Neal confirms tech completed for Blueprint Two phase one as he exits Lloyd's CEO role

By Henry Gale

May 30 - (The Insurer) - John Neal signed off from his tenure as Lloyd's CEO by confirming the core technology build of Blueprint Two had been completed in a LinkedIn post on Friday.

Neal thanked colleagues, friends and market peers for their "collaboration, commitment and camaraderie" as Lloyd's navigated challenges such as turning around the market's financial performance, embracing digitalisation and improving its culture.

"I'm pleased to say that the core build of Blueprint Two is, as of yesterday, complete," he added.

On Thursday, Lloyd's issued a Blueprint Two newsletter saying Velonetic had successfully concluded the core build of the digital processing services required for phase one of the technology project. The build consists of 12 cloud-based applications, which Velonetic CEO Bob James had predicted would be completed by the end of May when he spoke to The Insurer last month.

"With the technology build now complete, we'll be turning our focus to robustly testing the platform," the newsletter said.

Modernising the over 300-year-old market was one of Neal's flagship initiatives as Lloyd's CEO. Months after he started the role, Lloyd's issued a prospectus for the future at Lloyd's, which included drastic changes to the market's use of technology, a new capital platform and the syndicate-in-a-box concept. The technology upgrades were later refined in Blueprint Two.

Neal described being Lloyd's CEO as a "rare privilege and honour" in his LinkedIn post. He said he had no doubt that chair Sir Charles Roxburgh and incoming CEO Patrick Tiernan would "be incredibly successful in leading our market into the future".

Chief of markets Patrick Tiernan is set to step into the CEO role on June 1. Neal is joining Aon as CEO of global reinsurance and global chair of climate solutions on September 1.