Ian Mclean

CTO at Pollinate

After graduating with a degree in Computer Science and Electronics Ian had his start in technology over 20 years ago, joining a small start-up business working on a CRM product as a software engineer. Following a couple of years there he moved to London and spent the next 10 years of his career in various hands-on technical roles at HSBC and Fidelity Investments, including software engineering, data engineering and architecture before moving into Technology leadership roles.

Having spent a couple of years as a Programme Director for Fidelity he moved into the world of Insurance as Group Head of Technology for Sterling Insurance and was founder and CTO of a fintech business created by the Insurance Company. Following the purchase of Sterling Insurance by Covea Insurance Ian took on a head of Protection Technology role, which also included responsibility for operational teams and finance, before moving to the Group Technology Director role.

Ian then spent two years at a recently acquired venture capitalist backed FinTech/DataTech company as CTO, rearchitecting the product suite for global scalability, expanding from the UK across North America.

Ian has spent the last 3.5 years as Chief Product and Technology Officer on the board of a global InsureTech business, moving the business from a 90% contractor based functional technology team to 80% permanent employee cross-functional delivery teams, transforming from a reactive project driven model to a roadmap led product company with empowered product teams. During that time he has also grown the product suite from 2 managed service products to 5 SaaS products, scaling into Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand and North America. Ian has experience working with both AWS and Azure, and has worked in highly regulated environments requiring ISO and SOC certification.

Originally from the North West of England, Ian now lives with his partner Maxine and their two children Harry and George in Hythe on the South Coast of England. He enjoys running and playing football, and has a couple of old VWs to tinker with. He is a scrum.org certified Product Owner and Scrum Master and is currently studying for a Master’s degree in Data Science, Technology and Innovation from Edinburgh University.

Links

Previous companies

Fidelity International logo
Validis logo
UnderwriteMe logo

Timeline

  • CTO

    October, 2022 - present

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