To most, celebrating a 50-year anniversary is a milestone in and of itself but for Cowens Group CEO Paul Chaplin, it’s less a destination than another stepping-stone – the halfway point to a century in operation. That focus on the future that has been the driving force behind the evolution of the group which was founded in Mansfield by Slav Kuchta and Bob Cowen in 1973 and now boasts 70-plus employees across three sites.
It has been a journey replete with milestones, Chaplin said, including a shakeup of its management structure, the combining of its financial services and general businesses under the Cowens Group umbrella and its achievement of the 2022 Investors in People Gold Award. Last year saw the group further future-proof its structure with three senior managers promoted to the role of director – Mark Wilson, sales director, Karl Sutcliffe, broking director, and Declan Shaw, key partnership director.
But what does it take to build a business fit for the long haul, one with its eye ever fixed on the future? For Chaplin, the answer all comes down to culture.
“As hackneyed and cheesy as it might be, I think one of my favourite phrases is that ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’,” he said. “That is what I believe. And everything we do, every sinew of our body is about getting that culture right. It’s all about behaviours and attitude, and about putting the client first. The client is at the centre of everything we do and the whole team is focused on successful client outcomes, whatever those look like.”
However much the business progresses and evolves, he said, that client-centricity remains embedded in the very DNA of the group. For at the core of any great insurance offering is an understanding of the customer and what they need – and a commitment to delivering what’s right for them not for the broker, or the insurer, or any other stakeholder.
“That is our culture,” he said. “We take what we do very seriously, we take our clients’ insurance programmes very seriously to deliver the best outcomes for them. But we don’t take ourselves seriously.”
Karl Sutcliffe (pictured top right) highlighted that the group’s emphasis on culture-first found independent verification during a recent session with an external trainer from an insurance company. She said she’d never been to a brokerage where the staff seemed so happy, he said, which, from his perspective, was inextricably linked to the business’s commitment to developing local talent.
With about 85% of its staff hailing from a small radius around Mansfield, Cowens is every inch a local employer and was recently celebrated as being in the top-17 longest-standing businesses in the town.
“That blend of giving young people in our area opportunities for training and to be part of such a together team really works its way back to the clients,” Sutcliffe said. “I think we don’t lose clients because we treat them the way we treat each other, with respect, and with the willingness to go above and beyond.”
Mansfield is hardly the hotbed of the business world, noted Mark Wilson (pictured top centre) but what that has meant is that the business has had to take a “grow your own” approach to acquiring and retaining the best talent. Bringing people up alongside the business has allowed it to instil its core values and ethos into its people from the very beginning of their career journeys with Cowens, he said, and they get to feel they are really part of the business’s unfolding story.
Touching on the next pages of that story, Declan Shaw (pictured top left) said: “I’d love to be able to fast forward 10 years from now and see where the business is. We do have that mentality of asking, ‘are we 50 years into a 100-year plan or 50 years into a 200-year plan?’. We’re more excited about what the future has got in store for us rather than looking back and trying to reflect.
“We’re only getting warmed up. We’re on the sub-bench at the minute, ready to move on to the pitch and have a good time. It’s fun and we love it, so we’re excited about what the future has got to hold. We’re working with new partners and building new relationships all the time. We’re developing our technology, we’re developing the way that we transact with customers… We’re embracing change throughout the business to allow our people and customers to thrive.”
A lot of Cowens’ plans for the next stage of its strategic development will see the business leave behind the safety of its comfort zone, Sutcliffe said, and he’s excited about what that will mean for the future. It’s remarkable to see the rate at which the business is adapting to new technologies and communication channels, he said, especially as somebody who has been with the business for 20+ years.
“We’re all adapting, we’re all pushing each other,” he said, “and we’re evolving at an incredible pace. I’ve been here a long time and the rate at which we’re pushing forward is quadruple the speed we probably did in the previous 10 years. We’re growing from different angles but we’re all on the same wavelength. And we’re all bringing different qualities to the table but when we’re sat around that table together it all gels together because we share the same vision.”
It’s a great team to be part of, Wilson said, because that alignment shines through in everything the team does. Like his fellow directors, he’s looking forward to the future, and to welcoming new staff and continuing to develop the talent pool at Cowens’ disposal. The hard work and dedication of the team are reflected in the strong results the business has recorded in the last few years, but the work doesn’t stop there, and the focus now is on advancing that growth while maintaining the culture and beliefs enshrined in the makeup of the group.
“There’s a lot of businesses out there that have boards which are a bit disparate, but we are 100% together,” Chaplin said. “There are no ‘yes men’ at Cowens but we do all see the world in a very similar way and share a joined-up vision. We don’t agree on everything but we certainly agree on our overall strategy - that focus on clients, on wanting to go forward profitably, and on wanting to bring new team members on and train them in professional qualifications.
“We want to put the client at the centre of everything we do, to do what we do correctly as a Chartered insurance broker and to become a Platinum Investor in People. We all want that so all our goals are the same. And that’s why we are prospering because we don’t have anybody rowing their own boats.”
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