♪ ♪ francine: lloyd's of london is one of the most famous brands in the financial world. it is also one of the least understood. the company offers a market where members can join together to ensure risk over the years. lloyd's has insured everything, from space shuttles to guitars. today "on leaders with lacqua," we meet the chief executive of lords of london.

you became chief executive of lloyd's of london in 2014. was it easier or harder than expected? inga: two things. a, it was easier than i expected because people knew me from the past. i work in insurance for 36 years and i think i underestimated the impact that would have on people accepting me into the role. i already had that respect and they said she knows industry so i had that respect and that made it a little bit easier. what makes it so tough is the numerous stakeholders. i had not anticipated, because you are running a market that so many people would be interested in what is going on, and that you would be pulled in so many different directions. and it always reminded me of going into an old fairgrounds experience where it would pull you in directions like this.

that is how it felt. like, what are all these people? why have they interested in lloyds? it's because lloyds is an 330-year-old amazing institution. it is global. it operates in over 200 countries. you have all sorts of governments interested in it. you've got individuals. you have businesses. you have scientists. everybody seems to be interested. that is what i underestimated. the complexity of the stakeholder base i have been trying to manage. francine: is it very difficult to change on a diversity level but also on a technology level? inga: yeah, because the market is made up of syndicates, sharing the complex risks that lloyds does. that means i cannot necessarily tell them what to do. i have to influence and bring them along with me if we are going to make change happen. there are over 80 of these individual businesses, each one has someone heading it up. because they are not employees

and operating in a market, i want to take the market forward and introduce technology, new ways of working, changing environment, make it more modern, dynamic. perhaps get rid of old traditions that i don't think are making it appealing anymore, i have to bring all the business leaders with me on this. and that has been very tough. francine: traditions like what, the use of paper instead of technologies and how difficult is it to change? inga: it is, because the business is being done almost identically to the way it was done 300 years ago. so when we were meeting in the lloyds coffeehouse originally when all the ship owner and mariners were meeting, and the word underwriter was born, it was like an original crowdfunding or the sharing economy.

they got together and said we don't know if it will be our ship that goes down, so we will pull together and underwrite your ship or your cargo, so they wrote their names underneath each other. that's how "underwriter" was born. it would have been done on some form of paper and we still do that. francine: how crazy is that? inga: it does seem absolutely crazy. some of it is because we do complex, difficult stuff and a lot of it is new so it will be a new piece of technology or business investing in something for the first time. they want insurance for the first time. you need that face-to-face negotiation to go on to create the insurance product that's needed. and it's traditionally done with paper but we are modernizing. we've introduced loads of technology. and the technology is not the tricky bit. it is getting people to adopt it to change the way they are interacting with each other on a daily basis. they like their world. they like meeting with people.

for a lot of people around anywhere, any firm, some of us do not like change. we're frightened of it. you have got to win them over and allay their fears and say it is just about moving forward. i often think about it or talk about how uncomfortable, or how dissatisfied they'd be if they didn't have the latest digital technology in their pocket or somewhere around them, their mobile device. just think if that had not progressed in the 20 years since we started to have mobile phones. they wouldn't be very happy. so let's think about our business and how our customers must feel if we're not moving forward. francine: you are stepping down early 2019. why? inga: i was committed to doing five years. when i was approached for the job, it was really exciting. i said i would love to come in, modernize the place. introduce technology.

but i knew when you are driving transformation, you have a certain amount of time before it needs somebody new. i will have completed my five years. i will feel pretty good about what we have done in that time. and it is therefore time to hand over to somebody else. i have to be selfish as well. my age means i am not getting younger and i want to do one more big executive role if i can. francine: in insurance? inga: not necessarily. it depends. but i've worked in insurance my entire career so it might be. francine: do you feel like you have done everything you wanted to do at lloyd's of london? there was a big loss in 2017. if you had had more time at lloyd's of london, would you have not gone out with bigger bang? inga: the losses were basically driven by natural catastrophes. we work natural catastrophes. that was the biggest thing.

$12 billion it cost the lloyd's market but that is what we are here for. we are here to provide that financial compensation when things go wrong. so we know that is what we do. it was not a shock. we have to expect it. we modeled for these large catastrophes. but we have to fix underlying profitability in non-catastrophe type business. and that is what we are focused on this year. francine: what is the role of hedge funds in your industry and lloyd's of london? inga: lloyd's of london has changed dramatically over the years. it used to be funded by lots of individuals. so real individuals would put their own money in. that changed way before i joined five years ago. now we have 90% of capital no longer individual private names. it is either insurance groups who want to own something in lloyd's because they want to access that specialist business,

or it might be hedge funds. it might be pension funds who want to diversify their investment portfolio. they are a minor part of capital that comes into lloyd's but also can be an important part because we are about being innovative, entrepreneurial. we are now launching a lloyd's lab which is going to look at engaging with insurance tech, startups, entrepreneurs. they need backing so we may find that we have more interest going forward than has been because we're doing new stuff. francine: did you feel like you always have the new chairman behind you? that he was ready with your policies? with your innovation? did he think you are going too fast or too slow? inga: most think we are going too slow. i have hardly worked anywhere we where you think the pace is not fast enough.

there is always the pressure to deliver faster. because we are in a market and we have so many players to bring along with us and we have got customers who have been with us for years, one of the first things i had to do was present the chinese aviation authority with a special scroll for 40-year relationship. so we have to bring our customers along. that is why the chairman has come on board. he realizes the complexity and is completely supportive of the new stuff. francine: you have it in you to be the chief executive of another company. is that because you want to be a role model for other women? or is it because you like innovating? inga: i do have a personal purpose. i want to empower women in business. because of that, you feel when you are in a senior role, particularly financial services, where we are not so good on our

diverse leadership team. so i do feel a little pressure to be a role model but that is not what is driving me on. i love to be busy. i love challenges. i love transformation. i love getting people to see what seems impossible become reality. i just love doing that. so i am just a very driven person from that point of view. francine: that is from a very young age? when did you first see that quality in you? inga: it's come more later. i was always competitive. when i was at school i was always competing. but this motivation, this energy, i don't think it really happened until i probably got it to my 30's. when i started off working, sport was important to me and my work was secondary. i did not focus on having a career.

it has come up on me. and the next opportunity i got, the more i enjoyed that. and the next one came along and the more i enjoyed that. it's sort of grown on me and i have grown on insurance. i have just had a wonderful time but it has got me so excited. insurance has particularly kept me because we serve such a good social purpose. francine: still to come on "leaders." diversifying lloyd's of london. we talk about the challenges of modernizing a 330-year-old company. ♪

♪ francine: in inga beale became 2014, the first female chief executive at

lloyd's of london. since then, she has transformed the institution, making waves and a leading voice for diversity and financial services. but lloyd's still had a 27% pay gap in 2017. what is the company doing to tackle inequality? when it comes to diversity, how backward is the industry? inga: we are not the worst sector around. we are not doing that well. in the u.k., having to report the gender pay gap has highlighted the financial services sector. banks are bad and insurers are not so good either. but getting that data out there is going to help us all at least realize where we are and i feel do something about it. the gender pay gap outlets in -- at lloyd's just in the u.k. are 27.7%. that is a sign of the lack of females in senior positions. so we have to do a better job not necessarily of enticing them in, but keeping women. giving them confidence to go for those senior roles.

provide them with the mentorship that will be so important. i know how it affected me. i know i needed that extra boost, that extra help, that helping hand and that is what i -- that is why i would like to do as much as i can to create an inclusive environment where women feel they can do as well as men. francine: the insurance history -- industry still has an old-school feel about it, people drinking and smoking in pubs at lunch. is that the case? inga: we have tried to move on from that. many, many firms have moved on. so that is definitely changing. but we still have behaviors that go on that aren't acceptable. we recently launched an inclusive behaviors pledge. two of us got together, another female leader.

in insurance. we were sitting around one day and we said, actually, there are behaviors that happen really at the ground level when people are interacting that aren't necessarily appropriate. francine: like what? inga: there might be sexist comments said to women. there might be racist comments. there might be comments that are rude about the lgbt community. often people do not know they are being hurtful. they don't know they're excluding somebody from a conversation. maybe someone becomes so shocked, they don't join in. a lot of these behaviors are not necessarily known. they might be done unconsciously. we have said we have to highlight this. we have now got 50 signatures of 50 c.e.o.'s of 50 individual insurance firms. because most of them are men, most c.e.o.'s are men. these are men who have signed up to say let's address this behavior and make it more inclusive. say, we will not tolerate bad behavior. comments, action, excluding people. making them feel uncomfortable,

we won't tolerate it. we just launched it. it is all new. and we will see where it goes. francine: how quickly will it change? if i'm not wrong, i was reading numbers on lloyd's of london. it is 90% british, white, and male. inga: overall the market might be that high at the leadership level, but through the market it is not. so we know we are balanced when we have people starting in our industry. it is moving up that seems to be the difficult thing. we notice the under 35 in general, we are not doing well retaining them and they are going to be our future leaders. francine: they are leaving london? inga: they are leaving the sector. not necessarily leaving london. we have not been able to identify where they are going, but anywhere that is appealing to tech savvy people, people

where it has a more modern look. it feels dynamic, you've got flexible working approaches. you know, we have got to change. we have people challenging, are you at your desk? or are you about to leave your desk? we have that mentality but we are trying to change. francine: what do you think will be your legacy? inga: we've launched the modernization using technology so we'll be digitalized very soon. we are mandating it so that will have made a huge impact. we have managed to get lloyd's much more global. we have a strong presence in the key markets like singapore, china, dubai for the middle east. i was proudly opening india earlier this year. we have got a stronger footprint in the new exciting markets in the world. and hopefully, a much more

inclusive working environment that attracts all sorts of types of people. francine: up next, lloyd's of london forecasts man-made disasters could cost cities more than $320 billion a year. what kind of leadership does it take to ensure disasters, both natural and man-made? more with inga beale, next. ♪

♪ francine: lloyd's of london started as a 17th-century coffee shop providing insurance in the burgeoning cargo trade. now it provides cover for some of the world's biggest businesses, including 52 of the biggest banks. what kind of leadership style does it take to manage a company of this complexity? inga beale is with us. what are the qualities needed in a chief executive to lead lloyd's of london? inga: they are probably similar to running other organizations.

one of them is, you have got to have courage. we have to make tough decisions. we have to make decisions that affect the market. that takes courage. you have to be convinced this is the right thing to do. that also means you have to include others. no c.e.o. knows all the answers. i have been a c.e.o. of a few other organizations. we never know all the answers. that means you've got to include people. i like to think of myself as an inclusive leader. i'd like to think i have been bringing people along. they have been designing their future. and then, you have got to communicate, communicate, and communicate. i cannot tell you how many times i talk about the need for modernization in the lloyd's market and then, you will have a conversation with someone in the world who has not heard that message. so you cannot overcommunicate.

and you put that together with listening when you are including people. listen to them, get their ideas, communicate. make bold decisions. and i think that sums it up for me. francine: what is the best communication style? is it town halls? is it video messages? is it email? how do you communicate to your staff of, in your case, to the participants of lloyd's of london? inga: it has to be every channel you can think of. everybody wants something slightly different. particularly now, when we've got the rise of technology and we know that the new generation are using mobile digital devices, they don't even use the traditional print newspapers that i'm so used to when i grew up. when i learned that, i have reverse mentors. one of my reverse mentors told me they don't pick up print media ever. it's all on their mobile phone. we get everything. this is how we get all of our

news. it was a wake-up call for me and realized different generations want to see the c.e.o. in different ways. there is a younger generation that wants to see you as a human. they want to know what you feel about things. what do you think about things. some people in a different generation and sometimes different cultures do not want that. they want to see you as sitting in more of an ivory tower. he was very interesting. i worked in germany for a while. there it was vital that the employees saw you as somewhat separated from them. so when i arrived and i said, let's break down these barriers. i want my office door open. yes, of course, people can walk past my office. first of all, they found it difficult to respect the c.e.o. because the c.e.o. shouldn't be that open and approachable. so you want to work out the cultures so that is why it is important to use all different types of media when you

communicate. i do a lot of social media myself to i try to have an instagram account. i really try to do that to appeal to that audience. at other times, i might have to give a speech to hundreds and have some perhaps more sterner, more formal approach to my communication. and it is difficult to always get it right. and authenticity must come through because if you are not coming through as authentic, you will not get anybody to follow you. even believe you. francine: do you think you would have been more successful in another industry? inga: never really thought about that. we get involved in other industries because we insure all of them. that's the interesting thing that we do, we insure all of them. have i sometimes thought insurance has a gray image? and am i too colorful to be in it?

sometimes i think i do not fit but i absolutely love it. and when i know what we do, i get really energized by it. so i think there is not necessarily a personality that suits a certain sector but you have to be in the right role. and i get my energy from people and meet amazing people. i am lucky enough, c.e.o. of a big organization, to get to travel a lot and meet truly amazing people all over the world. francine: what kind of advice would you give to your younger self? inga: do not be so shy. do not be lacking in confidence. when i was offered my first promotion, i said no and i had been working 14 years and i said no. it was the first time i was asked to manage one person. and i said no because i did not think i was good enough. i look back and i hardly recognize that young woman. i do not recognize her now. what is wrong with her? if i'd had -- and i did actually

get through my firm, through my employer, they did rescue me and give me that confidence. but i do look back and say, why didn't you start earlier, inga. why didn't you have that confidence? i have had such a wonderful career, i have no real regrets. francine: because of the politics living through various western leaders, is it up to private individuals and companies to promote diversity more and lgbt? inga: there is a void at the moment in terms of unified messages coming out in governments and nations in many parts of the world. this does seem to need a business or businesses to step into the void. and it is almost an expectation of the younger generation, that they see businesses as having a role to play and in promoting diversity, absolutely making sure you have inclusive

workplaces. because otherwise, you won't attract the talent. the talent will not come. francine: thank you so much. inga: thank you. ♪

♪ >> coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. sanctions come down, tariffs go up. political hardball leaves a mark on markets. >> there was a clear message from china. we won't just go after the small items. >> the bottom line has been the sanctions are put firmly on their radar screen. >> it is a message to the wider western world, don't meddle. l: samsung rolls out its latest smartphone. mexico's leader steps down. >> elon musk j