Mark Lomas: 'We have made progress', but more to do on inclusion at Lloyd’s

When Mark Lomas joined Lloyd’s in 2022, he stepped into a marketplace still in the process of shaking off its reputation for elitism and cultural failings.

His role as head of culture, talent and communities demanded more than policy tweaks to achieve this goal. It required rethinking how the 336-year-old institution attracted, retained and nurtured talent.

Lomas is no stranger to testing environments. His own career, spanning music, charities, law, broadcasting, infrastructure and now insurance, has given him a resilience and empathy that shape his leadership style.

He tells Insurance Times: “[I was] born in Bermuda, went to music school here in the UK and then university, for me, was the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

“I was dead set on a music career, having been really successful when I was younger in terms of classical music.”

But when he returned to Britain, reality hit home.

He explains: “I came to the UK and found there are no auditions for things. It’s kind of all network based and I didn’t know anyone. From having a really great career to having none was a good life lesson.”

It was a lesson that changed the course of his career.

He says: “The value attached to network got me thinking about careers.”

After he moved on from breaking into the music world, a role with disability charity Shaw Trust that he held between 2004 and 2009 opened doors for Lomas.

He says: “The chief executive pulled me to the side and said ’you probably offended half the people in the meeting with how you said what you said, but the substance of what you said was actually fairly interesting. So why don’t you keep on coming back?’”

From there, he specialised in diversity and inclusion, leading projects at the Law Society, BBC and HS2, where he designed strategies covering billions of pounds of procurement, apprenticeships and early careers.

He comments: “I do like going where there’s a problem to solve.” 

Turning the tide at Lloyd’s

When Lomas arrived at Lloyd’s in 2022, the market had already begun its post-2019 culture reset. But this not mean the work was finished, with a lot of work still to be completed.

Lomas explains: “If you look from 2019 to now, it is quite a journey of change. Even in 2022, when I started, [there were] 28% women in leadership and that’s now 36%. There were 8% ethnically diverse groups, now that’s 14% – and 5% [ethnically diverse people] in leadership, [which is now] 12%.”

He points to data-driven progress as a critical factor in this success.

“There’s been a lot of focus on culture and non-financial misconduct,” he says.  

“We see that in the improved stats that sit behind the culture survey, which is now a hugely robust exercise with well over 13,400 responses.”

The Lloyd’s 2024 Culture Survey, which measured diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) metrics, was conducted between March and April 2024. Its purpose was to assess the workplace culture across the Lloyd’s market and focused on areas such as behavior, inclusion, psychological safety and employee experience.

Closed ecosystem

Previously, Lloyd’s was seen as a “very closed ecosystem” where people advanced through family ties or connections.

“Opening up pathways for talent is one of the things I think Lloyd’s has been particularly successful with,” Lomas says.

Today, 19% of the market comes from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, while early careers applications have surged from hundreds to 7,000 – a seven-to-one ratio for every opportunity.

Lomas adds: “The perception of the Lloyd’s market as an attractive place to work has changed significantly. The data tells a very different story – that transformation has been fairly exceptional in the last three or four years.”

He credits much of the change to structured oversight, with “very clear frameworks” that are now “fully articulated”, meaning that the market is singing from the same hymn sheet on what success looks like.

Targets have underpinned the majority of this.

For example, Lloyd’s implemented “leadership ambition” targets for the market in early 2021 that described a 35% women in leadership by 2024 target, as well as a one in three hiring target for ethnically diverse groups.

Lomas explains: “The women in leadership ambition has been achieved and exceeded and the one in three hiring ambition has achieved population proportionality, when compared to national populations.”

Accountability is also enforced internally. Lloyd’s utilises key performance indicators on “culture objectives” that are linked to all employees, as well as to leaders’ remuneration, 

He adds: “This it is about full accountability. Once the critical mass of change has started, progress tends to continue.”

The results are striking. In 2019, Lloyd’s ranked below financial services benchmarks on every culture survey question. Now, however, it is above financial services benchmarks in 25 of those 27 comparable questions.

Those 25 areas where Lloyd’s is ahead of the wider financial services industry benchmarks included comfort in raising concerns, leadership commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and psychological safety.

The two areas where Lloyd’s fell below the industry benchmarks were in employees who said that unethical behaviour was dealt with seriously and employees who believed their organisations responded seriously to feedback. 

Facing critics

Not everyone has welcomed the speed of change at Lloyd’s where inclusion is concerned, but Lomas is unapologetic.

He says: “Faced with challenges, the response of Lloyd’s has been to go and address those challenges.”

He pointed to the market’s handling of its links to transatlantic slavery as “kind of an exemplary model of how you manage those issues”.

In September 2024, former Lloyd’s of London chief executive John Neal emphasised the need for the marketplace to acknowledge and apologise for its historical role in the transatlantic slave trade.

Lomas notes: “You never please all of the people all of the time, but because we have a very evidence-based approach, even if you don’t like it, you can see the common sense that sits behind it.” 

That evidence points to a market where diversity is now widely viewed as central to culture.

Lomas expands: “The number one response when asked what would make culture better in the market [was] more diversity and inclusion, particularly more diversity in leadership. The second [was] more diversity in hiring.”

Despite the speed of this change and Lomas’ commitment to it, challenges remain to achieve these goals.

He explains: “We still need further diversity at board level. We can see the underwriting talent pipeline is ageing and we have more work to do in terms of senior levels in underwriting, particularly from a gender equality point of view.”

But, looking ahead, Lomas is clear that Lloyd’s cannot stand still.

“The future is more complex, particularly for leadership,” he adds.

“Different approaches are going to be needed for some roles, which people are finding hard to recruit [for], and areas where we can see a leaky pipeline.”

That solution to both present and future recruitment challenges requires both breadth and focus.

Lomas says: “There’s both an era of broadening approaches and becoming very specific around some talent, as well as some [types of] jobs and skills.”

But, as a point of optimism, Lomas sees Lloyd’s entering a new phase. As Lloyd’s moves towards 2026 under new leadership, he believes it does so from a position of strength.

He concludes: “One of the things that the market should be proud of is that we’ve earned the right to pivot. We can be more sophisticated about what we do going forward, primarily because we have made progress.

 “We want this market to be a brilliant place to work for everybody, every day.”