by Benjamin Hindson, NGIN Chairman
As everyone starts to get excited for Christmas and spending some time with family and friends over the holidays, it is a great chance to reflect on the past year. At NGIN our official year runs June – June so we are technically only six months through our “committee year”. Nevertheless, the whole of 2019 has been another action packed year for our committee, members, advocates and sponsors.
Looking back on the year, we have hosted 11 events, our largest ever mentoring programme, become an official Inclusion@Lloyd’s Partner Network, welcomed the Svenska Försäkringsföreningen, and we got a refreshed brand to reflect us better in the market. Other highlights for me include integrating ASSET into NGIN so that we now have a dedicated resource for Apprentices and launching the NGIN Young Professionals Forum and Executive Ambassador programme.
Events for NGIN are the cornerstone of the work we do for our members. Our Back to Basics series continued this year covering topics such as: Insurance Broking, Political Risk and War, Digital Assets and Cryptocurrency, and Claims. We also hosted a very interesting session with Deloitte on the links between Formula 1 and broking. In our efforts to ensure we empower our members to shape the world they live in through broader themed events, we were delighted to welcome Rob Gardener back to lead a session on financial planning in April.
2019 saw the return of the NGIN Pub Quiz, a staple in the young professional calendar at Steam Wine Bar. With over 130 participants it was a sell-out event enjoyed by everyone. We also looked to expand our social events this year and for the first time hosted a bingo evening with Dabbers alongside RICS Matrics and Principle Demolition, as well as a Summer River Cruise with BIBA.
NGIN’s 5th Mentoring Scheme was held on Wednesday 20th February, hosted by DACB for our 77 participants. Speakers included Tim Fillingham, CEO StarStone Underwriting Ltd and William Naylor, an NGIN Mentor and lawyer at DACB. I am very much looking forward to our sixth year of mentoring in Q1 2020, once again with the fantastic DACB.
I was delighted that NGIN became an Inclusion@Lloyd’s Partner Network over the summer. Together with Link, GIN, iCAN, iDAWN, and IFN we have enjoyed being part of the programme and look forward to working with our fellow D&I networks in the coming year. At this year’s Dive In festival, NGIN hosted an event with professional acting coach Sarah Butler helping attendees to communicate with greater impact and create the ripple that becomes a wave of change.
Started in 2018, our new branding was launched on 1st January this year. The new brand reflects the ever-growing network and continuous self-development that members gain by joining NGIN. We added orange to the NGIN colour palette to not only show more vibrancy and add a modern flare but to also symbolise determination and success. We then paired this with the original NGIN blue representing trust, wisdom and confidence – many of the NGIN values. Feedback on the new branding has been very positive and been used across all our platforms, including our monthly newsletter which contains a roundup of all our work and what’s going on in the market.
This year we’ve been very lucky to be nominated for two awards: the CII Public Trust Award and our Chairman nominated as Rising Star at the Dive In Awards, where he was highly commended. It was fantastic to see industry recognition for the work that everyone linked to NGIN does on a daily basis.
Quite simply, NGIN wouldn’t exist without its members, dedicated committee, advocates, executive ambassadors, partners, sponsors and supporters. I’d like to extend a personal thank you to everyone who has supported our work or come to one of our events throughout the year. Additionally, a very big thank you to the committee who work on NGIN tasks on top of very demanding day jobs!
2019 has been another year which I’ve been proud to be a part of NGIN and now as we look towards 2020, I’m excited by what we have got planned for the coming year. I’d like to wish all of our community a joyful and magical festive season and happiness, peace, and prosperity in the New Year.