Matthew Richardson

With commercial and corporate insurance facing increasing complexity, evolving client expectations and an accelerated shift toward digital-first experiences, companies face a challenge: maintaining pace and scaling efficiently and effectively to stay competitive. 

This, however, is not the case for Generali Global Corporate & Commercial (GC&C). GC&C is a specialised business unit of Generali Group – one of the world’s largest insurance and asset management companies. The division offers P&C insurance and service solutions to medium-large companies and brokers in more than 180 countries. 

Not content with just keeping pace, GC&C is committed to playing a leading role in the transformation of the industry. . 

Strategically created as a separate business unit from Generali 13 years ago to provide a single, standardised global business division capable of serving customers across Generali’s decentralised operations, GC&C has always worked with a mindset more akin to that of a start-up than a legacy player.  

Innovation as a foundation

“Innovation is in our DNA,” says Global Head of Operations & IT Matthew Richardson. “The idea behind our formation was that, whether you walked into a Generali office in Madrid, Paris, London, Hong Kong, Milan or anywhere else in the world, you would get exactly the same excellent experience across pricing, methodology, data and output for our complex corporate clients. It’s a focus that has always allowed us to be at the forefront of innovation.”

Over the last five to six years, Matthew and his colleagues in GC&C’s IT Operations team have steered the business through a large-scale and ambitious modernisation and transformation programme designed both to deliver on the initial mission of the business and meet shifting market demands. 

In what is a relatively short timeframe for a such a significant change management programme, the business has moved away from legacy technology and disconnected databases to a cloud-first, low-code/no-code model enhanced by AI solutions that enables smarter, faster and more connected insurance services and creates an IT ecosystem that is resilient, scalable and primed for further innovation.

A life in the industry and leadership

Matthew is no stranger to delivering this kind of IT change programme, nor to the intricate processes, challenges and opportunities that span Generali’s global operations, having worked for the business for over a decade. This breadth of experience has been critical to the approach he has taken to his latest role, and to IT leadership more broadly. 

“Today I’m responsible for driving the operational excellence and technology strategy across our international businesses in 27 countries from our central team headquartered in Milan,” he explains. “Essentially, me and my diverse team manage the end-to-end IT and operations initiatives across GC&C, from internal process improvements, through to IT governance and resilience, as well as steering major transformational projects. 

“I’ve had a pretty unique experience at GC&C,” says Matthew. “I joined Generali 12 years ago at entry level before moving my way through the business, first in our London offices then to Milan across six different roles. It has given me real oversight across the IT landscape starting with business, analyst and application support, through to IT support at GC&C and then into transformation and business relationship management, before taking my latest role in April 2025. It means I have strong grounding in all areas of the business and good relationships right across the organisation.”

This aspect is fundamental to Matthew’s approach to leadership and transformation, with him viewing communication and collaboration essential to effective change management. “I consider my role people-centric,” he states. “I work with consensus across teams and countries and we are very open and transparent – you have to spend time with the business to understand exactly what is necessary because IT is such a complex area.”