Richard Ward is used to a scrap. The 50-year-old chief executive of Lloyd’s of London dragged the International Petroleum Exchange into the electronic age during his six years running the oil market before joining the insurance world last April.
For most of that period, he faced resistance from famously aggressive oil brokers used to trading their orders in traditional open-outcry pit. Nevertheless, over a ten-year career at the IPE, during which he ran product development and research, Mr Ward won plaudits for his electronic initiatives. He also successfully refuted allegations that oil contracts were being systematically manipulated as a result of inherent contract flaws.
All of this did little to sate his appetite for a challenge. A former head of business development and marketing at BP, Mr Ward was expressly recruited by Lloyd’s of London with a brief to transform the 317-year-old market, a task that defeated several executives before him. He replaced the highly respected Nick Prettejohn, who was poached to run the UK operations of the insurer Prudential.
Mr Ward, who has a doctorate in physical chemistry and spent six years working at the Science and Engineering Council, put in place a three-year development plan at Lloyd’s intended to see off the competitive threat of low-tax insurance locations and gave members until the end of the year to turn the market electronic. His actions yesterday, after Lloyd’s users fell just short of a target to make 30 per cent of the market electronic, smacks of a man who will not tolerate failure.
Privately, Lloyd’s of London underwriting chiefs praise the married father of two’s ability to exert pressure. He appears to have marshalled the modernising forces at Lloyd’s, including the reform group known as G6 that features Beazley, Catlin, Kiln and Brit as members, alongside Hiscox and Amlin. They also praise his choice of Sue Langley, the former Hiscox chief operating officer, to be his new director of market operations and North America. Putting syndicates on notice over modern methods adds weight to Ms Langley’s brief, they say, and gives her clout to go after transgressors.