In leadership studies, the “first follower” concept says that an early adherent has a role that is as crucial as that of a movement’s leader or founder. This is because the first ones to join a new movement give it credibility and make other people consider joining.
Jasleen Kohli (pictured above) can be considered a first follower, playing an important role in the growth of Indian insurance firm Digit Insurance. Kohli, who was appointed in April as managing director and CEO of Go Digit General Insurance, is the company’s very first employee.
“I joined Digit Insurance in 2017 as chief distribution officer and spearheaded the company's sales and distribution channels,” Kohli told Insurance Business. “I started my career as a management trainee with Bajaj Allianz General Insurance. I was with the company for nearly five years before I moved to Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. Given the various roles and responsibilities I was entrusted with, both these stints helped me get a 360-degree understanding of how the insurance industry functions. After about six years at Bajaj Allianz Life, I took up the role of director at Allianz Technology. All along, I was fortunate enough to find some great mentors in my managers as well as colleagues, and I will always be indebted to them.”
Digit was founded by fellow Allianz alumnus Kamesh Goyal, with a mission to “make insurance simple” with technology as its backbone.
Kohli says that being Digit’s first employee feels special, as she has seen how rapidly the company has grown over the past five years, including becoming India’s first “unicorn” for 2021.
“Kamesh’s motivation to simplify insurance in India was so strong that I had to be a part of this journey,” she said. “And of course, to walk this path of simplifying insurance with Digit was an opportunity I could not have missed. I’ve had the opportunity to celebrate the various milestones that we have achieved as a young company. With the support of a dynamic and resilient team of colleagues and partners, we have recorded strong growth despite the challenges faced by the industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
When Kohli learned that she would become the next chief executive of Digit, succeeding the retiring Vijay Kumar, she said she was both thrilled and challenged at what lies ahead.
“While I knew it was not going to be easy to fill in for Vijay Kumar, who did an excellent job leading Digit, I was excited about the opportunities that lay ahead of me,” Kohli said. “The company has witnessed strong growth since its inception in 2017, but there’s a lot more to be done to ensure we take our mission to fruition and truly make a difference. It’s going to be a long journey, but I am ecstatic about the niche we are carving for ourselves and the goal we have set out to achieve. There are so many ideas that I have, so I am looking forward to all that we can do together as an organisation.”
Kohli also discussed her first priorities as the company’s managing director and CEO.
“Our focus on simplifying insurance and offering products that today’s customers truly need is something that has played catalyst in the growth that we have reported over the last 4.5 years,” she said. “Going forward, the company’s as well as my top priorities include aiding our partners with the best-in-class tools to help grow their business. We want to continue giving our partners the right business platform to make their day-to-day work seamless which in turn will improve customer experience. To achieve this, we are looking at aggressively growing our tech talent pool because we believe in the power of technology and understand the role it plays in scaling any business.
“Additionally, we want to build the company further to capture a larger market share by addressing customer pain points, simplifying products and processes, and making insurance more accessible,” she said. “While motor is our leading line of business, we are working towards enhancing our share in the other segments such as health, fire, travel, etc.”
India is one of the fastest emerging insurance markets in Asia, with a huge and young population pool that makes it attractive to insurers, both homegrown and multinational.
“The opportunity is big in India because we are an extremely underinsured market,” Kohli said. “Especially for important categories like health, home, and motor, where even today lots of vehicles run without the government-mandated third-party insurance cover. A large part of the uninsured base procrastinates or ignores buying insurance simply because it comes across as a complex product to understand and buy. For a company which is on a mission to simplify insurance, this is a big opportunity.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in higher sales of insurance, particularly health products, Kohli believes this is just the beginning and that insurers must capitalise on it to achieve further gains.
“The pandemic saw a rise in demand for health insurance, but there is still a long way to go when it comes to sustaining this awareness and demand, given that human memory is short-lived,” Kohli said. “This again, will happen through creating products and benefits that people really value. Thus, innovation is key.”
