Diolch Ken!
At this year’s Annual Business Conference (ABC), Ken Isherwood was thanked for his services to FUW Insurance Services Ltd’s Board. Ken is retiring having served on the Board for over a decade, bringing vast experience, passion and knowledge to the business. Below, fellow Board Member, Roger van Praet pays tribute to his outstanding contribution:
I first met Ken Isherwood when we held some tentative and speculative talks with FarmWeb, exploring access to the wider insurance market to replace the sole provider tied agency arrangement with Allianz, which as NEM, had served the FUW well from 1955 but was no longer fit for purpose. This was some 18 months before FarmWeb became an integral part of the transition to our current and successful insurance broker model in September 2007. It is impossible to envisage how FUW could have made this move without Ken’s involvement. Mainstream insurers were interested in the FUW but they were unwilling to commit to working with the unincorporated association with no real expertise in insurance broking that the FUW was at that time.
Ken was initially quite perplexed by our farming organisation that offered insurance to its members and that wanted to trade with his much more sophisticated organisation. Seeing the potential, and despite his initial qualms, he felt sufficiently confident to enter into a commercial arrangement with the FUW.
When FUW Insurance Services was incorporated as a regulated Limited Company, Ken, with his encyclopaedic knowledge of the insurance industry, was an obvious choice to bring that expertise to the Board as Non-Executive Director, a role that he has carried out with diligence to this day.
Coming from across the ‘border’, he never let that get in the way of the full and frank conversations he initiated from time to time. He embraced the dedicated, influential but often unconventional FUW with a wry smile and an increased determination not to pull his punches. He did all that to make us better. To show us what good looks like. To make us more ambitious. To make us run a tight ship. To play by the rules however frustrating they can be from time to time.
He did all this because Ken is an honourable man. It matters to him that people keep their word. It matters to him that hard work and effort is properly rewarded. It matters to him that people are treated fairly and respectfully.
He can be robust because he knows his industry. He doesn’t just know the intricate details but the big picture. He doesn’t just know what companies sell what products but what that tells us about the trends within the marketplace. He doesn’t just know the key people, but he knows what makes them tick.
Retiring from our Board, he will leave big boots to fill. I suspect that the FUW Insurance Services Ltd Board will still be saying ‘if Ken were here, what would he do’ for some time.
When historians look back at those from outside the farming sector who have cajoled, influenced and driven the only independent voice of Welsh agriculture to success over the last seventy years, names like J B Evans, first General secretary of the FUW; Lord Morris of Aberavon and Tom Astley, NEM Liaison officer in those early days are well known. Behind the scene Ken Isherwood is also up there. An influential voice that was unequivocally pivotal in the successful development of FUW Insurance Services which in turn has secured substantive on-going funding for our Union activities.
Ken, I have valued your friendship, pragmatism and wise counsel on so many occasions. It has been a pleasure working with you. Enjoy your retirement!