Introducing Paul O’Reilly — Covera’s new Chief Technical Officer
Any founder will tell you that it’s incredibly difficult to find the right CTO for your business. The ideal CTO needs to have proven technical skills across the entire programming stack, a strategic understanding of how the business you’re building fits into the big picture, a self-imposed discipline for continuous learning and the ability to mentor and lead a technical team. He or she also needs to be someone who you’re comfortable spending a ton of time working with, because that’s the reality of launching a business. I’ve summarized these criteria in a helpful Venn Diagram below.
So Paul, tell us more about your role at Covera.
Paul: My role is Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer. As a Co-founder of Covera, I am involved in defining the strategic direction of Covera. This covers all aspects of the business as we build momentum to our full launch and scale operations. As CTO, I am responsible for ensuring that our technical roadmap will support the business objectives of Covera, namely enabling Covera to become the first AI driven fully Digital Insurance Brokerage in Canada. This encompasses defining the technology stack that the platform is built on, ensuring that the platform architecture is secure and scalable, and developing user interfaces that connect with people in ways that existing competitors do not.
Tell us a bit about yourself!
Paul: I am originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland and moved to Canada in 2009. I have a Bachelors of Engineering degree in Computer Science from Queen’s University of Belfast and have been in InsurTech almost all of my professional career, working for Insurance Carriers (Liberty Mutual, Sun Life Financial) and software vendors (Applied Systems, Insurity/Oceanwide) in the space in both Europe and North America. When it comes to the technology side of the business, i’ve basically seen all sides of the industry over the years.
Why are you passionate about InsurTech and digital insurance?
Paul: A little realized fact is that insurance is the industry upon which economies are built. Individuals could not afford to own houses or cars if the investment we made were not protected, businesses would not be able to operate if they were not protected against liabilities. A key factor in economic growth is the ability of individuals and organizations to obtain the right insurance coverage for their needs.
The industry as a whole is on the verge of a generational renaissance resulting from decades of under investment in technology. The industry is primed for the right offering to create positive disruption for both clients, through better servicing, and for insurance carriers, through gaining access to more and better clients. Covera is a business that is going to be right in the middle of it.
About the Author: Scott Loong is a reformed corporate lawyer and founder of Covera.co, a digital insurance brokerage that takes insurance renewals off of your to do list, forever. Support us by signing up to our waitlist.
To keep up to date on our progress visit us at www.covera.ai and signup for our waitlist.
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