London in the spring is famous for its wet and windy weather, with city dwellers and commuters dashing about under a sea of umbrellas. It was our destination for filming with Beazley, an A-rated specialty insurer and finalist for the Citrix Innovation Award. Beazley has simplified its delivery of apps, desktops and data into a unified secure Citrix workspace to support its Activity–based Working approach while helping them hire and retain the best talent in the industry, whether in London or any of their global offices around the world.

We visited Beazley’s London offices, arranged access for the crew to film INSIDE Lloyd’s of London, and had a packed interview schedule with more than five principal interviews to complete over the course of a week. Following a somewhat dreary weekend weather-wise in London, Monday greeted us with bright sunshine and a brisk walk to the financial district where Beazley’s head office is located.

Our first interview was with Mark Moerdyk, Head of IT Infrastructure & Engineering, and secured another interview with Beazley CIO Ben Spencer. Our Citrix champion at Beazley, Dale Steggles, had just returned from holiday in Las Vegas, so he was full of energy for his interview. He has also helped organize our visit to the new concept ‘activity-based working’ offices in Birmingham, about 3 hours northwest of London.

We began Tuesday interviewing Penny Malik, Head of Talent Management, who provided some great context for what activity-based working is about, and how Beazley has been able to use their transformation around how people work as a differentiator to attract talent from competitors. Then we went to Lloyd’s of London, with its contemporary-industrial exterior housing 14 floors of the most iconic insurance market in the world. You can actually see the underwriting entry for the Titanic in the very large ledger written by hand. Amazing!

The crew then traveled to Birmingham to spend the day filming at Beazley’s new activity–based working offices, and all the people there couldn’t have been more welcoming. They were engaged and happy to show off their new space, and all really feel valued for the opportunity and investment the company is making on their behalf to provide such a pleasant and thoughtful work environment.

Attracting and retaining highly-skilled staff is crucial for Beazley’s business, and supporting them with the necessary access to data, apps and tools to do their jobs effectively across multiple locations requires a robust and versatile technology platform. “We want to provide our workforce with the digital experience and flexibility they need to be productive, to make the best decisions, and to engage our customers in the best possible way,” says Steggles, and that’s exactly what we saw with Citrix.”

All in all, it was a great week in the U.K., we we finished up visiting the Tower of London, under a sea of umbrellas.