Trio of industry hires as Kennedys grows team behind groundbreaking technology products

Kennedys IQ, the sister company of Kennedys, is continuing to power growth with a trio of new hires.

Melanie Milliner joins from AXA UK, Joe Cunningham joins from DARAG Group, and Alissa Harger joins from Linklaters.

Since launching in 2020, Kennedys IQ has grown considerably, adding a range of roles including a team of data scientists and academics. The business is dedicated to providing machine learning tools and data-powered analytics to insurer claims functions and large corporates.

Melanie Milliner joins as account manager and will focus on promoting Kennedys IQ’s products and enhancing the customer journey. Melanie worked in the claims industry for more than 25 years, most recently as continuous improvement business partner for AXA UK. Before joining the insurance giant in 2014, initially as a claims inspector, she also worked as a senior insurance officer in local government and prior to that was a claims handler.

Both Joe Cunningham, formerly head of claims insight and performance at DARAG Group, and Alissa Harger, previously a support lawyer at Linklaters, will bring valuable industry in their respective new roles working on Reputation Advisor, Kennedys IQ’s latest product.

We are leading a consortium developing Reputation Advisor which is able to identify and assess firms’ reputational risk. Once complete, Reputation Advisor will join the existing suite of technology products that form the Kennedys IQ platform.

The £1.2m project, which is part-funded by £783k from Innovate UK’s Smart Grants scheme, will analyse content – from corporate documents to publicly available information – and create a real-time reputation index of risk relating to an organisation’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices. Specifically, Reputation Advisor will be able to assist with underwriting policies, calculating premiums and predicting potential triggers for claims. The University of Manchester, University College London, Cicero/amo and RiskCovered Limited are all consortium members.

Karim Derrick, head of product and innovation director at Kennedys IQ, says: “Recent years have seen a significant, if not seismic shift towards more responsible, sustainable business that extends not just to clients but to investors too. Increasingly, they are unwilling to part with capital if a company’s values don’t align with their own.

“Reputation Advisor will give them that reassurance, backed up by the most robust and transparent data. The project is still in its early stages, but we are incredibly proud of what has been achieved so far and are excited to welcome Joe and Alissa to our experienced team.”

Reputation Advisor is the fifth Kennedys initiative to be awarded funding from Innovate UK. Previous projects include the firm’s work with the University of Manchester to develop fraud prevention software, and with University College London (UCL) to build an emerging risk analysis tool for insurers.

Richard West, partner and global head of client innovation at Kennedys, says: “We are proud to be at the forefront of innovation in the market and are delighted to grow our teams with the addition of such talented and experienced new colleagues. I’d like to welcome Joe, Alissa and Melanie to the Kennedys’ family.”