Ernesto Suarez is the Founder and CEO of Gigasure, an innovative insurtech travel-focused MGA. Gigasure offers customisable travel, backpackers, and car-hire excess insurance through a cutting-edge app. Ernesto is a seasoned insurance executive and serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of success. He built Halo Insurance in 2009, raising venture capital and eventually selling it to Zurich Insurance Group/Cover-More Group in 2017. Prior to founding Halo, Ernesto held senior roles at AIG based out of London and has provided insights on travel and car hire insurance to numerous journalists over the past 15 years. He holds an MBA from IESE Business School in Spain and a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Entrepreneurship from Babson College in the US. On a personal level, Ernesto attained the Abbott Six Star medal in 2023 after completing the six major marathons and is set to run his seventh in Sydney in 2025.

Leveraging technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to solve customer challenges, Sarah is a marketing and innovation specialist in travel insurance, with a focus on simplifying the user experience and driving change through AI and data-driven marketing strategies. She has led key projects, including the development of tools to make insurance more accessible and understood, and improvements to customer acquisition and retention approaches. Sarah is passionate about finding new ways to challenge traditional methods and deliver smarter solutions for customers.

Roi is CEO of Sprout.ai, an award-winning technology solution for the insurance industry, with the vision to enable insurers to deliver a differentiated claims experience to their customers. It uses ground-breaking AI and data-led products to automate every step of the claims journey. Extracting and enhancing relevant claims data, cross-checking this with policies and providing a philosophy-driven adjudication recommendation to conclude a claim in near real-time. Providing claims handlers with time to spend with customers, where human touch and empathy can make a real difference.

Miriam Boote is Managing Director of Designate, a top 50 brand and creative agency specialising in the health, insurance and travel sectors. She sits on the council for the Institute of Practitioners. A huge advocate of connecting at depth with customers and wider cultural forces is what makes her tick. Her paper ‘How to build a brand. LV= The power of Love.’ was published in Marketing Textbook, Marketing Communications, Fill and Fill. She has a deep understanding of the insurance, health and travel markets and believes strongly in the power of British creativity and talent.  Miriam spoke at the ICAN ‘Dive in Diversity’ event on behalf of Allianz and is also a mentor for the Creative Mentor Network. 

Adam Hill is the Executive Creative Director and Founder of Designate. He started the agency just over 30 years ago with £300 and a second-hand Mac. A huge advocate of brand and creativity, Adam looks at the world in a slightly different way, which can ignite creative that really cuts through. A shrewd businessperson and entrepreneur, he has owned the Good Food Guide best restaurant in Wales, an art gallery, and has his own radio show. Adam has travelled widely, is a judge on the Charted Institute of Marketing Travel Marketing Awards, and a mentor with the Creative Mentor Network. 

Jon qualified in medicine, anatomy and neurobiology from University College London, and undertook surgical training, gaining Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, alongside a Research Masters in Neuroscience and PhD in Neurosurgery. During this, and senior clinical posts in Neurosurgery, he developed an interest in traumatic and vascular brain damage, the secondary effects of injury, repair mechanisms, and latterly, the effects of the extreme environment on the human brain, including during aviation and space exploration. Jon currently works as the lead clinician for an International Aeromedical and Aerospace Company, and has undertaken over 400 international patient retrieval missions worldwide. He is a founder member of a Space Neuroscience research group with pioneering brain monitoring projects on high orbital and international space station missions, including Axiom-2, which successfully launched in May 2023, and the SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, in September 2024.

He is also a collaborator with Neural Tissue Engineering (NTEK), Biomaterials and Physiology groups at Keele University, investigating fundamental Neurosurgical problems such as CNS repair with neural stem cells and mechanisms of cerebral ischaemia and he teaches Clinical Neuroscience at the University of Nottingham Graduate Medical School.

David is responsible for Finaccord’s international research into travel insurance worldwide, international health insurance and other services related to global mobility. In addition to having authored numerous reports on these subjects, he has also been involved in a variety of related consulting assignments. Furthermore, having worked and studied in China for a number of years, he speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.

George is a seasoned risk management professional with deep expertise in conflict zones and crisis response. As the COO of Hotspot Cover, he oversees insurance operations in some of the world’s most volatile regions, combining his extensive background in security strategy and crisis management to deliver comprehensive protection and response advisory. His previous experience as a Senior Consultant and a decade of military service informs his strategic approach to safeguarding clients in high-risk environments.

Fraser is a Policy Advisor for the Association of British Insurers (ABI) leading on travel and motor insurance. He works on key travel insurance issues including access to travel insurance for those with pre-existing medical conditions.

Before joining the ABI, Fraser worked for a public affairs agency in London, engaging and building relationships with the government on behalf of organisations across industries such as financial services and energy production. This built on a background as a Parliamentary Researcher for an MP and multiple years of financial services’ consulting experience.

Andy has 20 years of FCDO experience, with postings to Malawi, Egypt, Vietnam and Japan, working on a range of portfolios. He has considerable consular and crisis experience, as well as working on political and trade issues. Andy was awarded an MBE in 2020 for service to British Nationals overseas.

In his current role, using a behaviour-change approach, he leads a global team that works alongside host governments and the travel and insurance industry to make travel safer for British people overseas.

Gary joined Healix in October 2015. He is a Business Development Director with over 20 years’ experience working in the world of global medical assistance and travel risk management. Before joining Healix, Gary spent 13 years working in both operations and leadership roles, managing an extensive range of medical assistance cases, including evacuations and repatriations from some of the most challenging countries and environments. During the last 10 years he has utilised his extensive operational experience to support many of Healix’s key insurance clients.

David describes himself as ‘bringing colour to insurance compliance’ with a pragmatic, proportionate approach to FCA regulation for insurance intermediaries. Having started his career as an underwriter with a composite insurer for eight years, he then spent the next 20 years as a broker, so he’s ‘done the day job’ of many of the firms he’s been helping with their burgeoning regulatory requirements for the last 12 years. David has a considerable number of travel insurance intermediaries as clients, and maintains that the products they distribute provide incredible value considering the range of cover provided for often surprisingly low premiums. He passionately believes that the travel insurance sector has a vital role to play in the world economy and in international development. As well as being a qualified Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute, owning a massive collection of Hawaiian shirts and being a father of six, David has a European award in ventriloquism and learned to speak Welsh during lockdown, two quirky pastimes that he hopes to combine to great effect one day.

With over 30 years in travel insurance, starting as a Lloyd’s broker, then in retail B2C with Columbus Direct and now at Collinson, I’ve enjoyed supporting ITIC over the years, and am hopefully not too stuck in my views and still open to new ideas and opportunities. I also chair the travel committee at the ABI, often working with the UK Ombudsman, the FCA and FCDO to promote our industry and improve customer outcomes.

Heading up Collinson’s £200m+ travel insurance product line, I have responsibility and oversight of all UK & European schemes where Collinson are delivering an insured solution to a client or direct to the consumer. I enjoy travelling, video gaming, golf, and socialising, mostly surrounded by a lovely and patient wife, two grown-up daughters yet to abandon us and a dog who can open doors!

James has been a consumer campaigner and financial journalist for over 20 years. Before launching Fairer Finance in 2014, he worked for the consumer group, Which?, where he campaigned for a better deal for customers of banks and insurers in the wake of the financial crisis.

James is frequently interviewed on national television and radio, and has regularly appeared on shows such as Watchdog, Rip-off Britain, Dispatches and Moneybox.

Before working at Which?, James spent 10 years as a business and finance newspaper journalist, latterly as The Independent’s personal finance editor and cycling columnist.

He is a member of UK Finance’s Consumer Advisory Group, and the Association of British Insurers’ Consumer Advisory Group. He is also a member of the Chartered Insurance Institute’s professional standards committee.

Sarah is Commercial Director at The Idol, who provide a travel-insurance price comparison service for many of the leading price comparison websites in the UK. With over two decades of experience working in the general and life insurance sectors, across manufacturer and distributor businesses, Sarah brings a wealth of experience and a broad perspective, combined with a passion for doing the right thing for customers. Her ultimate aim is being able to make sure customers have the cover they need, at the time they need it, and that they enjoy the buying experience.

Rowan is an NHS Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the Royal United Hospital Bath, where he has worked for the past 20 years. His medical training was at Cambridge University and Guys & St Thomas’s Hospitals, London. He initially worked in paediatrics before starting anaesthetic training in the South West, plus he had a year working in the Starship Children’s Hospital, Auckland.

In terms of aeromedical experience, Rowan worked with Wings in Bristol for many years. He spent a year undertaking paediatric critical care fixed-wing air retrievals in New Zealand, for the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) of the Starship Children’s Hospital. More recently he has worked for Capital in Exeter, carrying out critical care retrievals, before taking on the role of Medical Director when Capital moved to Centreline in Bristol in 2019.

Lynn is the CMO for Charles Taylor Assistance (CTA) having been with the company since 2015.

She manages the in-house medical department of 40 people providing full medical case management on behalf of CTA’s clients. She also manages the in-house flight bank of over 60 doctors, nurses, paramedics, and mental health practitioners who carry out their commercial repatriations.

Lynn’s extensive medical experience straddles a range of disciplines, from helicopter trauma medicine and trauma intensive care to general practice, global assistance, maritime medicine, and travel clinic management. Former roles include more than fifteen years as a senior ship’s doctor and several years running her own GP, occupational health, and travel clinic practice in South Africa.