Barry Panayi, group chief information officer (CDO) at insurance coverage agency Howden, is on a mission to create what he calls the datasphere. Quite than merely gathering information, he needs info and perception to turn into integral to joined-up enterprise operations.
“Our work shouldn’t be about producing an inventory of tables with numbers in rows and columns,” he says. “Sure, that effort is vital, however it’s not the stuff that may set us aside. If you will get the data first – equivalent to what’s occurring within the provide chain or a technological development that’s affecting the enterprise – we should issue that perception into the rows and columns of numbers. That’s the important thing enterprise transformation for us.”
Panayi’s try to construct the datasphere at Howden started in August 2025. He joined the agency after working for retailer John Lewis Partnership (JLP) for four-and-a-half years, the place, as he defined to Laptop Weekly in December 2022, his workforce oversaw information administration, enterprise intelligence, and analysis and perception.
Having beforehand labored in monetary providers as information chief at each Lloyds and Amlin, Panayi says the chance at Howden supplied the prospect to return to an business he knew nicely, however with a distinct slant.
“I needed to work for extra of an upstart,” he says. “Howden felt proper, as a result of it had the dimensions – it was large, it was profitable – however it wasn’t weighed down like one of many larger incumbents.”
Panayi describes his new employer as a “hyper-growth firm”. The agency employs about 23,000 folks, having grown from round 10,000 staff 5 years in the past. The usage of information and expertise is correct on the centre of the corporate’s development agenda. Whereas Panayi loved working for JLP, he was attracted by the ambition and power he discovered at Howden.
“It’s simply dynamic,” he says. “It’s a personal and owner-led enterprise. CEO David Howden owns the corporate. He’s enormously charismatic, and the organisation felt energetic. I assumed I’d give the chance a go, and it’s been nice.”
Main change
Panayi appears to be like again on his time at JLP and says his workforce’s largest achievement there was guaranteeing the proper perception and knowledge had been being pushed to folks in retailers and operational places.
“We did all of the cool stuff, like getting the platform and instruments up and operating, and maturing {our capability}. Nonetheless, the factor that made the distinction was, for the primary time, folks in our retailers weren’t taking a look at printouts on pinboards. That they had apps on their handsets that instructed them the placement of a supply or product, or pricing info,” he says.
“We did all these ideas, they usually all took off and have become industrialised. We did some cool AI stuff, however we made folks’s lives higher within the retailers. We had been in a position to get info to the individuals who truly use it. This perception meant there was extra stuff on the shelf for folks to purchase, priced on the proper value. And that’s what retail is about, shopping for one thing and promoting it for greater than to procure it for.”
“We wish to get folks utilizing information, however not in a manner that we construct an enormous central workforce. We wish to do it a distinct manner. That totally different method comes with challenges, as a result of entrepreneurialism means shifting shortly, and typically issues occur that you just’re not conscious of. However that each one makes for a enjoyable vibe”
Barry Panayi, Howden
Panayi recognises that main information at Howden means working throughout a distinct kind of organisation.
“We’re so federated and entrepreneurial. That’s David’s ethos – you get out of individuals’s manner. We’ve grown by way of acquisition, so we don’t wish to snatch every part into the center. It’s a distinct problem from JLP, as a result of we wish to get folks utilizing information, however not in a manner that we construct an enormous central workforce,” he says.
“We wish to do it a distinct manner, which is kind of uncommon, as a result of large enterprises wish to suffocate issues. That totally different method comes with challenges, after all, as a result of entrepreneurialism means shifting shortly, and typically issues occur that you just’re not conscious of. However that each one makes for a enjoyable vibe.”
Panayi says Howden broke into the worldwide prime 10 insurers for the primary time in 2025, and the senior executives on the agency can see a possible path to the highest 4. He provides an instance of the speed of development. Having began from zero within the US, the corporate employed 300 folks earlier than Christmas because it started its operation and added one other 200 throughout the vacation interval.
“Once I joined, in my second week, I used to be instructed to go and assist them arrange the US enterprise, from an information standpoint,” he says. “So, we actually are shifting shortly.”
Creating merchandise
As international CDO, Panayi manages information throughout 50 international locations. The broad nature of the enterprise additionally impacts his position. “We’re a dealer, but additionally an underwriter and a reinsurer,” he says. “As a result of we do various things, it means the information additionally does various things.”
Panayi is accountable for the technical platform and engineering, in addition to the information administration and structure across the perception the agency creates. He additionally oversees analytics, information science and machine studying, and has an inside transformation workplace with technical enterprise analysts that may assist drive pioneering initiatives.
“The information is in all places, not as a result of it’s poorly organised, however as a result of there’s such quite a lot of info that our brokers have to have conversations with their purchasers. From an information standpoint, the work entails greater than figuring out the information sources and ingesting them right into a platform,” he says.
“It’s much more nuanced than that, and you might waste lots of time making an attempt to get every part into form, when actually what we have to do is assist our brokers get the data they need, and that they didn’t know they needed. And the best way to serve that perception isn’t in a report in Energy BI or Tableau. That simply isn’t going to work.”
As an alternative, Panayi needs his workforce to assist the enterprise construct devoted merchandise for the purchasers it serves.
“Should you’re constructing a datacentre below the ocean or within the desert or on a farm, insurance coverage is totally different,” he says. “And when you’re insuring a restaurant, even when it’s the identical delicacies and the identical flooring house, it issues the place it’s on the street, metropolis and nation. So, there’s a little bit of an artwork concerned on this work.”
Constructing the datasphere
Panayi says the enterprise will proceed to develop, which creates human useful resource calls for. Whereas technically succesful employees are vital, the important thing professionals for the information workforce are those that perceive a large breadth of operational actions.
“All these totally different traces of enterprise have totally different questions,” he says. “I want people who find themselves partnering with the enterprise. I’ve by no means been able earlier than as a CDO the place I’m making an attempt to make use of these enterprise translators virtually as a lot because the technical folks.”
Panayi explains what that focus means for the information merchandise his workforce creates. He suggests the intention is to develop data-powered conversational interfaces that assist staff make insight-led selections.
“Our brokers want somebody on their shoulder on a regular basis,” he says. “They want expertise that tells them the stuff they wish to know instantly. For instance, say they’ve simply come out of a gathering, they should converse to their AI on their cellphone to seize what’s occurred, and the AI to say, ‘Oh, bear in mind this aspect is arising for renewal. It’s best to converse along with your colleague.’”
By sharing data by way of rising expertise, Panayi says the corporate’s datasphere can convey collectively staff in disparate locations. “Connecting folks is one other factor that information can do,” he says. “There’s an enormous alternative, as we develop and get a extra diversified enterprise, for folks to assist our purchasers by referring them to different bits of Howden. We haven’t grown up collectively. We’ve grown up in several companies.”
Panayi returns to the instance of datacentre insurance coverage, the place every a part of the constructing course of – development, provide chain, fireplace and worker advantages – entails totally different parts of the insurance coverage enterprise. By sharing data, colleagues can perceive new alternatives. “We will do all that work, and the information helps folks at Howden to know our cross-organisational relationships,” he says.
Spreading perception
Panayi needs these initiatives to be applied throughout the subsequent 24 months. Two years from now, he expects Howden staff to profit from a mature information method that’s not like every other insurance coverage enterprise.
I would love certainly one of our purchasers to face on stage at an inside management occasion and say that the data and perception they get from their conversations with our brokers is not like anyplace else. And I’d like brokers to say that this functionality exists as a result of they’ve energy from everybody else’s information Barry Panayi, Howden
“No matter query you’ve got, there will probably be a bit of data or information or perception accessible to you shortly that helps you make a faster or higher or deeper determination. That won’t be by probability – it’ll be by design that we now have linked globally, the people who find themselves speaking to our purchasers,” he says.
The corporate’s datasets are held in Microsoft Azure, whereas the information platform is Databricks. Panayi says it plans to make use of as many native Databricks capabilities as attainable, together with Genie, a conversational interface on the platform that permits enterprise groups to work together with information utilizing pure language.
The intention is to create a easy platform for Howden to run complicated information initiatives. The acquisitive nature of the agency means it’s essential that expertise can be utilized to assist unfold info and perception to inside staff throughout the organisation. He paints an image of the technology-enabled, data-sharing enterprise 24 months from now.
“What I would love is for certainly one of our purchasers to face on stage at an inside management occasion and say that the data and perception they get from their conversations with our brokers is not like anyplace else. And I’d like brokers to say that this functionality exists as a result of they’ve energy from everybody else’s information,” he says.
“No dealer will probably be on their very own speaking to a consumer as a result of they will faucet into all our data straightaway. I care about brokers and underwriters having superpowers. Ours are already the perfect out there, however we’re going to make them sensible – and our purchasers will inform us that. That’s what I wish to occur.”
