Scouting for Growth

Bárbara Fernández: Human-Agent Collaboration, Agentic AI, and the Rise of the Human Boss

The future of work will not be won by humans who move faster. It will be shaped by humans who know how to orchestrate intelligence.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Bárbara Fernández, Deputy Director of MAPFRE Open Innovation and Head of insur_space, to explore one of the defining leadership questions of the agentic AI era: what happens when humans stop doing every task and start directing systems of intelligence instead?

As AI assistants evolve into autonomous collaborators, work is no longer simply about increasing productivity. It is about preserving judgment, accountability, and human agency while learning how to collaborate with increasingly capable machines.

Together, Sabine and Bárbara examine where the line sits between augmentation and abdication, why convenience can quietly erode critical thinking, and how organizations must rethink trust, behavioral design and customer interaction as AI becomes embedded into everyday decision-making. They also explore what insurance looks like when protection becomes predictive, contextual, and continuously present.

This conversation is essential listening for insurers, transformation leaders, AI strategists and executives preparing their organizations for the next era of human-agent collaboration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

One of the most important lessons from this conversation is that the future of work is not about competing with AI but learning how to direct it responsibly. As intelligent agents become increasingly capable of reasoning, coordinating, and executing tasks, our value shifts from producing outputs ourselves to asking better questions, challenging assumptions, and exercising sound judgment. Critical thinking is becoming one of the most valuable leadership capabilities we can develop.

Bárbara also reminded me that the greatest risk is not artificial intelligence itself but our willingness to stop questioning it. Humans naturally gravitate towards convenience, and AI makes it remarkably easy to accept recommendations without scrutiny. If we allow productivity to replace thoughtful decision-making, we risk automating poor judgment rather than improving it. Human oversight must remain an active discipline, not a passive checkpoint.

Our discussion also highlighted how customer interaction will fundamentally change as AI agents begin acting on behalf of individuals. Behavioral science, user experience, and trust must evolve beyond designing for human interfaces alone. Organizations will increasingly need to design services that are understandable to both humans and intelligent agents while maintaining transparency and accountability throughout every interaction.

Ultimately, this conversation reinforced that technology will not replace what makes us uniquely human. As intelligence becomes abundant and inexpensive, empathy, emotional understanding, curiosity, and ethical judgment become even more valuable. The leaders who thrive will be those who know when to rely on AI—and when human presence is irreplaceable.

BEST MOMENTS

"We need to really stop and think and evaluate what the machine is saying to us." – Bárbara Fernández 

"We need to train critical thinking." – Bárbara Fernández 

"If something is making your day easier—I don't know if it's better—but at least easier, you will adopt that." – Bárbara Fernández

"The danger is not bad AI. The danger is passive humans." – Sabine VanderLinden 

"We need to open our minds, be curious and play with it." – Bárbara Fernández 

"You need to keep learning... because if you don't understand what's behind it, you can't challenge assumptions." – Bárbara Fernández 

"You cannot design trust. You have to demonstrate it." – Bárbara Fernández 

"Trust is something very fragile. It takes a lot of time to build and one second to lose." – Bárbara Fernández 

"If we are predictive, we act before. It means insurance becomes a prevention service." – Bárbara Fernández 

"When intelligence becomes abundant, presence becomes premium." – Sabine VanderLinden 

"We really need to find the proper questions and ask difficult questions." – Bárbara Fernández 

"Machines can simulate emotions, but they don't have feelings—and that's something uniquely human." – Bárbara Fernández 

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Bárbara Fernández is Deputy Director of MAPFRE Open Innovation and Head of insur_space, MAPFRE’s insurtech accelerator. She works at the intersection of strategy, innovation, behavioral science, and emerging technology, helping MAPFRE explore how new interaction models, AI assistants, and intelligent agents will reshape business, customer experience, and organizational design.  

Her work focuses on how companies adapt to structural shifts in artificial intelligence, human-machine collaboration, decision-making systems, and the future of interaction. Through strategic foresight and behavioral science, Bárbara helps leaders understand not only how technology evolves, but how humans adopt, trust, challenge, and collaborate with it.

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Carlos Falcón: Rebuilding the Insurance Core for AI, Venture Scouting and the Frontier Firm

Insurance does not have an innovation shortage. It has an absorption problem.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Carlos Cendra Falcón, Scouting and Investment Lead at MAPFRE Open Innovation, to explore one of the most pressing questions facing insurers today: can the core of the institution actually absorb the intelligence, ventures, platforms and partnerships being scouted around the world?

Carlos brings a pragmatic perspective from inside one of the world's leading insurance groups. Having helped evaluate more than 2,500 startups and accelerate around forty into enterprise integration, he understands that innovation is not about finding exciting technology—it's about identifying capabilities that solve meaningful business problems and can be embedded into a complex global insurer.

As AI reshapes discovery, distribution, underwriting, and customer interaction, insurers face a deeper transformation than digitalization alone can provide. Hybrid distribution models, machine-to-machine commerce, embedded insurance, and intelligent agents are changing how insurance is bought, sold, and delivered. Success will depend less on adding new technologies and more on rebuilding the organizational foundations that allow innovation to scale.

This conversation is essential listening for CEOs, COOs, Chief Innovation Officers, venture leaders, product executives and insurance decision-makers navigating the shift from digital experimentation to AI-enabled enterprise transformation.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Innovation is no longer the constraint facing insurance. The real challenge is whether our organizations are capable of absorbing innovation in a way that creates lasting value. Carlos reminded me that partnerships alone cannot transform an insurer if the underlying organization lacks the architecture, governance, and operating model needed to integrate them. Before looking outward for the next breakthrough, leaders need to strengthen the institutional core that will allow innovation to scale.

I was particularly struck by Carlos' reframing of venture scouting. Rather than acting as a matchmaking exercise between startups and business units, scouting should become a strategic intelligence capability. Its purpose is to detect meaningful market signals, understand emerging technologies, and identify solutions that directly address strategic priorities. The question is never whether a startup is impressive; it is whether it is genuinely useful to the institution and capable of improving the business in measurable ways.

Our discussion also reinforced how AI is fundamentally changing the insurance value chain. As customers increasingly rely on AI assistants and autonomous agents to search for, compare, and purchase products, insurers must prepare for a world in which machines—not people—interact with their systems. Discoverability, machine-readable products, and seamless digital connectivity will become as important as customer experience itself.

Ultimately, Carlos challenged us to think beyond digitization. The frontier insurer will not simply modernize existing processes—it will redesign itself around risk intelligence, ecosystem collaboration and adaptive execution, while remaining anchored to insurance's enduring purpose: helping people navigate the risks that shape their lives.

 

BEST MOMENTS

"You cannot partner your way out of a weak core." – Sabine VanderLinden (00:01:10)

"Some initiatives are truly transformational, and some are simply a consequence of FOMO. You want to stay close to what's happening without necessarily bringing it into the business." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:03:32)

"Sometimes the best-in-class solution isn't the best fit for your organization." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:15:23)

"Scouting is not provider matchmaking. It's a strategic approach to solving business problems." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:17:08)

"You need to tackle one of the lines in your P&L or your balance sheet. Otherwise, you're just there to look nice in the picture." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:16:28)

"Machines don't care how pretty your website is." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:20:50)

"You need to have the information available, well structured, and you need to be able to talk to the machine." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:21:00)

"The question is never whether a startup is interesting. It is whether it is institutionally useful." – Sabine VanderLinden (00:24:42)

"We are here to help people navigate the risks they're facing in their lives, with their property, their health and their way of life." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:22:18)

"First understand what an insurance company should look like in 2035, then design the roadmap that gets you there." – Carlos Cendra Falcón (00:23:32)

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Carlos Cendra Falcón is Scouting and Investment Lead at MAPFRE Open Innovation, where he works at the intersection of insurance transformation, venture ecosystems, and corporate strategy. His role focuses on identifying the startups, technologies, and ecosystem partners that can help MAPFRE respond to new risks, new business models, operational challenges, and changing customer behaviors.

Carlos’s work is grounded in the practical realities of transforming a large, global insurer. He focuses on detecting early signals across AI, embedded insurance, human–machine interaction, real-time risk intelligence, and preventative insurance, translating market signals into strategic partnerships and investment opportunities that help incumbents move beyond experimentation.

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Reggie Townsend: Making Responsible AI Irresistible

Responsible AI has a design problem. Too often, it is treated as a compliance exercise, a policy document, or a late-stage control, when it should be the operating system that enables organizations to innovate with confidence.

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden welcomes back Reggie Townsend, Vice President of AI Ethics, Governance and Social Impact at SAS, to explore one compelling idea: making responsible AI irresistible. Drawing on decades of experience helping enterprises embed trustworthy AI into their operations, Reggie explains why governance must evolve from abstract principles to practical systems people actually use.

As organizations race to deploy generative and agentic AI, the conversation has shifted. Responsible AI is no longer just about avoiding harm—it is about creating the conditions for innovation, resilience, and long-term competitive advantage. Boards are asking tougher questions. Regulators are raising expectations. Employees increasingly need guidance they can apply in real-world decisions, not just policies they acknowledge once a year.

This conversation is essential listening for CEOs, board directors, Chief Risk Officers, compliance leaders, AI product teams, and founders navigating the transition from responsible AI intentions to responsible AI execution.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

One of the biggest insights I took from this conversation is that responsible AI is fundamentally a design challenge. We have spent years writing principles and policies, yet many organizations still struggle to translate those aspirations into everyday decisions. Reggie reminded me that if governance feels complicated, disconnected, or burdensome, people will naturally work around it. Our challenge as leaders is to make responsible behavior the easiest path rather than the hardest one.

I was also struck by how governance is becoming inseparable from business strategy. As generative and agentic AI systems begin making increasingly autonomous decisions, governance can no longer be treated as a legal or compliance function operating at the edge of the organization. It has to become part of product design, procurement, operations, and executive decision-making. Trust is no longer something we communicate after deployment; it is something we engineer from the beginning.

Another important theme was the preservation of human agency. While AI can dramatically enhance productivity and decision-making, Reggie reminds us that organizations must remain intentional about where humans stay accountable. The future is unlikely to be defined by replacing people with AI, but by designing systems where humans and intelligent machines complement one another in transparent and meaningful ways.

However, perhaps my greatest takeaway is that responsible AI should become a competitive advantage rather than a regulatory obligation. Organizations that embed governance in their innovation will move with greater confidence because customers, regulators, employees, and investors will increasingly reward trust.

Making responsible AI irresistible is ultimately about making good governance so practical, intuitive and valuable that people actively choose to adopt it—and that may prove to be one of the most important leadership capabilities of the next decade.

 

BEST MOMENTS

"Responsible AI isn't about slowing innovation. It's about creating the confidence to innovate at scale." – Reggie Townsend

"If responsible AI feels like extra work, we've designed it wrong. We have to make it irresistible." – Reggie Townsend

"Governance shouldn't be something you visit once a year. It should be embedded into every decision, every workflow, and every system we build." – Reggie Townsend

"The question isn't whether AI will make decisions. It's whether we've designed those decisions to preserve human agency." – Reggie Townsend

"Trust isn't something you add after deployment. It's something you architect from the very beginning." – Reggie Townsend

"We're moving from governing models to governing systems of intelligence—and that's an entirely different challenge." – Reggie Townsend

"The organizations that thrive won't be the ones that adopt AI the fastest. They'll be the ones that build trust the fastest." – Reggie Townsend

"Responsible AI is no longer just an ethics conversation. It's becoming a leadership conversation, an operational conversation, and ultimately a competitive advantage." – Sabine VanderLinden

"As AI becomes more autonomous, our responsibility as leaders becomes even more intentional." – Sabine VanderLinden

"The future belongs to organizations that can turn responsible AI from a policy into a practice." – Sabine VanderLinden

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Reggie Townsend is Vice President of AI Ethics, Governance and Social Impact at SAS, where he leads SAS’ global AI Ethics, Governance and Social Impact organization. His remit includes the company’s Data & AI Ethics Practice, AI & Society initiatives, AI Governance Advisory, Standards, Regulations & Risk Intelligence programs, and Accessible & Adaptive AI efforts. He drives SAS’ work on trustworthy, human-centric innovation across products, policies, and partnerships. 

Reggie is recognized as one of the clearest voices in responsible and trustworthy AI. He has served as a member of the White House National AI Advisory Committee, sits on the board of EqualAI, and works at the intersection of responsible innovation, enterprise governance, social impact, and emerging AI regulation. In this conversation, he explores how organizations can turn AI governance from a source of friction into a driver of adoption, accountability, and growth. 

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Dale Diamond: When a $25K Claim Becomes a $7M Verdict or More

A small claim is no longer a small claim. It can be the first signal of a verdict that changes everything.

Dale Diamond, J.D., Vice President of Claims at NAMICO, joins Sabine VanderLinden to unpack one of the most urgent realities facing mutual insurers today: nuclear verdicts are not random events. They are often predictable. And if they are predictable, they can be prevented.

With more than 30 years of experience across appellate law, bad-faith defense, complex professional liability claims, underwriting, and claims leadership, Dale brings a rare three-dimensional view of what is changing within US insurance. He has seen the courtroom. He has seen the underwriting file. He has seen the claim review where one missed signal can turn a $25,000 auto liability claim into a $7 million jury verdict. 

The uncomfortable truth? The old claims playbook was built for a world that no longer exists.

This conversation is for mutual insurance CEOs, claims leaders, underwriters, reinsurers, and transformation executives navigating social inflation, plaintiff sophistication, AI-enabled litigation, climate volatility, and the new protection gap.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

One of my biggest takeaways from this conversation is that claims are no longer simply an operational function; they have become one of the most important strategic differentiators in insurance. Dale made it clear that the difference between a well-managed claim and a nuclear verdict often comes down to the decisions made in the first few months. Early collaboration, honest assessment, and having the courage to settle the right cases before positions harden can dramatically change outcomes.

I was also fascinated by how artificial intelligence is reshaping both sides of litigation. While insurers are embracing AI to analyze documents, accelerate investigations, and support claims professionals, plaintiff firms are using the same technologies to generate stronger complaints, organize evidence faster, and pursue increasingly sophisticated litigation strategies. AI isn't creating the problem—it is accelerating it for everyone.

Another insight that stayed with me is the importance of trust. Whether we are talking about policyholders, mutual insurers, or regulators, insurance remains a promise business. Technology should never replace empathy or transparency. Instead, it should free experienced claims professionals to focus on judgment, negotiation, and building stronger customer relationships.

Finally, Dale reinforced something I believe will define the future of insurance leadership: the best organizations won't simply automate existing processes. They'll redesign work around people. As routine activities become increasingly automated, the most valuable professionals will be those who combine technical expertise with communication skills, strategic thinking, and emotional intelligence. That combination will become one of the industry's greatest competitive advantages.

 

BEST MOMENTS

"Insurance wasn't my first career choice… I always thought I'd be much more useful before all the problems happened, to prevent them rather than defend them afterwards." – Dale Diamond

"All the departments have to work together. If one gear breaks, the whole machine stops working." – Dale Diamond

"You don't just want to sell all the business you can—you want to make sure it's profitable business." – Dale Diamond

"Claims today are about much more than processing files. They're about protecting the customer, protecting the insurer, and making strategic decisions early." – Sabine VanderLinden

"The most dangerous cases are the ones with clear liability but disputed damages." – Dale Diamond

"Insurance is selling a promise." – Dale Diamond

"Technology should augment human judgment—not replace it." – Sabine VanderLinden

"As AI takes away the routine work, claims professionals will spend more time making decisions, building relationships and analysing complex situations." – Dale Diamond

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Dale Diamond, J.D., is Vice President of Claims at NAMICO, the insurance arm of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies. With more than three decades of experience across appellate law, insurance coverage, bad-faith defense, professional liability, EPLI and D&O underwriting, and complex claims leadership, Dale brings a deeply cross-functional perspective to the challenges facing mutual insurers.

His work focuses on helping NAMIC members navigate nuclear verdicts, social inflation, bad-faith exposure, litigation funding, claims modernization, and the operational realities of defending mutual carriers in a more volatile claims environment. In this conversation, Dale helps decode the new survival playbook for mutual insurers in 2026: earlier intervention, better data, stronger talent, verified property intelligence, and sharper leadership discipline.

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

Willem Paling: From Messy Middles to Autonomous Agents and the Race for Trust at Scale

While the insurance sector has long flirted with artificial intelligence, a vast majority of firms find themselves paralyzed in perpetual pilot phases. In this installment of Scouting for Growth, I sit down with Willem Paling, Executive Manager of AI and Analytics at IAG, to decode the transition from mere experimentation to the realization of operational AI at scale.

Reflecting on IAG’s aggressive deployment—launching more models in the past year than in the previous six years combined—Willem highlights that success in insurance will be anchored in trust architecture and governance rather than in model complexity alone. We unpack the friction of deploying in a regulated environment, moving beyond the "messy middle" of claims workflows toward a future of autonomous agents that enhance decision-making while ensuring human accountability remains paramount.

Our dialogue ventures into the frontiers of agentic commerce, machine-readable products, and the looming challenges of AI-driven fraud. As we look toward 2030, the vision of an AI-native insurer emerges, revealing why the winners will be those who weaponize their data foundations and human-AI collaboration today to dominate the industry's next era.

 

Key Takeaways

What stood out to me most from my conversation with Willem is that the AI race in insurance is no longer about access to models. Frontier models are becoming increasingly available to everyone. The real differentiator is the ability to operationalize AI safely, consistently, and at scale. Trust architecture, governance, monitoring, explainability, and human oversight are becoming strategic assets rather than compliance requirements.

I was particularly struck by Willem’s observation that the industry must stop treating AI as a series of experiments and start treating it as a core operating capability. The organizations creating value today are those that have embedded AI into business workflows, assigned clear ownership, and built repeatable deployment mechanisms that move beyond proof-of-concept thinking.

Another important lesson is that the greatest near-term value lies in the “messy middle” of insurance operations. By automating document-heavy, repetitive, and semi-structured tasks, AI can free highly skilled professionals to focus on judgment, customer relationships, negotiation, and exception handling—the areas where human expertise remains essential.

Our discussion also reinforced how dramatically the distribution of products may change as AI agents increasingly influence product discovery and purchasing decisions. Insurers must prepare for a world in which products must be machine-readable, API-enabled, and easily consumable by AI systems, not just by human buyers.

Finally, Willem highlighted an often-overlooked challenge: AI is not only helping insurers but also empowering bad actors. AI-generated fraud, synthetic identities, deepfakes, and manipulated evidence will require stronger trust mechanisms, verification systems, and provenance controls. The insurers that thrive by 2030 will be those that invest today in trustworthy AI foundations while redesigning their organizations around human-AI collaboration.

 

Best Moments

“This is what the messy middle actually looks like. Not the hype, not the holdouts—the insurer that stopped experimenting and started shipping.” – Sabine VanderLinden

“We stopped doing experiments, and we focused on delivery.” – Willem Paling

“The frontier is no longer just model capability. It’s whether you can industrialize AI with trust.” – Willem Paling

“Trust architecture isn’t separate from value creation. Trust is what turns AI from an impressive model into something that improves insurance at scale.” – Willem Paling

“We’re talking about expert judgment, decision-making, critical thinking, and empathy.” – Sabine VanderLinden

“The goal is not to preserve every task in the old role. It’s to preserve and elevate the expertise inside the role.” – Willem Paling

“The most underestimated risk is AI on the other side—AI attacking the evidence layer of insurance.” – Willem Paling

“The winning insurer in 2030 will be AI-native in how it operates, not just AI-enabled in a few functions.” – Willem Paling

“The companies who win the agentic frontier aren’t the ones with the biggest models. They are the ones who earn autonomy instead of declaring it.” – Sabine VanderLinden

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Willem Paling is the Executive Manager of AI and Analytics at IAG, Insurance Australia Group, Australia’s largest general insurer, operating brands including NRMA Insurance, CGU, WFI, and Swann Insurance. He leads the strategy and industrialization of AI across the organization, including production-grade systems in claims, underwriting, customer service, responsible AI governance, and human-AI teaming. 

His work focuses on moving AI from experimentation into trusted execution. Willem has helped shape IAG’s responsible AI commitments, supported the Australian Responsible AI Index, and contributed to the AI 2030 Horizons perspective following the ITC 2025 executive summit. His mission connects frontier capability with the governance, explainability, and operating discipline required to deploy AI safely in an industry built on customer promises.

Read the latest report: The State of AI in Insurance

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures