Chairing a Planning Meeting for a Regulated Business

Case Study: Chairing a Planning Meeting for a Regulated Insurance Business

Client Overview
A regulated insurance business with a turnover of £5 million was embarking on a significant management information (MI) improvement initiative. This initiative was seen as a strategic lever to carve out a competitive advantage in the market. The firm managed complex reporting requirements, including submissions of bordereaux to insurers, customer service updates, finance reports, Consumer Duty compliance, direct-to-consumer sales, field sales, and HR information. Each of these areas was critical to ensuring both regulatory compliance and operational efficiency.

The Challenge
The company held an annual planning meeting, which in previous years had been run as a roundtable discussion. However, with MI improvements now a strategic priority, the CEO sought to upgrade the format of the meeting without completely overhauling it. The CEO wanted to ensure the meeting fostered meaningful participation and resulted in actionable outcomes while retaining the informal, collaborative style that had worked in previous years. Given the importance of MI to the company’s future, the CEO also wanted to secure alignment across all departments to ensure smooth coordination of reporting and data flows.

Our Approach
Rather than implementing a highly structured, facilitated session, we decided on a hybrid approach. We agreed with the CEO to maintain the roundtable discussion format from previous years, but with one key adjustment—having an experienced team member actively chair the meeting to guide the discussion and keep it focused on the key objectives.

The role of the chair was not to dominate or over-structure the session but to ensure the conversation stayed on track and that every department had the opportunity to share their plans, concerns, and ideas for MI improvements. This “light-touch” facilitation allowed the meeting to retain its informal atmosphere while also driving it towards concrete outcomes.

Meeting Execution
The meeting included participants from all key functions:

• Customer Services
• Finance
• Compliance and Consumer Duty
• Direct-to-Consumer Sales
• Field Sales
• HR

The chair provided a brief opening, reminding attendees of the strategic importance of improving MI and encouraging them to focus on practical steps to enhance reporting flows. Each department was given time to present its challenges and planned contributions to the MI initiative. The chair actively managed the discussion to avoid any one area monopolising the conversation, ensuring everyone’s voice was heard.

We also introduced short breakout discussions for departments with interdependent reporting flows, allowing them to work together on solutions that would ease cross-departmental data sharing and MI coordination. These breakouts proved to be especially productive, as they surfaced practical solutions for improving data hand-offs between departments.

Outcomes
The approach was highly successful, achieving the CEO’s objectives without disrupting the collaborative spirit of the annual meeting. Specific outcomes included:

• Increased Participation: The informal, roundtable style combined with active chairing encouraged contributions from all participants. This led to new ideas on how to improve the flow of MI between departments.
• Alignment on MI Strategy: The company was able to secure alignment from all departments on the importance of the MI initiative. Each department committed to specific improvements, and there was clear ownership over the next steps.
• Departmental Follow-ups: Following the success of the meeting, several attendees requested our participation in their own departmental planning events. They saw the value in having an external chair to help structure discussions and ensure focus on strategic priorities.
• One-on-One Support: Several departmental heads also sought our one-on-one support to help them deliver on their plans for MI improvements. They wanted to ensure that their individual contributions aligned with the overall strategic direction.

Conclusion
By acting as a supportive but non-intrusive chair for the annual planning meeting, we were able to help the business maintain the collaborative atmosphere that had worked well in previous years while driving concrete outcomes in line with their strategic MI goals. The success of the event demonstrated that minor adjustments to meeting formats can significantly enhance participation and value, without the need for a complete overhaul. Our role in chairing this event helped the company make meaningful progress on their MI improvement drive.