Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.

 

Justin interviews Huw Edwards, an entrepreneur, investor, and international speaker. Huw will kick off the RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2025 with his keynote speech. Huw covers the varied topics of leveraging his quantitative training in risk roles, his cybersecurity experience in the companies he helped develop, and even his extensive ultramarathon experience. Huw explores what entering the "pain cave" as an ultramarathon runner has taught him about life and risk management.

 

Huw believes that being AI-first will be a key factor in whether risk professionals will be promoted. He shares a preview of his keynote and his advice to risk professionals.

Listen to learn about the role of quantitative analysis in entrepreneurship and risk management, and how risk management is evolving with AI tools.

 

Key Takeaways:

[:01] About RIMS and RIMScast.

[:17] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest today is Huw Edwards, who will kick off the RIMS Regional Texas Conference 2025, which will be from August 4th through the 6th in San Antonio.

[:44] Huw is a three-time business owner and an executive coach. We'll get a glimpse of his keynote today.

[:51] RIMS-CRMP Workshops! The next Virtual RIMS-CRMP exam prep, co-hosted by Parima, will be held on September 2nd and 3rd.

[1:02 ] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED virtual workshop will be led by Joseph Mayo on July 17th and 18th. Register by July 16th. Links to these courses can be found on the Certification Page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes.

[1:20 ] RIMS Virtual Workshops! We have a day-long course on July 24th, "Risk Taxonomy for Effective Risk Management." On August 5th, we have a day-long course about "Emerging Risks." [1:32 ] We've launched a new course, "Intro to ERM for Senior Leaders." This is a two-day course. The first two-day course will be held on August 12th and 13th and will be led by former RIMS President, Chris Mandel.

[1:47 ] The course will be held again on November 4th and 5th and will be led by Elise Farnham. RIMS members enjoy deep discounts!

[1:56 ] The full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's notes.

[2:07 ] If you tuned in to the recent episode featuring James Lam, you will know he is hosting a new six-module workshop for us, the "RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management".

[2:21 ] The inaugural summer course is completely sold out! We are filled to the virtual capacity! Don't worry, in the Fall, the bi-weekly course will begin on October 9th. Registration closes on October 2nd. A link is in this episode's notes. Check it out and register today!

[2:40 ] Mark your calendars for November 17th and 18th for the RIMS ERM Conference 2025 in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is being built. Soon, we will distribute a Call for Nominations for the ERM Award of Distinction. I'll update this episode's show notes when that link is ready.

[3:04 ] Think about your organization's ERM program or one you know of, and how it has generated value. We will have more on that in the coming weeks.

[3:12 ] RISKWORLD 2026 will be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 3rd through May 6th. RIMS members can now lock in the 2025 rate for a full conference pass to RISKWORLD 2026 when registering by September 30th.

[3:26 ] This also lets you enjoy earlier access to the RISKWORLD hotel block. Register by September 30th, and you will also be entered to win a $500 raffle. Don't miss out on this chance to plan and score some extra perks.

[3:39 ] The members-only registration link is in this episode's show notes. If you are not yet a member, this is the time to register at RIMS.org/membership.

[3:49 ] On with the show! Our guest today is a Harvard- and Oxford-educated entrepreneur, investor, and international speaker.

[3:57 ] On Tuesday, August 5th, he'll kick off the Inaugural RIMS Texas Regional Conference with his keynote, "Your Insurance Policy for Success: Eight Mental Toughness Lessons I've Learned from Running 100 Miles Through the Mountains."

[4:10 ] His name is Huw Edwards. He is the founder of multiple ventures, including Jungle Disk and CyberFortress. We're going to get a preview of his keynote and learn about his risk philosophies and risk journey.

[4:21 ] Interview! Huw Edwards, welcome to RIMScast!

[4:36 ] Huw is excited to be on RIMScast and to be opening the RIMS Texas Regional Conference in August. Justin loves going to Texas and is looking forward to the conference.

[5:01 ] Huw comes from Wales. His accent comes from living in about 16 parts of the U.S.

[5:55 ] Growing up, Huw was good with numbers. After college, being a mathematician, he landed a job with Goldman Sachs in a derivatives group. He helped big corporations manage their financial risks.

[6:54 ] Huw tells about buying his first business. When he sold it, he didn't have the attachment of having founded it. He took it on a journey and then sold it to a private equity firm that joined it with several other companies to create a much bigger platform.

[7:52 ] Huw is a "reluctant entrepreneur." He was not a teenage businessman. He was good at school and at doing work. The first business he bought was a profitable going concern with existing customers. It was a business unit in a big company, stuck in a corner.

[8:39 ] Huw saw it had wonderful economics and just had to be invested in. It had sticky customers. It was very profitable. It needed some love, care, and attention. That was Huw's easy transition into entrepreneurship. He bought the business in 2016.

[9:00 ] In 2017, customers started asking where they could buy Bitcoin. Customers were asking about Bitcoin because they were victims of a ransomware attack that demanded Bitcoins to unlock their computers. Huw's company had backups of its clients' data.

[10:00 ] This circumstance pulled the company into the world of cyber insurance. It was a new field. Huw's company served small businesses and helped them protect their data. Managing their clients' data, they realized they could do the job better.

[10:53 ] Huw says two things connect him to the RIMS Texas Regional Conference. The Insurance Company, USAA, is in San Antonio. Another insurance company, Argo, was there for a time. In 2018, RISKWORLD was held in San Antonio.

[11:30 ] In 2018, Huw and partners incubated an MGA within a large company. They showed up at RISKWORLD to do customer testing and exploration. Coming back to a RIMS conference as a keynote speaker is a full-circle journey for Huw.

[12:11 ] Huw's company was CyberFortress. It was spun out from Jungle Disk, a larger company. Huw raised a bunch of VC money and swung for the fences, but didn't find a product market fit there. They had built a solution, looking for a problem. It was a character-building experience.

[13:06 ] It gave Huw some great insight, working with the insurance company. They launched their insurance policy in Texas, backed by Markel. The challenge was that it wasn't well-positioned, and people didn't buy it.

[13:29 ] Huw believes the greatest opportunity for risk managers in today's cybersecurity landscape is to understand that the big factor is human behavior. You can buy systems, but it comes down to the people running those systems.

[13:52 ] The successful cyber insurance offerings and cybersecurity firms largely help, train, monitor, and guide behavior to avoid clients doing the dumb stuff. Don't click on dumb stuff.

[14:14 ] Risk managers are now interested in AI. AI is just another very powerful tool that can give you a lot of leverage. You can't outsource responsibility to AI, but it can do a lot of things. You can leverage those things.

[15:01 ] Companies are looking for employees who are AI-first. Your comfort with AI will be a deciding factor that separates the people who are