I learned to look beyond the milestone to the responsibility it leaves.

I began in brokerage client service in 1995, after completing a business degree at the fictional Valesmere College that May. My first tasks were modest: organise information, follow up an outstanding item and help an account team keep its work visible. I did not advise clients independently or decide an insurer’s terms. I learned that a commercially successful placement could still leave a practical question unanswered inside the brokerage. Who would manage the next agreed service, and how would the receiving colleague know what had been promised?

At Thistavere Risk Services, I worked first as a client-service coordinator and later became a servicing manager in March 2001. The transition changed my view of the relationship. A colleague could perform an individual task well while the wider account remained dependent on personal memory and repeated explanation. I wanted a service calendar that belonged to the team, with responsibility and scope clear enough to survive absence or a change of personnel. That operating ambition did not give me authority to alter the insurance arrangement or replace the judgement of appropriately authorised specialists.

I joined Orlaven Risk Brokers as a regional operations manager in June 2007. The business was growing, and shared services appeared to offer a more consistent way to support client accounts. In 2011 I approved a transfer plan for twenty-four account groups before testing enough of the local context. Seventeen were ready for the shared arrangement; seven still needed local support. We spent US$190,000 on correction and cover. I had treated a standard description of the work as evidence that the receiving team understood all of its practical conditions.

The correction made me more careful about what a handover had actually established. Keeping the seven groups with local owners was not a rejection of shared services. It was an acknowledgement that the original date did not settle the receiving question. I asked teams to identify the unresolved responsibilities and the knowledge needed to carry them. The accounts did not become uninsured because an internal service transition was incomplete, and I kept that distinction clear when explaining the operating issue to colleagues.

In September 2013 I became network service director, a functional title without a statutory board seat. A 2016 integration of three acquired offices reinforced the distinction between the legal completion of a transaction and the acceptance of its ongoing work. Six of nine service responsibilities transferred by the original date. Three remained with local owners for eight additional weeks, supported by US$680,000 in dual operation and cover. That expense was separate from acquisition consideration. The receiving process did not itself transfer a policy or override permissions governing records and client relationships.

I became COO in February 2019 and now lead 570 service and operations colleagues through six direct reports. My US$48 million expense delegation for 2026 is separate from the company’s US$186 million fee-and-commission revenue in 2025. Client premium funds and carrier claim payments are different accounts again. I report to fictional CEO Mara Bellcrest and work with the colleagues authorised to make insurance, legal, financial and other specialist decisions. My task is to make the operating organisation capable of supporting its accepted responsibilities, not to collect every authority under the COO title.

Recent work has concentrated on the service accepted with new relationships. A defined cohort of 120 newly placed clients contained 82 with complete agreed service calendars, 26 needing named next actions and 12 requiring scope clarification. A supplier comparison kept the internal specialist support omitted from a headline price in the continuing-cost account. In 2024 we accepted 24 of 40 proposed account onboardings immediately and deferred 16 until service ownership was ready. The preparatory expense remained visible, without treating potential fees as already earned or lost.

The next role I would consider should value this connection between commercial ambition and continuing service. I would want to understand the brokerage’s proposition, authorities and existing commitments before offering an operating answer. A first non-executive appointment could also be relevant where practical experience of integration and service scope would improve oversight. That would require employer clearance, conflict review and further preparation for a different responsibility. The record here is fictional, but the distinction it illustrates is deliberate: an attractive growth account is incomplete until the work it creates has a credible home.