Women in Tech, Episode 5

Rhiannon Webster:
Hello and welcome to Ashurst Legal Outlook in this special mini-series on Women In Tech. My name is Rhiannon Webster, and I am a Partner within Ashurst's Digital Economy Team. In today's episode, we talk with Daisy Godfrey who is Head of Legal Group Digital and Data Protection for Aviva Insurance. In our discussion, Daisy talks through her in-house legal career. Along the way she reflects on her training in-house, the lessons she's learnt and what she enjoys most about her current role.

Rhiannon Webster:
Hi Daisy, I am really thrilled that you have agreed to come and speak to us today. You won't know this, but I talk about you a lot to aspiring solicitors, because I think you did one of the most interesting training contracts on the market. Tell the world about it, and tell us about your career to date.

Daisy Godfrey:
Oh, thank you Rhiannon, that's very kind and thank you for having me on the podcast. I'm thrilled to be here. It's very exciting. So yeah, happy to talk about my training contract and the way that I qualified into being a solicitor, which was a bit different to what some other people have done in the way that you traditionally qualify. So I did my training contract in-house at a multinational insurance company, and I didn't go straight into the legal department. They've got quite a big in-house legal team, but I didn't start there because they wanted me to understand their business before I went into the legal department and I started giving them legal advice. So I actually joined the cohort of insurance graduates, and I spent the first year of my training contract training to be an underwriter in two of the company's casualty underwriting teams, which was a fantastic experience.

Daisy Godfrey:
And it did then give me a really good grounding once I did go into the legal department to really understand what the business does, how it works, to be able to kind of give them that more practical legal advice. So, that was the first year. Then I did go into the legal department and help out in different teams within the in-house legal department. And then I got to spend nine months in private practice as well. So kind of an all-round experience. And it was a little bit longer, which was a bit annoying. It took me two and a half years rather than just the two years to qualify, but definitely worth it. Six months felt like a long time at the time, but in the grand scheme of things it really isn't.

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah, but not now in the context of your whole career. So that's where we met, wasn't it? Because, I was on secondment at said insurer. And I can't remember whether you were in the business at the time or whether actually it was when you went out to private practice and then we kind of... We didn't actually overlap much from your training contract. We've overlapped quite a lot since. I'm intrigued what you thought about private practice for those nine months that you spent in private practice. What were the differences? And you've stayed in-house ever since. So I'm just intrigued about the differences and what you prefer about each side of the fence.

Daisy Godfrey:
Yeah. I did love my time in private practice. I did a seat in the corporate department, and then a seat in litigation that was really, really fun. I got to do some very high quality work and learn from some really talented lawyers. So I was grateful that I was able to go off and see the other side because it did cement that I wanted to go back to in-house. But if I hadn't have had the experience, maybe there would've always been this kind of niggling doubt that maybe I was more suited to private practice. But I like being part of an organisation. I like really understanding my business and feeling more of a part of it and being able to be a bit more commercial as well. So, that's what I like about being in-house.

Daisy Godfrey:
I really loved being part of a cohort of trainees when I went into private practice. That was a lot of fun because there was a lot of camaraderie, but then I was doing my training contract kind of not long after the 2008 recession. So I was then glad when they started trying to get newly qualified jobs that I wasn't having to get involved in that, because obviously the insurance company spent a lot of time and effort and resource in me, training me in their business for that year. So I felt...

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah, they weren't going to let you go after that.

Daisy Godfrey:
Exactly. So yeah. So I was grateful for that.

Rhiannon Webster:
So tell me a bit about that year in the business as an underwriter. You weren't tempted to be an underwriter after that? These are one of these careers that I had no idea existed when I was a child growing up, I was very much quite academic. So I thought I'll be lawyer or a doctor, and I became a lawyer. And then once I got into it, I did quite a few secondments, as I said, and that's how we met Daisy. And then I realised about this whole underwriting kind of role, which is very interesting in itself.

Daisy Godfrey:
To say I was exactly the same. I did not appreciate that that was a career. And then, suddenly I was doing it and I did really enjoy it, but it didn't kind of sway me to want to do that instead of the law. I was very much quite single-minded that I wanted to be a lawyer, possibly from that same conditioning that you'd had, that was just one of the careers, you know. But it is a fascinating job, and so much goes into it. I was underwriting for one of the teams I was in, they underwrite very high turnover companies and the amount of understanding of that business that you have to do in order to then underwrite that policy is quite extraordinary and it's very relationship driven as well.

Daisy Godfrey:
You have to be really good at making those connections, and understanding the businesses that you're underwriting is key to that as well, because you need to be able to speak to your clients in the way that they understand. So yes, it is very, very skilled and I did enjoy it, but it wasn't for me. But I was just glad that after the year was over that actually I did understand it and... Because I just think back to day one and I turned up and I didn't know about insurance, obviously I'd done some research for my interview and everything, but it wasn't something that I knew a lot about.

Rhiannon Webster:
I think most children would, but most young people don't do they? I remember there was an insurance module at, probably at university now. And I remember thinking, I don't really know really what that is, but why would anyone do that? And then , as you know, I've spent quite a lot of my career, either in-house at insurance companies on secondment or advising insurance companies on data protection. So you never know where life is going to take you.

Daisy Godfrey:
Well, you don't. And also it's one of those things that doesn't sound that interesting, but actually it sucks you in, and then it is. And as I said, I turned up on the first day and it was almost like they were speaking another language because they had all these acronyms, they were talking about retro session, captives, S I R. And I did not know what they were saying, but actually you get really into it. And then, you are doing it and people are looking at you like, "what are you talking about?"

Rhiannon Webster:
I remember the first time I used the word bordereau. I mean, it was just very much like an insurance speak. I remember it. When I was on secondment and people talking to me about, "oh yeah, the bordereau says this." It's like "the what?" What are they talking about? It's a whole different language, isn't it?

Daisy Godfrey:
It really is. Yeah.

Rhiannon Webster:
You stayed in insurance after that, but what you have done is, as I said pivoted, to become a data protection expert. So how did that happen?

Daisy Godfrey:
So again, I guess like with insurance, for you and me, it just happened. I was supporting, once I qualified into the in-house role at the insurance company, I was in the UK Commercial Lines legal team, but I was giving quite a lot of support to the lawyer there who was kind of doing all the things that weren't insurance related. So a lot of it was the commercial and outsourcing contracts, but he was also doing competition law and IP and data protection. So, as you can imagine, that's quite a big remit. So he needed some assistance. And I started helping him mainly with the data protection side of things, some of the outsourcing as well, and just really enjoyed it. So I ended up taking a role then in the EMEA Commercial Outsourcing and Data Protection legal team to do that work instead of the purely commercial insurance work that I had qualified into doing.

Rhiannon Webster:
And then I think four letters happened, which was the GDPR came in. Didn't it? How was that in implementing it in a large organisation? At that time, I was back in private practice kind of at that point, but advising clients, but I don't really know what it was like from the inside, especially in something as a big an organisation that you were in.

Daisy Godfrey:
Yeah. I'm sure for both of us, it was just very, very hectic and busy, but actually I loved it. And I see that time as being a real highlight in my career, because it was a real turning point for me in terms of my confidence. Suddenly there was this new regulation everybody needed to know about it. Everyone did sit up and take notice because of the fines. And I was one of the only experts that people could go to and ask. And that gave me a lot of exposure. It gave me a lot of responsibility. I was involved in setting up and implementing the GDPR programme across all of the European offices. So I got to meet a lot of different people, and it was a lot of hard work, but it was also a lot of fun. And as I say, I see that as being a real highlight. It really put privacy law on the map, which is nice, cause people would well not ignore me before.

Rhiannon Webster:
No, I know people didn't really listen to us before, did we? We were not very interesting people with topics, but then suddenly we became the people that people wanted to talk about. You once told me about messaging within the insurance company. And did you do something in front of a green screen at some point?

Daisy Godfrey:
We did. Yes. We did a lot of activities to try and engage people into what the responsibilities were under the new regulation. So one of the things we did was a series of videos, informative educational videos, that we filmed in front of a green screen. And that was a lot of fun. And another thing we did on the day the GDPR came into force, at the headquarters' office, we gave out cupcakes with GDPR written on them, just...

Rhiannon Webster:
I had one of those cupcakes. They were very nice.

Daisy Godfrey:
Thank you. Anything to get people interested and to come and ask us questions. But yeah, the recording of the videos that were in front of the green screen was a lot of fun. And that was the whole thing about the programme, really. It was a lot of opportunities to get involved in things that I hadn't done before.

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah. It's not your typical day as a lawyer, is it? Doing a video in front of a green screen, but it's really important to get the message out. So I'm always interested in hearing from our clients about how they are embedding data protection within their organisation, and making sure that the message is out. And then to date though, you are the only one that I know who has done a video in front of a green screen. What's been your biggest success to date?

Daisy Godfrey:
Sure. So I left the company where I'd started and I'd trained, just before coming up to my 10 year anniversary. Really. So I did a long stint there, but then I was looking for that change, as I'd said, the experience rolling out that GDPR program had given me that responsibility. So I felt ready then to take the next step. So I moved on to another multinational financial services company where I was their sole dedicated EMEA Privacy Counsel. And then after that, I moved to Aviva where I am now. And I joined as a Senior Counsel in the team, but as of June last year I head up the team. So, I got promoted in June and I don't want to kind of jinx anything by saying it, but actually I would say that was the biggest success so far, now that I'm leading a team of lawyers to do digital and data protection work.

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah. That's great. We were so excited when you got promoted, because it was very well deserved. What's your favorite bit about your role now?

Daisy Godfrey:
Can I give the really corny answer and say...

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah, go for it.

Daisy Godfrey:
It's the team. There's seven of us. Sorry. There's eight of us, and there's seven people in the team that I manage. They're just such a brilliant team of amazing lawyers, wonderful people. And I feel really lucky that I get to lead that team. So, that's my favorite thing. It also helps that we are super collaborative and we all come from slightly different backgrounds.

Daisy Godfrey:
So, as I've been talking about, I'm kind of financial services through and through, but we are a digital team and a lot of them come from FinTechs or startups or kind of the more technology side of things. So we have different experiences that we bring to the work, which is really important because the variety of what we do is massive. We support the whole group. So we support all of the different products and businesses that Aviva has. Also, the remit is quite wide being digital and data protection. So one day we might be kind of working on an app, or we might be feeding into a regulatory consultation, or assisting our M&A colleagues. It's yeah, it's very varied. No day is ever the same. So that would be one of my other favorite things about it as well.

Rhiannon Webster:
Do you like managing people?

Daisy Godfrey:
I love it. And if you'd asked me whether I wanted to be a manager several years ago, I might have said no, because I was very much focused on kind of honing my technical expertise at that time. So that's been one of the surprises of this role, actually, just quite how much I've enjoyed it and enjoyed that people side of things. And then the strategy side of things as well. It's nice to be able to look at the bigger picture, whilst I was able to do that somewhat in the roles that I'd had before, now I have a team that can implement that strategy. It's a lot easier to think about the strategy as opposed to kind of the role I was in previously at the previous company I was at, it was just me. So I could have a strategy for myself.

Rhiannon Webster:
But that's not the same. It makes for such a much more rewarding day job of life, doesn't it? When you're looking at those bigger picture things and working out what the priorities should be. And also, I imagine, working with the strategy of Aviva itself and making sure that you are aligned with that strategy.

Daisy Godfrey:
Yeah. That's really important. We've got a CEO who's very clear on what our strategy is, and what we need to deliver. And so it is really rewarding to be able to link what we do back to how that contributes to the wider business.

Rhiannon Webster:
Exactly. I imagine that you feel rather than a cost, cause that's what sometimes legal teams can feel like within an organisation, to actually something which is enabling and driving the strategy. I imagine, especially with data protection, actually, that, because I often feel that we are, I'm definitely not a lawyer that says no, but you obviously have to pay for advice. And the advice is generally that you need to do something a bit differently, or you need to do something more, and that means spending money on it. So your news is not usually good news, but once you are within an organisation, it must be really rewarding to be trying to work with them, to deliver a strategy, which ultimately is going to make money for them.

Daisy Godfrey:
Yeah. That hits the nail on the head Rhiannon. And that's exactly what I love about it, is coming up with those solutions. And the great thing about Aviva is that we want to improve the customer digital experience. So that leads to a lot of interesting work, but equally we want to do the best for our customers. So, that's also important. So, the advice does get listened to which is good because I can only assume that's probably not the same everywhere.

Rhiannon Webster:
No, I think that's right. But you got to work harder be given that voice and it must be all credit to you that you have that voice within Aviva, and are listened to. Moving on to theme and international women's day. I want to talk to you about female role models. Do you have any?

Daisy Godfrey:
This one's quite a difficult one really, because I kind of think growing up, I didn't really have any legal role models because I wasn't really in a world where I knew any lawyers. So it was only really once I came to work, that I would see these females in these senior positions and could be inspired by that. So that's why I think it is really important to make sure that there is that diversity at the top. Actually I think financial services is still massively trailing behind there. I think I did hear a stat for international women's day that the gender pay gap in financial services is at minus 25%. I think there's still a lot to do, but saying that, throughout my career I have been really inspired by a lot of women that I've worked with and you know, yourself included in that Rhiannon. And it's been really great to see your career go from strength to strength as mine has been progressing as well.

Rhiannon Webster:
Thanks Daisy. Mutual appreciation society. Because I've loved to watch you go all the way through too, from the day we met when you were a trainee, and I wasn't that much more qualified than you at the time. I think I was two or three years qualified at the time. And then we've watched both our careers grow over the years, which has been, I think, rewarding for both of us. So what do you think are the top skills that you think it's important for young women in our industry to have in particular for a successful in-house career?

Daisy Godfrey:
So I think that in-house, the main thing is knowledge of your industry and of your organisation, so that you can give that practical commercial legal advice that I've been speaking about. I often also get asked kind of what are our peers doing? And so it's good to be able to keep abreast of what is happening across the industry, and going to industry events, and reading industry papers is important for making sure that you are keeping up to date with those sorts of things. And it's also nice to go to the events because, more often than not, you meet people who are kind of having similar challenges that you are. And that can be quite reassuring.

Rhiannon Webster:
It's like group therapy sometimes isn't it? But we always get asked what the rest of the market are doing. So it's invaluable to keep talking to our clients, like you, to find out kind of where you are with certain compliance programmes and things. And it means that you're giving the right advice. Cause nobody like, especially with data protection, nobody likes to be ahead of the pack nor behind the pack, they want to be in the pack. So you need to make sure that you are kind up there, not creating a compliance risk, but also not an overly compliance burden too.

Daisy Godfrey:
Yeah, I think that's right. And that's where I say that knowledge comes so handy. But in terms of whether someone... If someone was thinking about going in-house, I probably would advise them just to give it a go if possible, whether that's through a secondment or... I found out about in-house work when I was applying for training contracts. I only really considered in-house because I'd done an internship in the legal department of a film production company. So had I not done that internship, I may not have appreciated that actually in-house legal training contracts were a thing. So I think give it a go and you might like it.

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah, no. I think people definitely would. I think, having watched you do what you did. I thought, I really did, as I said at the opening, thought it was one of the more interesting training contracts on the market at the time. I'm going to come back to when we were talking about the green screen earlier, that's pretty innovative for getting the message out and spreading the data protection words. Have you seen anything since by tech used in innovative ways in-house, either for spreading the data protection word or generally for legal services?

Daisy Godfrey:
Being in insurance I think the mentality or the assumption is that actually insurance companies don't, they're not innovative. They're not using new tech. They tend to be quite big organisations traditionally. Maybe they've been around for a very long time. So, they're kind of seen as being very slow to adopt new tech or be innovative. But I do think that that has changed now, and actually the prevalence of InsureTech is something that proves that I think. InsureTech wouldn't have been a thing many years ago, but now it is big business.

Daisy Godfrey:
And I also think what's helped is that regulators have more of an appreciation that companies need to be innovative, and they need to facilitate that, because financial services being so heavily regulated. As you were saying before, they may not necessarily want to be ahead of the pack doing something brand new and innovative in case something went wrong, but actually things like regulatory sandboxes and the fact that there are kind of initiatives that are, are coming out around like open finance, open banking. That all feeds into more of a culture of being more innovative and more adoptive of new technologies.

Daisy Godfrey:
And actually insurance is a space where they could really, really, and they are really, really benefiting from the fact that they can use AI and things like that to really improve the insurance experience and improve personalisation, improve risk pricing. That's all something that has been massively helped by adopting new technology. And I suppose the obvious example of that would be the telematics box that you have in your car, and records your driving, because you then get a score based on how well you drive and that directly impacts your price to make it personal to your risk.

Daisy Godfrey:
There's definitely lots that insurance and financial services are doing to adopt new tech and it's only going to increase. And for me, that's what makes my role so fascinating because the law can't always keep up, but actually you still have to come up with a solution for it and you still have to apply the law to the new situation. So I really enjoy that element of the job.

Rhiannon Webster:
It's really interesting when new technologies come out, isn't it? Cause I always love finding out about them. It's been quite a few years now with telematics, isn't it? But I remember I was advising on one of the first telematics deals in the UK. I was fascinated by the idea of this, of these things that could record driving behavior. And at the time it was, and I think it probably still is, really targeted at the 17 year olds who'd been priced out of the market because the insurance was so high, but give them a telematics box that could actually record their risk profile in real life and it would mean that it was an affordable insurance premium. So actually it was for the public benefit. So it was, as you were saying, it's bringing everything together. It's a lot of collection of data, but generally it's for the public good.

Rhiannon Webster:
And it was giving these 17 year olds a premium that they could afford. And then it was all very interesting making all that data protection compliant, and making sure that it was a new technology that we had to, probably at the time actually, fit back into the old law. This is pre GDPR. The same principles obviously applied, but that's actually what I love about data protection, it's principle based, which means that it should survive new technologies, but we have to keep on kind of thinking about how it applies in the context of those new technologies.

Daisy Godfrey:
I completely agree. And maybe the next motor insurance thing we will have to work out how to advise on is autonomous vehicles.

Rhiannon Webster:
Yeah. I was going to say autonomous vehicles, and all the things around that, isn't it? That's going to be the next thing with the amount of data that's going to collect about the people who are in it. That's a whole different minefield that I'm sure you'll be grappling together for years to come.

Daisy Godfrey:
I'm sure.

Rhiannon Webster:
I often get asked what advice I would give my younger self. So I'm going to ask you that question.

Daisy Godfrey:
Oh, it's a difficult one, isn't it? I that's still feel like I learn something new every single day. So I don't feel like I'm necessarily in a position to give advice. I would probably just say, try to enjoy it because time does go by very fast and it's... yeah. Just enjoy yourself and appreciate things in the moment, because you will look back on them fondly even if at the time it seems like you won't at the time. Actually, I think, enjoy it and probably try not to worry about the things that you can't control. But as we all know, that's easier said than done. So maybe that's not great advice, because it's not very easy to put into practice.

Rhiannon Webster:
As I get a bit wiser. Wiser, older, bit of both maybe. I often think when I'm having a particularly stressful time at work whether it's a particularly horrible project that is all going wrong in the way that projects often can, I always look back over the years and think actually it's from those projects that I have learnt the most, and actually in hindsight, were highlights of my career. So, however dark the day feels, I always think that actually in a few years' time I will look back on this number one and laugh, and number two, be a lot wiser and know how to do it differently in the future. So I think we're on a similar theme there. And so the next chapter, what happens next? I think of you as still very junior in your career, although you're not junior in your career at all, but there's so much more that could happen next. So what will happen next do you think from your perspective?

Daisy Godfrey:
It's probably, again, probably bad advice, but I've never been one of those people that's had a five year plan or a ten year plan. And so I know that goes against the grain as to what we are told we need to do, but actually my career hasn't necessarily gone where I thought it would go, but for the better. And when I look around at other people, I think a lot of the opportunities that people have had, maybe weren't ones that they thought that they would want, or they thought they would get. So it's very hard to plan for things, I think. Certainly at the moment, my focus is just on growing into the role that I have and doing the best job that I can, and seeing where life takes me really.

Rhiannon Webster:
Thank you very much, Daisy. I have really enjoyed our conversation today. So thank you for taking the time to talk to us

Daisy Godfrey:
Oh, thank you Rhiannon. It's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you for having me.

Rhiannon Webster:
Thank you for listening to our special mini-series on Women In Tech. If you enjoyed this episode, and don't want to miss the rest of this mini-series, please subscribe to Ashurst's Legal Outlook wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to leave us a rating or review. If you'd like to find out more about Ashurst, please visit www.ashurst.com. In the meantime, thanks very much for listening and goodbye for now.