In this episode of Beyond the Desk, Mark Thomas is joined by Usha Badrinath, Group Chief Data Officer at Mosaic Insurance, to explore her unconventional career journey, the rapidly changing role of technology in insurance, and what AI could mean for the industry over the coming years.

Usha’s career has taken her from computer science and coding in India, through an MBA and technology consulting, to catastrophe modelling, data products, insurtech and ultimately insurance leadership. Along the way, she has repeatedly followed opportunities rather than a fixed career plan — describing her approach as more about trying things, learning from them and deciding what to do next.

The conversation then turns to one of the biggest questions facing insurance today: how should the industry actually use AI?

Usha shares her experience building Mosaic’s data foundations and explains why she believes the real opportunity isn't simply putting AI on top of existing processes. Instead, insurers need to think about how data, technology and workflows can be redesigned together to solve problems from end to end.

They discuss:

• Usha’s unexpected journey from aspiring liver transplant surgeon to technology and insurance leader
• Why her career has been shaped more by experimentation than a fixed plan
• Moving from coding into business, consulting and leadership
• The lessons she learned from working across technology and insurance
• How the “floating casinos” problem highlighted the importance of data in catastrophe modelling
• Why insurance companies can struggle to build technology that scales across different clients and workflows
• Usha’s decision to move from consulting into an insurance company and join Mosaic
• Building a data foundation designed to support AI from the outset
• Why Usha believes insurers should focus on the 20% that AI cannot solve
• How AI can help capture and make use of institutional knowledge that currently sits inside people's heads
• Why AI should augment human judgement rather than simply be viewed as a tool for reducing headcount
• The importance of reskilling as technology continues to evolve
• How AI could help insurers identify patterns, correlations and emerging risks
• Why future technology leaders need to understand business outcomes, not just technology
• Usha’s approach to leadership and building teams through difficult periods of change
• Why she thinks people should push themselves outside their comfort zone early in their careers
• Her advice to aspiring Chief Data Officers and AI leaders
• Why careers don't need to follow a traditional upward trajectory
• And why Usha believes the constant evolution of insurance is one of the industry's greatest attractions

A wide-ranging conversation about technology, data, AI, leadership, careers and the future of insurance.