyes

Oke Eleazu

COO

Oke is Bought by Many’s COO. He’s an expert in creating customer-centric services and is proud to be able to build insurance products that really work for people. When he’s not at work, he loves listening to good music and spending time with his family and friends.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am the COO of the company – I take care of the day-to-day business operations – how we deal with and look after customers. We create a great experience for customers in insurance that they’ve never had before. We think about what they want and build customer journeys that work for them.

How did you get into insurtech?

I worked in insurance for most of my career, for the big corporates. I recently took some time off to write a book about how you build customer-centric organisations. I thought, I’m telling people how to do this, which is great, but I need to get back to doing it. So, I finished writing the book and joined Bought by Many. Being able to build the product from scratch and innovate aids our cause of creating ‘Better insurance. For everyone.’

What are you excited about working on?

Building products and services that are great for customers. For me, that means working on products, understanding the work and understanding how we’re going to present it and market it; how we’re going to support that through our system; how we’re going to administer the product. So, anything it takes to bring great products and services to customers.

How would you describe the team?

Very talented, great expertise in their field! But more than anything else – we’ve got people who get their sleeves rolled up and get on with stuff. That for me is the main thing – we’re not passengers, we’re doers. We get stuff done.

More about Oke

Rae Pattenden

Customer Support Team Leader

Rae loves going to festivals and listening to live music. She likes to travel abroad - she visits a different city each year to experience different cultures.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a customer support team leader for the cat and dog team. My role is to support the team and make sure they have what they need to give the best customer service.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I heard about Bought By Many from a friend and how much of a great place it is to work for. I have been in insurance for seven years and have been a team leader for five years and loved the idea of coming into a fresh new company. I look at this as a fantastic opportunity to start from the beginning and watch the company grow and grow along with it.

What are you excited about working on?

I am excited about getting involved in everything! I love learning anything new and I am excited about seeing the company grow.

How would you describe the team?

Fun, hardworking and helpful. Everyone in the company is always willing to help and provide you with the information or the tools you need to get the job done.

More about Rae

Rita Pinho

Customer Support Team Leader

Rita is the Team Leader for our Travel customer support team. She’s currently making sure everything's perfect for the launch of our travel product. In her spare time, she goes to the gym, reads and takes coding lessons.

What do you do at BBM?

I am the Team Leader for the Travel customer support team. I am currently working on the launch of the Travel product – testing the systems, writing up the call guides, creating a training plan, revising the policy wording and making sure we’re consistent with that; I am also working on the FAQs.

How did you get into insurtech?

At my previous job, I had to apply terms and conditions but could never change them; even if I thought something could be better. Here, you have the opportunity to improve what is not working. You can make an impact by ensuring people are happy with the product, and the processes involved are simple.

What are you excited about working on?

I am excited to make a positive impact on the team. To make sure that they are happy with what they’re doing. And second I want to make sure that we offer different insurance form the rest of the insurers on the market; that everything in the customer journey is easy and straightforward.

How would you describe the team?

We are all very keen to make an impact – a positive contribution. We are very demanding, in a positive way, of ourselves and others. We don’t like treading water, we all love the fact that everything is changing a lot all the time and for the better, and that we have the opportunity to make improvements, constantly.

More about Rita

Dr Sam Bartrum

Developer

Sam is one of our talented full-stack developers. He is mainly a back-end developer but works on all aspects of the platform. He spends his free time rock-climbing, sitting in pubs, reading, watching films, and listening to music.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a full-stack developer with a lean towards working with data. I work on all aspect of the website, the infrastructure of the platform and hopefully some data science projects in the future.

How did you get into tech?

I did a PhD in Particle Physics and Cosmology and got into programming at the time. In 2015 I formed a start-up with a few friends, which we did alongside our PhDs. Whilst it was not hugely successful it was great fun and so I decided to change career. I wanted to get into tech because it’s a lot more fast-paced than academia and I like building things. The team aspect is also a lot stronger and your work has a more immediate impact.

What are you excited about working on?

I like working with data, be it from an engineering angle or from a data science point of view. I am excited about working on some data science projects, which we have some ideas for, as well as the back-end system for the travel product, which I am working on at the moment. I also help to make our internal data accessible and queryable to everyone in the company through dashboards and reports. This enables people in the company to answer their own questions and to remove any bottleneck which typically exists around interacting with data.

How would you describe the team?

My team, the tech team are a bright bunch; very knowledgeable, competent and hard-working. The whole Bought by Many team is really friendly, made up of predominantly young people. We do a lot of social things together. It’s a friendly atmosphere.

More about Sam

Sam Gilbert

CMO

Sam is our CMO; he was the very first person to join Bought by Many. He oversees customer acquisition and is the SEO genius of the marketing department. In his spare time, he plays squash and badminton. He describes himself as intellectually curious.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am the CMO of Bought by Many. I lead the team members responsible for member and customer acquisition at Bought by Many, Pet Plan Sanctuary and Exotic Direct. I get particularly involved in SEO because that’s the aspect of digital marketing I have the most knowledge of and I’m most passionate about. I believe in, and try to create, a collegiate culture in which people become the best they can be by learning from each other.

How did you get into insurtech?

I spent most of my career prior to Bought by Many in financial services companies. I worked on the development of new products and propositions that used technology. I set up a price comparison business that used people’s credit data to match them to the credit cards and mortgages that they’d be approved for. I met Steven when a mutual friend asked if I would give him some advice about digital products and marketing. I was interested in his idea because I’d been thinking about how search data could be used to deliver better products for people. We hit it off, and he offered me the first job at Bought by Many.

What are you excited about working on?

I am excited about the potential to extend what we do into different geographies and make insurance better for people in countries like Canada, Mexico, China, and Sweden as well as in the UK. I’m quite motivated by ambitious targets, such as growing our market share in pet insurance. I’m also excited by technological change, particularly in the areas of data and social technology; I’m eager to see how our business will evolve based on that.

How would you describe the team?

Open and collaborative, passionate about and committed to making a positive difference to insurance. It’s also fun and sociable. I think most people are pretty smart and talented and quite easy going.

More about Sam

Sarah Birtwhistle

Customer Support Executive

Sarah is one of our Customer Service Executives. She looks after Exotic Direct customers online and on the phone. In her free time, she plays airsoft and video games.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Customer Service Executive for Exotic Direct. I help customers with their policies, on the website or by the phone, with payments and queries. And there are all the other nitty gritty parts – answering emails, live chats. It’s really cool because I love exotic animals and I’m helping people who have exotic animals with their pet insurance policies.

How did you get into insurtech?

I sort of fell into insurtech, but I am glad I did. I was working at a vet practice for a while, dealing with customers, helping dispense medication and processing pet insurance documents. I came across Bought by Many, looked them up and thought they were amazing, so I applied for a job with them. The technology we’re using to deal with insurance is making the process much simpler and straightforward – much better than other insurers.

What are you excited about working on?

Learning all the new things and getting to know everyone – building on the knowledge I've got and moving forward. I’ve got a really open mind, so I am looking forward to exploring what we can do in the future, and I’m excited about the release of the travel product.

How would you describe the team?

Friendly; so easy to fit right in. I feel like I've been here a lot longer than three months. It’s gone so quickly. It’s been so easy and so natural – like I’ve always been here. I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I do. I look forward to going to work every day - it’s such a nice change.

More about Sarah

Shaun Dobson

Developer

Shaun is one of our talented Front-End Developers; he works on everything you see on the website. In his spare time, he plays the guitar, spends time with his family and kids, and reads about astrophysics and quantum mechanics.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a front-end developer. I work on the parts that people see on the website. Since joining I have worked on the quote and buy and account apps, emails, and lots of other aspects, making the interfaces work on all different devices and screen sizes. My main tools are web browsers, a code editor, and GitHub. Three elements make it through to the browser: HTML, CSS and Javascript. I write those. 

How did you get into tech?

I did a degree in Maths at uni, left and didn’t have a job to go into. A friend of mine was working at a new media agency, and they needed a developer. I was there for around five years. One of the reasons for joining Bought By Many was because I was attracted to the opportunity of working on products on a long-term basis. In agency environments, the involvement is more short-term, so it’s going to be great to be involved with the products right through their lifecycles.

What are you excited about working on?

Working on layouts and styling of the products – collaborating closely with our fantastic designers, creating templates and getting them to work on different devices. The process is about establishing the aims of an interface, and making the design vision work in browsers for all users. The main aim is to make sure that the interface doesn’t get in the way of what it’s meant to achieve. 

How would you describe the team?

Everybody is extremely talented, enthusiastic, very welcoming and helpful.

More about Shaun

Sherry Springall

Customer Support Executive

Sherry loves spending time with friends and her very large family. She enjoys travelling, cooking, gardening and solving all sorts of puzzles.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I’m a Customer Support Executive for our travel and small business insurance products. I assist customers with their enquiries regarding their travel and business insurance needs. Customers contact me over live chat, email and phone, where I can provide them with help such as a quote, cover clarification and aid them with purchasing policies ensuring they get prompt, friendly and excellent customer service.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I have never worked in insurance before but like the challenge of learning new things. Having worked in many industries before I knew the kind of company I was looking to work for and was very happy to find Bought By Many had just the right values and office ethos for me.

What are you excited about working on?

I am still learning everything to do with our travel and small business insurance products, but I am looking forward to the launch of future products, so we can help a broader range of customers with their insurance needs.

How would you describe the team?

Hard working but a very friendly bunch that are great to work alongside and have fun with.

More about Sherry

Sophia Pilkington-Miksa

Head of Customer Experience

Sophia makes sure that everything we do at Bought by Many delivers a genuinely better end-to-end customer experience. In her spare time, you’ll probably find her working on a random side project, trying (and failing) to learn a musical instrument, eating Asian food, or playing poker.

1. What do you do at Bought by Many?

My team is responsible for delivering a leading customer experience and reputation, attracting more customers who want to stay with us, do more with us, and tell their friends about us.
Bought By Many exists to provide better insurance for everyone. It’s my responsibility to make a “better experience” actionable, by understanding what customers really value and defining the Bought By Many way of delivering it.
More specifically, the Customer Experience team’s activities are focused in three areas: Supporting rapid, joined up launches of valued customer propositions – with the end-to-end experience front of mind; listening to our customers and driving continuous improvement across our product lines; and building a more engaged relationship with our customers and members.
In a nutshell, we ensure that even as we pursue ambitious growth targets, we remain customer obsessed – seeing customer and commercial performance as one and the same.

2. How did you get into insurtech?

At first, I thought insurance was probably the most boring thing I could think of. I then realised that’s precisely because of a lack of customer-led innovation in the industry. When I met the team, I saw the opportunity to be part of something very challenging and worthwhile. I have always been interested in what makes some businesses do well and others fail. I believe those that are really successful are the ones that don‘t just talk about being customer focused but genuinely are. That’s what appealed to me about Bought By Many.

3. What are you excited about working on?

Launching travel insurance for people with medical conditions. The current offering is unfair – our emerging product will help a lot of people. I’m also excited to see how we can help small business owners find a more tailored product, with a radically less painful purchasing experience, so they can buy with confidence in seconds. Our customers are already effusing about our Cat and Dog products and service. I want to tap into that enthusiasm, encouraging them to tell their friends about us – like a refer a friend scheme, but a very genuine one.

4. How would you describe the team?

Incredibly talented, warm, and determined to genuinely change insurance for the better. Dynamic plus chaotic (in a good way, mostly).

More about Sophia

Stephanie Birnage

Customer Support Executive

Steph loves spending time with her friends and family preferably around a great Sunday roast. She's an English Literature graduate and adores books. Her all-time favourites are the Happy Potter series, Dracula and Madame Bovary

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I work in the customer support team, answering queries to make sure customers are happy and fully informed about the policy they’re buying.

How did you get into insurtech and working for Bought by Many?

I saw the role advertised, applied, interviewed, and joined in December 2016 as one of the first CS team members on Cat & Dog!

What are you excited about working on?

Not working on a particular project at the moment, but it has been interesting to watch the company grow, and I look forward to seeing what will happen in the future.

How would you describe the team?

Friendly, open, social, inclusive.

More about Stephanie

Steve Carson

Development Team Leader

Steve builds APIs, works with AWS components and builds front-end Javascript apps. In his spare time, Steve enjoys stand-up paddleboarding and spending time with his kids. He’s also mad about cryptocurrencies.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a senior developer. I help code serverless microservices written in Python and Javascript applications which communicate with the microservices. I also work with Elasticsearch.

How did you get into tech?

It was at the time I was shown the internet back in the late 90s and became a student doing a master’s degree in Information Systems and Technology. That’s when I first learned about programming and found I loved it. I graduated in the middle of the .com boom so there was a lot of work and I ended up moving into web development and building web applications. I joined Bought By Many just before Christmas in 2016. I wanted to work for a start-up and am very interested in Fintech and disruptive financial technologies – Bought By Many ticked all the boxes. Bought By Many has a great culture and a high level of talent amongst its employees.

What are you excited about working on?

I enjoy working on putting AWS components together to build applications. Building serverless applications with Lambdas and working with streams and different ways for applications to communicate with each other. It is an interesting new approach to use Lambdas to create serverless microservice APIs.

How would you describe the team?

Both the whole BBM team and the development team are friendly and talented.

More about Steve

Dr Steve Long

Head of International

Steve is working towards launching the Bought by Many proposition in the international market. Steve is a Doctor of Nematology, owns a rally car, plays the guitar and loves spending time with his two kids and doing DIY around the house and garden.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I’m Head of International. There are two strands to this work: one is working with insurers around the world to help them leverage our IP and technology to analyze search and social media data to identify product development and digital marketing opportunities. The second part of the job is looking at which countries we’re going to launch the Bought by Many brand in next.

How did you get into insurtech?

My first foray into insurance was back in 1999 when I joined a company called Xelector who offered a white-labelled comparison shopping service for insurance and financial products - I ended up running the company for three years. Then I was out of insurance for a while before getting connected with Steven, our CEO. I came in, spent an hour with him, and really liked what Bought by Many were doing and the potential the company had to truly disrupt the insurance industry in a positive way.

What are you excited about working on?

Our next country launch to prove that the Bought by Many model is portable into other geographies. If we can prove the Bought by Many proposition works in another country that will be very exciting.

How would you describe the team?

We’ve got some really bright people who are quite unusual in that they look at things from a different perspective. I think that’s why we’ve been so successful. It’s a great culture - bright people like working with other bright people.

More about Steve

Steven Mendel

CEO and Co-Founder

Steven is our CEO. He co-founded Bought by Many and is growing the company to make insurance better both in the UK and internationally. Steven does a lot of charity, loves jazz, cycling and has a passion for architecture.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am the CEO and co-founder of Bought by Many – I see my role as setting the values and the culture of our team, as well as doing everything I can to ensure everyone else is as effective, as possible. It is also my role to find and recruit the right people and to enable them.

How did you get into insurtech?

I was getting ready to leave my last corporate job and wanted to keep my health insurance policy, but to pay for it myself (instead of my employer). The policy £1,625 at the time. I called the provider and they said they had never been asked that question before and quoted me a price of £6,500. This brought home to me the poor way in which financial service corporates treat individuals. I was telling Guy about it, and he said that he’d been working on a piece of software that can enable people to share ideas and experiences inside Facebook when they went skiing. So, the idea of creating communities and helping people to use their collective buying power was born.

What are you excited about working on?

I get fired up about improving our members’ experience in insurance, and the more that we do, the more fired up I get because the more achievable it is becoming. The first steps were hard, but each step is easier as we get ever closer to achieving our goal of providing 'Better Insurance. For Everyone,' and is, therefore, more energising.

How would you describe the team?

We are highly passionate and focused individuals with a commitment to improving everyone’s insurance experience. As a business, we have a very strong set of values. We are working to create an environment where people can achieve a lot, yet be relaxed and enjoy their time here. We’ve done some great things, but we’ve still got a long way to go. As Helen always reminds me, we’ve achieved an enormous amount and therefore having self-belief is critically important.

More about Steven

Steven O'Callaghan

Insurance Product Manager

Steven is the product manager for our pet insurance range – he develops the proposition and monitors the way customers interact with our products to ensure they work as intended.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I’m the Product Manager for our pet insurance. I am responsible for product development, nurturing our relationship with our underwriters and managing the performance of our pet products. I make sure they can be used in the way we intended and are delivering value to our customers.

How did you get into insurtech?

I have been working in insurance my whole career. I’ve worked with a number of different insurers and brands whose growth and customer experience ambitions were held back by the challenges that face most large established companies. Bought by Many were identified as doing something very different by the insurers I was working with and I decided I wanted to be part of that difference.

What are you excited about working on?

We launched our own pet insurance products in February, and we’re now starting to build detailed knowledge on how they’re performing, what claims people make, what products they buy, and soon we’ll be inviting customers to renew for the first time. This gives us a great opportunity to learn and refine what we do. I’m excited to see how customers respond to our innovative approach to renewals!

How would you describe the team?

Dedicated and passionate about doing something different.

More about Steven

Tamara Labelle

Product Marketing Manager for Exotic Direct

Tam designs and implements all the content marketing for our sister company ExoticDirect and writes content for Bought by Many. In her spare time, she likes working out in the gym, visiting galleries, hiking and going to music festivals.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am the Product Marketing Manager for ExoticDirect – I drive visits to our website through creating content and optimizing it using SEO best practices. My role includes cross-referencing content performance data, in order to identify SEO opportunities, that will result in more website visits. I also work with aggregators and affiliates in order to enhance brand visibility, brand authority and drive website traffic. I also look at ideas for the website that would help to increase conversions and manage the email marketing and the content within the email newsletters.

How did you get into insurtech?

I studied Business Studies with Marketing at university and entered the marketing industry that way. Through my job, I discovered I had a passion for writing content and SEO. I enjoy working in insurtech because you’re offering the client something that could really help them, and the technology side of things is very exciting and dynamic. We really listen to customers and work to offer them the best experience and products that we can. Our ethos is honesty and integrity, and the use of awesome technology and innovation, all of which I believe in, and find revolutionary in today’s market.

What are you excited about working on?

Writing content, coming up with ideas for content and optimizing it – beating our competitors to the top of page one and getting direct answers.

How would you describe the team?

We’re very open-minded, driven, very friendly, fun and ambitious.

More about Tamara

Tayler Kemsley

Developer

Tayler is one of our talented software developers. He creates features that allow both front-end and back-end users to interact with the platform easily. When he’s not working, Tayler likes to play one of six musical instruments, read books and watch films.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Software Developer mainly working on the back-end of our platform. I work on creating features that make interacting with the website and its back-end easier. Also, efficiency tools for people in the office and our website users.

How did you get into tech?

I’ve been around computers a lot since I was a child; there was a computer in our household when I was really young. It was the early days of computers and my parents didn’t know how to use one, but I did, so I ended up helping them a lot. As a result, I later took a job in IT support. So, at my first IT job they thought anything that ran on electricity could be done by one of the IT guys and they asked if I wanted to get involved with the more techie development side of things, I said yes, and the rest is history.

What are you excited about working on?

The most exciting thing about working in the tech team at BBM and about development, in general, is that "every day is a school day". You're always trying something new or learning a new technique.

How would you describe the team?

The tech team is very collaborative, we bounce ideas off each other, support each other. Everybody is very inviting, accommodating and friendly. The whole Bought by Many team is super driven and motivated, and really the kind of the stuff you write on a CV only here it’s true. Very forward thinking and very customer-centric, too.

More about Tayler

Tim O'Boyle

Customer Support Executive

Tim’s only 19 but has been with the company for over two years. When he’s not working, he likes going to the pub, shopping, playing x-box and doing things to his car.

What do you do at Bought by Many?

I am a Customer Support Executive. I work in the commercial department for Pet Plan Sanctuary - household insurance and personal accident; and Golden Valley photo insurance, which is for wedding photographers and people with telescopes. I look after renewals and make sure that all the renewal information our customers receive is up to date, and renewals go smoothly. It is also up to me to calculate how much somebody’s premiums will go up when they renew based on how much they’ve claimed in the previous period of their policy.

How did you get into insurtech?

I started at Bought by Many as an apprentice when I was 17. I really enjoyed it and loved the business side of things. When my apprenticeship was over, I was offered a permanent job here. Our approach to insurance is very unheard of – we insure things that no one else does. Which is really good, because I’ve got family members who have cancer and they can’t get travel insurance for example, and we are currently working on a travel product for people with cancer.

What are you excited about working on?

We’ve got someone new starting in commercial and I’m really looking forward to bringing them up to speed so they can then go off and do the same for other new joiners. I am really excited about expanding the commercial team and making us the A-team.

How would you describe the team?

It’s a good bunch of people. We do work really hard, but we still have a laugh. It’s not a boring place to work. It’s more like family than a work team.

More about Tim

Victoria Sarsfield

Customer Support Executive

Vicky makes sure claims procedures run as smoothly as possible for our customers. In her spare time, she loves cooking, baking and playing volleyball.

What do you do at Bought By Many?

I am a Customer Support Executive. I work in the claims department for Bought by Many, Exotic Direct, Pet Plan Sanctuary and Golden Valley. I deal with the first call for any claim and redirect the customers to the correct department based on the product line. I process claims, speak to customers and answer their queries and deal with general day-to-day tasks that arise from claims.

How did you get into insurtech?

I’ve worked for Brooks Braithwaite Sussex for 12 years. We got taken over by Bought by Many in 2015. I’ve done different things: sales, commercial, retail and now claims. It’s really varied; it’s never the same day. It’s challenging and never boring. What really makes me want to keep coming in every day is the people I work with and the fact that we’ve put a different light on insurance. We’re looking at what people want from insurance and create products informed by that.

What are you excited about working on?

Yesterday and today I’ve been learning how to deal with complaints which I‘ve never had to be involved with before. For a lot of people, their pets are their world so they can get very upset when they have to claim and something goes wrong. Learning how to deal with this has been a rewarding challenge.

How would you describe the team?

We work together; we help each other out. If someone’s struggling, then we can ask advice. It’s a good environment. We have fun. We banter a lot, and we are very supportive of each other.

More about Victoria

Interested in joining the team?

We always want to hear from great people who are passionate about making a difference.

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Board Members

David Schapiro

David Schapiro is a non-executive director and is fascinated by disruptive fintech. Over 10 years he grew financial services SaaS provider Earnix from a small start-up to one of the leading analytical insurtech players, providing value to global financial institutions. He is also co-founder of Planck Re, a provider of artificial intelligence-based data platforms for commercial insurance companies. David says: “The insurance industry is going through a period of unprecedented change and Bought By Many is at the forefront of this disruption. Businesses that analyse and understand change and then build better services can become industry leaders. I see this potential in Bought By Many.”

Guy Farley

Guy has worked in software development for 20 years. He joined ICL after university, managing the development of the UK's first online bank for First Direct. He then spent a year in Bangalore, India running an off-shore development center, and from there moved to San Francisco to help inflate (and burst) the dot com bubble. After a year off skiing and sailing, he returned to the UK to software consulting in financial services. Guy founded Bought By Many with Steven after they worked together at Close Brothers and discovered a shared belief in the need for more transparency and innovation in the financial services industry. Guy loves mountains, oceans and finding simple solutions to seemingly complex problems.

John Pearson

John Pearson is chairman of Bought By Many’s board. He has built successful media, broadcast and digital brands with wide audiences in key roles such as director of Ginger Media Group, co-founder and CEO of Virgin Radio, and chairman of Shazam, which Apple acquired for $400m in 2017. John says: “The use of social platforms to identify unmet consumer needs coupled with the ability to deliver offers on insurance for members is a tremendous asset. Obsessive customer care and a unique product set make Bought By Many a genuine disruptor that is scaling rapidly.

Malcolm Ferguson

Malcolm is a Non-Executive Director at Bought By Many, representing Octopus Ventures, who led Bought By Many's Series A. Octopus is a London and New York based venture capital firm focused on identifying unusually talented entrepreneurs intent on building businesses that can scale to create, transform or dominate an industry. Prior to joining Octopus, Malcolm spent a number of years in the investment banking industry, firstly within the TMT team of Bank America Merrill Lynch in London and then subsequently at GP Bullhound, a leading boutique investment bank, focussing exclusively on technology businesses.

Robert Thomson

Robert Thomson is an independent Non-Executive Director at Bought By Many. In addition, he is currently an independent non-executive director of CNA Europe Group and its two main operating subsidiaries CICL & CNA Hardy. CNA Europe Group is owned by CNA Financial Corporation, a leading specialty lines insurer listed on the NYSE. Previously, Robert had a long career at J.P. Morgan, including 30 years as an investment banker specialising in mergers and acquisitions in the global insurance sector. He also works as an investor and advisor to start-up businesses, in the insurance technology space.

Steven Mendel

Steven has over 20 years’ diverse experience in the financial services industry - as a qualified actuary at AON, as a strategy consultant at McKinsey, and as a business leader at Barclays Wealth and Close Brothers. Driven by a desire to change financial services for the better, he has previously set up an art finance business for Christies, and founded an investment consultancy to make asset-based advice available to all pension funds. Steven founded Bought By Many with Guy to shift the balance of power in insurance. He feels strongly that the insurance industry treats corporates better than individuals, and that it’s time for that to change. He is married with three kids, and has a passion for cycling, his sax, and for the charities he’s involved with.

What people say

Julie Arthurs

Pet Insurance Group

"They've negotiated a good deal for pet insurance which can be very expensive. Highly recommended."
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James Hutt

Home Insurance Group

"The price was very competitive compared to other quotes directly from other providers. "
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Jane Davey

Doberman Pinscher Pet Insurance Group

"Very competitive quote and easy to buy the policy. I have another pet to insure in a few months and hope to receive another competitive ..."
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