XL Catlin adds to cyber team

XL Catlin has appointed Ashish Umre to the position of accelerate partner, artificial intelligence (AI), based in London.

Established in November 2016, Accelerate is XL Catlin’s internal disruption and innovation team. It was created to leverage commercial opportunities arising from new technologies and work closely with business leaders to drive transformational innovation, enabling bigger thinking and efficient execution.

The company said that Umre is charged with developing XL Catlin participation in AI projects working with partner start-ups to understand and develop their technical capabilities, and ultimately help translate these capabilities into business solutions. He joins XL Catlin from Tesco where he held the role of lead scientist, marketing data science & optimisation.

“We view innovation and the use of technology as a real opportunity to better understand our clients’ business and provide new innovative solutions and services,” said Vincent Branch, chief executive of Accelerate. “Getting the right talent around the table is key to us achieving our goals and this has to be a mix of insurance industry talent and talent from outside the industry. With experience at Tesco and long-standing academic achievements across AI, cognitive/neuroscience and machine learning, as well as his ability to lead innovation projects, Ashish is a great addition to the team and XL Catlin.

“The team are working on a number of significant initiatives. Notably we are the insurance member for the DRIVEN consortium, which is led by Oxbotica a technology company with a focus on mobile autonomous systems with whom we have a partnership. DRIVEN is a ground-breaking project to deploy a fleet of autonomous vehicles. It is helping us to truly understand, and find ways to understand and assess the emerging risks associated with this exciting leap forward in technology. With the team further strengthened we are even better equipped to drive change for the industry and for our clients.”