Preview: Marketplace Risk Management Conference in San Francisco
Rachel Allen is Arity’s Group Product Manager for Sharing Economy Solutions. With Marketplace Risk Management Conference coming up next week, we took a few minutes to get her thoughts about what sets this conference apart from others, what to expect, and why she attends every year.
Q: Tell us about the first time you attended Marketplace Risk. What attracted you and what left an impression?
A: The first time I attended Marketplace Risk, it was in a small room with only about 50 participants. I was excited that there was a group of people that could come together to talk about a topic that well, quite frankly, I found fascinating. I was impressed by all the different angles of assessing risk, and I left even more motivated to understand how all of them applied to shared mobility.
Q: What about the conference has changed since you first started attending?
A: It’s gotten fancy – when I first came it was more or less one room for everyone to learn and discuss in a classroom-type setting. Now there are different conference tracks across multiple spaces. It’s really cool to see the conference grow so much because risk management becoming a more common topic in this space is a sign that the industry is maturing and we’re planning for the future.
Q: What do you expect to see or hear more of this time compared to previous years?
A: Scooters. Cyber risk. Just think about everything that’s made headlines in the past year, and there’s an element of risk that underpins all of the headlines, regardless of the sentiment behind them. What does it mean for people to hop on scooters when they’ve never ridden one before? How do we balance the online and offline aspects of managing access and security? What technology do we need to have in place to properly track and communicate the risks of new business models?
Q: In your opinion, what’s essential for the sharing and on-demand economy to continue growing?
A: (Chuckles.) This is what I think about all day…it’s what motivates every decision my team makes. We’re thinking about how risk plays out in all the moving pieces – literal and figurative – that make shared and on-demand mobility work. Understanding the effects each piece has on operations is critical, but understanding how risk changes as each piece are handed off to new owners or drivers or take on a new purpose – this is even more valuable for the industry’s long-term success. I really believe that shared mobility is the future, and that’s why I do what I do every day.
To hear more from Rachel, join her at Marketplace Risk on Wednesday, May 22 for a joint panel. She will be presenting alongside Y-Risk, an underwriting company of The Hartford focused on the sharing and on-demand economy, and Fair, a leading car subscription app. Together they will discuss specific risks that affect sharing economy companies, and how they’re leveraging those risks to move the industry forward.
