John Neal's legacy: A cultural shift?

By Rebecca Delaney

May 28 - (The Insurer) - In the third edition of our reflective series on John Neal’s tenure as Lloyd’s CEO, we consider his attempts to turn foundational commitments on diversity and representation into full cultural reform within the more than 330-year-old market.

Neal’s early months at the helm of the Corporation were rocked by the now-infamous Bloomberg Businessweek report in March 2019 detailing the brutally candid experiences of women in the Lloyd’s market.

The series of 18 anonymous interviews alleged a “deep-seated culture of sexual harassment,” with the steely edifice of One Lime Street giving way to the “meat market” of the Underwriting Room in which female employees were largely reduced to “cannon fodder”.

Other inappropriate behaviour cited in the article included bullying, discrimination and excessive consumption of alcohol in both professional and social settings.

In response, Neal commissioned the market’s inaugural culture survey to gain more comprehensive insights into the extent of misconduct. The results were stark, with 22% of respondents describing their firm as turning a blind eye to inappropriate conduct.

Only 45% said they felt comfortable raising a concern in the Lloyd’s market, with just 41% of those that did raise a concern feeling that it was taken seriously.

Neal himself told The Insurer in September 2019 that the results were “pretty ugly,” with swift promises of a zero-tolerance approach to non-financial misconduct.

This new hardline approach included lifetime bans for perpetrators of sexual harassment, temporary suspensions from the Underwriting Room, the launch of a harassment and bullying helpline and the formation of sustainability committee.

It also included a policy to ban people under the influence of alcohol or illegal drugs from entering the Lloyd’s building, a stauncher version of Neal’s predecessor Inga Beale’s ban on daytime drinking for Corporation employees.

It is important to note the prior efforts of Beale to elevate Lloyd’s culture, as the market’s first and currently sole female CEO to date, who assumed the role just 40 years after Liliana Archibald became the first women permitted to conduct business in the Underwriting Room as the market’s first female broker and female name in 1973.

Beale’s endeavours included the creation of Dive In Festival, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. With a strong focus on diversity and representation, she sought to bring senior leaders on board by making public commitments to increasing DEI within their respective firms.

However, the needle was moved tentatively, or even begrudgingly, with Beale facing both professional and personal challenges over her efforts.

It was not until her male successor promised a line of zero-tolerance that market firms sat up and began disclosing more comprehensive data to track progress across the market.

This included the new culture survey, with the most recent survey in July 2024 indicating a continued reduction in instances of inappropriate behaviour across the market over the prior two years (the now-biennial culture survey was not conducted in 2023).

Around 86% of respondents said they had not observed inappropriate behaviour within their respective firms, which increased to 91% for the Lloyd’s market.

However, the most recent culture survey also highlighted a decline in cultural leadership. Eighty percent of the respondents said they believe that their leaders are role models for their organisational values: strong, but an 8 point decline from 2022.

The Corporation suggested that the high figure in the previous survey was driven by high sentiment around supportive leadership coming out of the pandemic. But, as noted by The Insurer at the time, the 2021 and 2022 culture survey figures on witnessing instances of bullying and discrimination were likely distorted by a higher proportion of employees working from home.

Neal’s crackdown also saw the introduction of the “market practices and policies” return to track statistics on the representation of female and non-white employees across the market.

The most recent return in March 2025 recorded a 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of women in leadership roles (board, executive committee, direct report to executive committee) across the market to 36% in 2024, having hit the interim 35% target in 2023.

However, the proportion of women in underwriting leadership roles continues to lag at 18%, Lloyd’s Market Association CEO Sheila Cameron told The Insurer TV in March.

The latest market practices and policies return also revealed that 22% of new hires in 2024 came from an ethnically diverse background. This marked a miss on Lloyd’s one-in-three hiring ambition, which was set in 2020 as part of several commitments made following the Corporation’s formal acknowledgement and apology for its historic links to slavery.

Representation of ethnic diversity across the market workforce (14%) continues to be a trailing area, with a particular disparity between entry-level and leadership roles; while 29% of graduates and apprentices hired last year were from an ethnically diverse background, the proportion of leadership positions stands at just 12%.

The final pillar of Neal’s cultural crusade lay in improving reporting and investigation mechanisms.

To this end, Lloyd’s closed a market consultation earlier this year on proposals to clarify Lloyd’s investigatory powers following markedly different approaches in two high-profile public investigations into non-financial misconduct at Atrium and CFC.

Atrium was hit with a record 1 million pound fine and an exposé of a “boys' night out” culture, with former Atrium underwriter Richard Tomlin also charged by a Lloyd's Enforcement Tribunal before successfully appealing the allegations against him.

In contrast, CFC Underwriting was later allowed to discreetly change its senior management without any major revelations of its own cultural shortcomings.

The recent consultation recognised that existing processes can be “unclear and may cut across firms’ own intervention processes”, with a need for greater certainty around potential outcomes.

The revised framework includes a list of unacceptable behaviour, including harassment, bullying, discrimination and conducting Lloyd’s business when “under the influence of alcohol where it leads to unprofessional behaviour”: a remarkably similar checklist to the types of behaviour cited in the Bloomberg interviews.

GRAPHIC: SPEAKING UP

While the 2019 baseline for improvement may be damningly low (“one does not applaud a fish for swimming”) the market appears to be in better cultural health less than seven years later. Although there is undoubtedly continued progress to be made, particularly around women in underwriting roles and non-white representation across the market.

In John Neal’s last week as CEO of Lloyd’s, The Insurer is reflecting on how the Lloyd’s market has changed between his appointment and departure, and his role in shaping it. Read our previous pieces on underwriting performance and growth, and stay tuned for our take on progress on Lloyd’s modernisation tomorrow.