22 | Greater London Awards 2020 23 | Greater London Awards 2020 Oct20096 Best Non-Executive Membership Organisation - UK Realising today’s opportunities and meeting tomorrow’s challenges are vital to the sustainable success of organisations, and boards of directors are a key enabler. Empowering and supporting the competence of boards across the United Kingdom is NEDonBoard, the trading name of the Global Institute of Board Members. Discover how this professional membership body for non-executive and executive directors is equipping individual board members with principles, knowledge, and skills that recognise commercial success is underpinned by strong corporate responsibility, and sustainability. Connection, knowledge, and authority are three core principles for any board member or non-executive director to have. They also happen to be the three core operating principles of NEDonBoard, the UK authoritative platform made by board members, for board members. NEDonBoard promotes contemporary and relevant approaches to board and directorial leadership, sets practices for modern and effective business governance, and is a strong advocate of boardroom- level cognitive diversity. In everything that NEDonBoard does, members come first, always. Everything it does is to serve the community of non-executive directors and board members so that boards run smoothly and effectively. NEDonBoard is a truly independent organisation, solely focused on serving the connection and professional development needs of non-executive directors and board members. That is what makes it unique within the United Kingdom, as well as its approval both as a professional body and as an institute. Strongly believing in peer learning and continual learning, NEDonBoard also offers training programmes, events, and resources that are relevant, contemporary, practical, actionable, and delivered by independent non-executive directors and subject matter experts operating at board level. Their board training courses cover leading and emerging best practices in the industry. NEDonBoard has three major trends that it focuses on. Firstly, becoming a non-executive director is an attractive leadership development option for most senior executives looking to get to the next stage of their career. Professionals no longer wait until their retirement to consider non-executive directorship, and this has opened the pool to more diverse candidates. NEDonBoard is a disruptive force in an industry that has traditionally not embraced cognitive diversity. NEDonBoard promotes diversity, which means attracting candidates from non-traditional pools in UK boardrooms, such as next gen leaders, those from BAME communities, women, or individuals that have a different social or professional background. NEDonBoard supports their transition to a board career with its dedicated NED Accelerator® Programme. Secondly, COVID-19 has evidenced the inadequacy of some boards to address the challenges, risks, and opportunities related to the crisis. It is paramount that organisations have the right mix of skills, experiences, and expertise to respond to crises such as these. Having the right team of non-executive directors and board members may mean the difference between liquidation, survival or growth. Thirdly and lastly, digital transformation is a major trend that has been accelerated by COVID-19. Most boards lack digital understanding, partially due to the average age of board members and their experience with technology. Board members therefore need to upskill and boards need to refresh their composition to add new expertise. This has opened opportunities for next-generation professionals and those with expertise critical to sustainable performance as such information security, data governance, climate change and ESG, who have traditionally had limited access to the boardroom. Due to NEDonBoard’s unique positioning both as a professional body and a disruptor, it supports organisations looking to refresh their board, attract a more diverse pool of talent and experience and develop or refresh the knowledge and skills of their boards of directors. The institute also takes care to support individual professionals who are looking for inspiration. Looking ahead, NEDonBoard has exciting research topics for 2021, and has just introduced a new Modern Board Member Masterclass for recently appointed board members and more experienced board members looking for modern and contemporary board-level development. Whilst the institute’s operations remain centred on the United Kingdom, it does have growing interest from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, and will aim to support all board professionals that look to the United Kingdom as the governance gold standard. For a firm that values diversity, disruption, and innovation as core ideas, NEDonBoard is a truly outstanding example of how to support businesses through those three. Businesses everywhere can benefit immensely from the services that NEDonBoard has to offer, and the support on an individual level is just as exceptional. This is a British business that understands the value of people at a time where people are so important. COVID-19 may be taking a toll on business, but NEDonBoard is focused keenly on building those professionals and organisations back up to positions where they can make a positive change and bring about exceptional results. Company: NEDonBoard Contact:
[email protected] Website: www.nedonboard.com Best Applied AI Technology Company 2020 Based in London, Tractable develops market-leading artificial intelligence solutions for accident and disaster recovery. Using photos to automate damage appraisal, Tractable’s technology enables the world’s largest insurers to improve accuracy, reduce turnaround time and deliver a totally revolutionised customer claims experience. Tractable is working towards being able to one day help the world recover from all accidents and disasters, from car accidents to monumental natural disasters, in a more productive, efficient and stress-free manner. At the moment, the firm is working on motor damage, as 100 million car claims happen every year globally. Tractable’s AI assesses damage to any car in Europe, North America and Asia and since its inception, has processed hundreds of thousands of auto insurance claims, making a positive impact for clients facing a stressful, inconvenient predicament. Fundamentally, Tractable is built on the belief that response to accidents and disasters could be ten times quicker than it currently is, thanks to AI. For a long time, technology that would analyse auto damage was out of reach, due to image recognition technology not yet being advanced enough and companies lacking proficient data to drive accurate models. As Tractable carved out its niche in the market, it solved these issues by training their world-leading deep learning technology on millions of images, making their AI just as, if not more accurate than a human assessor. As it sees more images and applications, Tractable’s software learns and improves, giving it the same insights as an auto repairer who has repaired over a million collisions to a consistent standard. Tractable’s accident and recovery AI system begins with an automated visual damage appraisal that assesses the damage, calculates the cost of recovery and unlocks the funds to facilitate the rebuild. Normally, the initial assessment stages of the recovery process can take days if not weeks. Tractable’s AI systems speed up this process to up to ten times faster. As a result, the insurers who collaborate with Tractable, such as Tokio Marine, Covéa and Ageas, are able to reduce turnaround times as well as improve accuracy, and consequently create a better, more customer-friendly claims experience for their clients. Operating across continents, Tractable’s technology is therefore making a real difference to thousands of claims and drivers. Moreover, in a time when digitisation of services and concepts is being accelerated due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, Tractable is also seeing growth within their organisation and their services. The use of AI reduces unnecessary data collection loops and points of contact, a concept that has been recognised by insurers but also repairers and policyholders. Tractable has also recognised that venture financing in the AI sector is levelling off as investor expectations are not being met, thus its commercialisation is vital. This would allow the translation of technological breakthroughs into sizeable revenues that actually generate returns. As such, Tractable is expanding to the global auto repair ecosystem that spans Europe, the Americas and Asia, bringing more advanced AI to insurers as well as repairers and the rest of the supply chain. The firm is answering the demand across the rest of the vehicle life cycle, in maintenance, lease returns and used car sales. Outside of the automotive sector, the calls for Tractable’s AI products are also growing, as clients are seeking visual appraisals for property damage relating to natural disasters. As this has been Tractable’s mission aspect since inception, it marks an exciting next step for the start-up. Pulling together the entrepreneurial, objective- driven spirit of the Tractable environment that is the culmination of the firm’s talent, many of which comes from the leading universities of London itself, the firm is putting an even greater focus into the research that built them to facilitate their expansion. Whether that research is being applied to real-world situations or helping customers recognise the benefits of AI, the whole Tractable team are making their contribution, by deepening their technical insights so that their market-leading AI can be applied to many more cases, including property damage. The result is the positive, real-world impact that Tractable has been striving for since day one. Contact: Norval Scott Company: Tractable Web Address: www.tractable.ai Sep20527 There are not many start-ups involved in the development of deep learning that have a profound real-world commercial impact, but London-based Tractable is one of the leading few. Developing artificial intelligence for accident and disaster recovery, Tractable’s market-leading AI solutions are today improving the customer claims experience for motor accidents and damage, but with the hope that one day, it will help the world recover from accidents and disasters that affect hundreds of millions of lives. This growing organisation has got its visions set on a big, bright future. Jean-Philippe Perraud, NEDonBoard General Director