Interview with Rob Kelly

In July 2024, Apropela CEO Kate Harper sat down for an interview with Founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Steadfast Insurance, Rob Kelly.

Steadfast have been supporting Apropela as Platinum Partners since 2015, and this was a great opportunity to find out more about what philosophy motivates both Rob and Steadfast.

“None of us will be as good as all of us”

KATE: You’re an entrepreneur and pioneer in the insurance industry. You founded Steadfast in 1996 as a network of small insurance brokers, growing it to become the largest general insurance broker network and the largest group of underwriters in Australasia. Where did the idea come from?

ROB: As an insurance broker, I loved the industry but saw it was struggling as Australian insurers chased volume rather than distribution and were failing to compete with the large internationals on price. Small insurance brokers didn't have volume, but they did have distribution over a wide geography and offered a more personal service. I saw an opportunity to bring together these small brokers in some sort of cohort, generating volumes in aggregate that would become relevant. The genesis of Steadfast was bringing people together to see what we could do if we all cooperated.

I put 43 brokers together who feared redundancy in the face of the competition. We hoped to achieve a couple of hundred million dollars’ worth of sales and last year we did $13 billion. This shows that if a lot of people cooperate together with a common cause, they can become successful and thrive.

KATE: How did you do it?

ROB: We set out not to over-promise; to evaluate our relevance in the process of people getting insurance; and to work as a cooperative cohort of people and share ideas to go forward. I’ve learned that simple solutions are the best for any problem and that cooperation is the way to grow.

Our culture is fundamentally important. We are very selective about who joins our network. We have had very, very few failures - in fact, we would have had less than two or three in this 28- year period. We are very strict about the cultural alignment of anybody who wants to participate with us. We do a lot of evaluation so by the time they join the network, both sides are pretty well aligned.

KATE: How do you go about evaluating brokers to join your network?

ROB: Some fundamental things. Their reputation in the insurance industry generally is important and we have a pretty thorough regime on references. And on top of that, they must operate ethically. People look at me and say, “is that really all it is?” It's a very fundamental thing in business, to ply your trade in an ethical manner, to treat the people you deal with in an ethical manner, and to promote the business as an ethical market leader. These are our two or three operational fundamentals and I guess over the 28 years that this business has run, we've never wavered from that. We're reliable and we're honest in how we go about doing business.

KATE: You are known to be a very people-oriented leader. Where do you think that comes from?

ROB: I'm actually interested in people. I'm not interested in people for what I can gain out of being interested in them, I’m fascinated by what people think. I was described as a ‘brain sucker’ by somebody once. I didn't take offence at that, I took that as, ‘yes I am! I’m interested! Hey, what do you think? How do you feel about that?’ And I think we can learn if we get good interactions with people, it's a wonderful learning curve about what life is for. If you’re not interested in people, then go and live on a mountain! I like to live in a big city!

"I'm actually interested in people."

KATE: You have some market leading gender statistics in your team. Is this deliberate?

ROB: Well, I'd love to say that when I put Steadfast together in ’96 that I sat down with a predetermined view that I'd like to have 50% females in the team. That's not the case. The first person that I am employed was a man and the second person that I employed was a woman. She is still with me in a very senior role (I’ve just appointed her CEO of the USA operation) and has had three children along the way. We went on a journey of looking for the best possible recruits we could get, and we were fortunate to get some really fabulous women who fulfilled the roles.

I think people don't pay enough regard to the fact that the role of women in business has changed dramatically over the last four decades. My mother worked and was almost ostracised when I was small because women didn't work, they stayed at home and baked and looked after things. I remember, going back to the mid-80s, before I started running this business, and somebody rang up and asked, “what sort of organisation are you running? I asked for the service of so-and-so and they said she’s had to go home because of the children. What sort of organisation is that?” And I said, “One that understands what the world is. If you don't like it, go and get somebody who can work for you.”

KATE: And what about the underlying businesses that make up Steadfast? What does gender diversity look like there?

ROB: I think these small brokerages are more attractive for women to apply for. This sounds awful, but you asked my view. I think that they're very comfortable to go to - maybe a suburban insurance broking operation in their local suburb – rather than to apply to a business like this in the heart of the city. The reality is that if they work locally, it's more convenient. Because, for example, they can pick up their kids from school…so I think that's the reason for it. Perhaps the men, still prefer to be in the city and among their networks.

"Let's take the unusual out and put the normality into the rigours of what a woman has to do if she wants to have a successful family and personal life as well as a successful career."

KATE: You must be thrilled to have achieved such great gender diversity at Board and executive level.

ROB: I get offended by people – don’t take it personally! – when people say how fantastic it is that you’ve achieved this gender diversity. This is our normality, this is something we see as normal rather than something to be congratulated for.

I really think that the normality of having women in business and the normality of having flexibility shouldn't be something that people are going, “oh that’s wonderful.” That should be how business operates in. Not our business being seen as “unusual”.

The only thing I did, as the recruiters were showing me only male candidates, was ask them for a balance of male and female candidates on the shortlist. The recruiters would say “there are no women candidates out there”, but I didn’t think that was right. It was just convenient and…almost sycophantic sometimes. This is a generalisation with the recruiters, however they’ve mostly got men in their sights, and they haven’t got the same strength of relationship with the range of women who can, and are, qualified to fulfil that role. They don’t know them as well or haven’t interacted with them much. So, I think the bar to entry was purely not being in the sort of social club.

KATE: Why did Apropela appeal to you?

ROB: Well, it didn't appeal to me! I was dragged there by Richard Enthoven from Hollard’s, who said that he knew of my attitude towards women in business and said “there's something you’ve got to come see, come and have a look.” And I was like, “Oh God, I need this like a hole in my head.”

And the first event I went to, I was blown away by it. I was enthralled by it and I thought, “Oh my God, what a fantastic organisation this is. It's highlighting women who are having a go in business. They're just saying, hey, we've got this far and we need help in this and this and this. And I thought, I can't believe that this existed. And so I instantly thought we have to support this, this is terrific. If this allows women, entrepreneurially, to start something, to seek help in various areas, I need help to know somebody at so-and-so…then a whole range of successful people get involved, this will become a powerhouse for these women because somebody will know somebody that can help them in that particular area. Every time I go – it’s never boring! I never sit there thinking, “when is this going to end?” I think this is fantastic. And I think it’s quite unique.

KATE: Apropela is thrilled to entering our 10th year of partnership with Steadfast. Why do you sponsor Apropela?

ROB: Look, it's quite simple. Do we sell more insurance by sponsoring you? No, not at all. Are we looking to do that? No, no. What we are looking for is that if we can help entrepreneurial women get into business, then eventually they'll buy insurance from somebody. The chance of it being us is quite remote I think in many ways. But I think the more people that we get into business that are female, the more diverse the client-base that we may have to work with. The fact that we’ve got a lot of women working at our organisation…I mean, there might be some quid-pro-quo down the line. But no, we don't look at it as an investment as to what we get out of it, we look at the support for the organisation as helping women to get into business and I think that's fabulous…more men will be employed then!

KATE: Thank you Robert for your continued support of Apropela. We are thrilled to be aligned with you and your team at Steadfast, and thank you for sharing our mission to eliminate gender discrimination.