Like so many companies over the past year and half, Ralph Lauren has had its resilience tested as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. It had to shut down stores and offices, and had to advance efforts to better interact with customers and associates alike, safely.
Fortunately for the company, Janet Sherlock, who has been the chief information officer of Ralph Lauren for the past four years, initiated a number of initiatives that gave the company a leg up. Her purview is such that she has unusual influence for a CIO. She runs strategy and overall management of all of the technology including design conceptualization through to the point when products are distributed to either wholesale partners, the company’s stores, or directly to the company’s consumers. Her team is also responsible for store technology and the full ecosystem of in-product management and user experience. Additionally, Sherlock oversees all global digital platforms, marketing technology, data analytics, and data science. All of this is on top of global infrastructure, cybersecurity, IT risk, compliance, and privacy.
Among the fortuitous programs that were in place prior to the pandemic that aided the company’s transition during the pandemic was a hybrid flexible work arrangement called Flex Place. Upon this foundation, Sherlock’s team rapidly rolled out virtual appointment booking. Her team had already made significant progress on curbside pickup for customers. Completing its rollout ensured that the company could still do business through stores even if customers were unable or less willing to go in them.
“I think our biggest shift left efforts was probably in virtual stores,” said Sherlock. “We had been considering our approach to virtual stores before Covid hit but that was something that we pulled forward very quickly and aggressively. Our stores were such masterpieces, and the experience is so unique, we felt it was important to offer the world of Ralph Lauren to our customers, even if they couldn’t physically visit our stores.” Her team rolled out a rich virtual store experience and quickly integrated it with the company’s e-commerce platform so that customers could purchase certain products via hotspots directly from their virtual experience. “At this point, we have seven different virtual store experiences, and are continuing to build on the capabilities that we have in our virtual store environment,” noted Sherlock.
One of the thornier issues that Sherlock and team had to grapple with how to assist Ralph Lauren’s design and merchandising teams, each of whom relied and thrived on in-person collaboration. Sherlock’s team set up a design collaboration platform for them to use, and it proved to be a silver lining of the pandemic inasmuch as the teams developed new ways to work and collaborate. Now the design and merchandising teams anticipate an ability to continue to work both in person and virtually, adding flexibility to their work routines.
Another process that the company took for granted had to be done in person was the product approval process, which traditionally relied on in-person meetings to discuss milestones related to lines, styles, and fit approvals. It was long assumed that those involved had to be able to physically see and touch the material in order to make decisions. “We were able to leverage our 3D product development for the approval process, which also had the side benefit of streamlining the process,” said Sherlock. “We [also] had to create online experiences to replicate and replace our showroom visits, and support different virtual ordering processes for our wholesale partners.”
As Sherlock contemplated the future, she noted three strategic priorities: experiences, data, and automation. The overarching benefit of these foci should be greater nimbleness for the company. The experiences center around creating a variety of customer journeys and allowing customers to engage in the ways that best suit them rather than dictating how they shop and purchase products from Ralph Lauren. “Everything is interoperable between our online, our [marketing technology] and our in-store capabilities are blended together so we can create seamless experiences and we have some really cool ones planned for the future,” noted Sherlock.
Next, she believes data strategy will be a critical area of focus. “We’re being very deliberate about the overall data strategy for the core elements of data, things like our product data, our digital assets, our customer data, thinking strategically about where they’re stored, how they’re accessed and leveraged, how they’re maintained,” said Sherlock. “[This will impact not only] data analytics, but [it will allow Ralph Lauren] to serve up on a real-time basis things like personalization, real-time actions, real-time decision-making…Then, of course, it leads to our capabilities in advanced analytics and data science, which for us is a major area of emphasis and focus.” She refers to IT as the “connective tissue” of the enterprise relative to data, and that this is a discipline that will lead to better collaboration across the traditional silos of the company.
Sherlock believes that greater degrees of automation will improve the efficiency of all that IT delivers while further modernizing the practices of the company to better compete in the digital age. Sherlock and her team have implemented a variety of changes that have overturned decades of inherited wisdom about how business can be done, providing new benefits along the way. Necessity is the mother of invention, it is said, and many inventions have been created due to the necessities that the pandemic has driven.
Peter High is President of Metis Strategy, a business and IT advisory firm. He has written two bestselling books, and his third, Getting to Nimble, was recently released. He also moderates the Technovation podcast series and speaks at conferences around the world. Follow him on Twitter @PeterAHigh.
In June, Sanjib Sahoo was named executive vice president and chief digital officer of Ingram Micro. He takes on this role with the company at an inflection point in its digital journey, as well as at a time of changing ownership for the company. Platinum Equity announced that it completed the acquisition of Ingram Micro from HNA Technology Co., Ltd, a part of HNA Group, on July 7, 2021 for a total enterprise value of $7.2 billion, in a transaction that includes $5.9 billion of equity value.
Ingram Micro’s CEO Alain Monie noted his excitement in Sahoo’s arrival at the company. “In his first few weeks in his new role as Chief Digital Officer, Sanjib has already proven to be an excellent fit to lead the continuation of Ingram Micro’s digital journey,” said Monie. “We are fortunate to gain a leader with a diverse and global background, tremendous technical depth, and a passion for creating an exceptional digital experience at this critical juncture in our digital evolution. He has been tasked with shaping and creating global competitive advantage and differentiation for our Technology Solutions and Cloud businesses through the development of innovative, world-class customer and user experiences.”
Monie also noted that Sahoo’s mandate includes leading the company’s current e-commerce platform IMOnline’s digital transformation to ensure the company’s customers can transact with Ingram Micro easily and intuitively.
Monie has tasked Sahoo with several initiatives related to building world-class user experience and platforms, including focusing on building changing consumption models and billing engines and leading modernization of the company’s legacy systems, which primarily serve the Technology Solutions business. “Data and machine learning is a critical component of where we are focused on building an insight-driven organization with the power of data,” said Sahoo. “Today, the vast majority of our revenues are derived from our Technology Solutions business and one of my big priorities is to focus on even better e-commerce execution through creating an integrated customer experience that is more self-service and enables solution-based selling through our platforms. There is a lot of work to lead digital transformation in a complex $49 billion annual revenue organization like Ingram Micro, but I am proud to be called on to continue the great journey that the company started few years ago.” In addition to platform innovation and e-commerce experience, Sahoo indicated that process automation will be an additional area of focus.
Sahoo joins Ingram Micro from XPO Logistics, where, for more than four years, he was the chief information officer of the Transport business. He was responsible for digital innovation, transformation, and overall technology operations including brokerage, intermodal, last mile, truckload, expedite, managed transport, and freight forwarding. Prior to his time at XPO Logistics, he was the chief information officer and chief technology officer of tradeMONSTER.
Blue Shield of California is an 83-year-old nonprofit health system that earns roughly $20 billion in annual revenue, but it caps its net income at 2% of revenue. As a result, the company has returned more than $650 million to customers and communities through its history. With 4.5 million customers across the state of California, the company has a mission to create a healthcare system that is worthy of employees’ family and friends while being sustainably affordable. The pandemic has transformed the way in which the company interacts with customers. There has been a digital relationship with customers that has deepened since March of 2020. Blue Shield of California has focused on being holistic and personalized while being high-tech and high-touch.
The leader who has catalyzed much of this change is the company’s chief information officer Lisa Davis. In her role, she runs information technology as well as the company’s data and analytics organization, while setting Blue Shield of California’s technology strategy.
Davis draws upon an unusually deep reserve of experience as a technology leader, having spent 26 years at the United States Department of Defense, rising to the post of CIO at multiple divisions of DOD. She was also a CIO at Georgetown University for nearly three and a half years. After that, she joined Intel, first as a technology leader, and then ran a $9 billion business for the company. All of this was prior to joining Blue Shield of California in February of 2020.
Davis has seen the past 16 months of the pandemic as a remarkable driver of innovation and change. By way of example, she referenced telehealth, which has been an area of focus for Davis, and an area of tremendous growth for the company during the pandemic. “Prior to the pandemic, there was a lot of consternation and a belief that telehealth wasn’t wanted by consumers and wouldn’t be leveraged or used by our members,” said Davis. “In fact, the pandemic showed just the opposite. Telehealth has soared almost 500%. We are seeing better health outcomes, and [in many cases] our members prefer telehealth appointments to having to go into the office.”
Davis also notes that an area that the healthcare system in the United States has lacked historically has been a holistic approach to personal health. The pandemic has underscored the need for the healthcare ecosystem to work more closely together to serve patients. Davis referenced Blue Shield of California’s Health Reimagined program as an example. “Imagine an experience where providers, members and payers have access to the same data; that we’re making decisions that are best for the member or the patient because they have all of the providers sharing information from a single electronic health record,” said Davis. “[We aim to make] decisions based on [information that is] holistic and personalized to that member.”
Davis believes that the best way to serve providers, members and payers is to re-orient the IT function to be more tied to the rest of the organization. She and her team have spent the last year developing a new operating model for the information technology function centered around portfolios and products. “We spent the last year changing our operating model to align against and support the key lines of business and key horizontal functions within the company,” noted Davis. “We have created seven different portfolios: three to support lines of business, four to create horizontal functions such as Medi-Cal, commercial business, senior markets, customer care, and marketing. Corporate services [is] a horizontal function and a large complex horizontal function [is] our Health and Growth Solutions organization, which has a big need around data and analytics capability.”
The portfolio teams have a variety of roles associated with each burgeoning partnership across the organization, including a portfolio leader, a solution delivery lead, solution architects, business architects, security personnel and data and analytics team members. Davis believes that this mix and the stronger partnership increases IT’s business acumen. “[This model creates a] basis of trust and a foundation with our business partners to improve collaboration, understand the opportunities that [they are] trying to solve, the capabilities that we’re trying to bring to market, so that those teams are connected hip-to-hip, working together to ultimately accelerate capabilities and services that we want to bring to market for our members,” said Davis. “That has laid a foundation [toward] being a cloud and data company that is required to support this new digital experience and vision of Health Reimagined that we want for our members.”
Davis joined Blue Shield of California only a couple of weeks before the company went into quarantine. As such, she became a test case for onboarding virtually, and she drew several lessons about how best to lead a team without the benefit of getting to know them in person. She has added more than 150 people to the IT team since the beginning of the pandemic, infusing the team with new talent at a time of great transformation, giving her ample opportunity to test those lessons. The first lesson in leading during these most unusual circumstances is to lead authentically. Davis indicated that it is necessary to “listen more, to understand where our employees are [personally and professionally], to understand the capacity for change that they can handle, to be connected to what all of our employees are dealing with.”
Second, she recognized the sanctity of communications. “I’m a firm believer that you can never communicate enough,” said Davis. “That engagement and trying to stay connected, keep the video on [on video conference calls], trying to find that connection with the employees has been extremely important in navigating this change.”
Third, she models perseverance with the team. These are uncertain times, and it is difficult to predict what opportunities or threats might be around the corner but being steadfast in moving the organization in the right direction remains paramount.
Davis draws strength that helps her persevere through her diverse set of experiences, and she understands that there is more that is common across those experiences than is different. “One of the beautiful things about being a technology leader is no matter what sector that you’re in, our challenges are all pretty much the same,” she noted. “We all address those technology opportunities at a different place, at a different maturity level. Our stakeholders are clearly different, but the technology opportunities and how we leverage technology to support mission or business outcomes doesn’t change.”
Barbara Lavernos has had a storied 30-year career at L’Oreal. She has had multiple promotions in recent months going from Chief Technology and Operations Officer of the company to President of Research, Innovation, and Technology in February 2021 to Deputy Chief Executive Officer in charge of Research, Innovation and Technology in May 2021. She indicated that her background and passion for tech-enabled innovation aligns with the company’s focus on science and innovation, which she noted: “have been at the foundation of our pioneering spirit and the success with our consumers as the L’Oréal DNA.”
Lavernos’ has driven a remarkable digital transformation at the company at the intersection of science and technology to create a powerful platform to develop advanced, personalized, innovative beauty products, services, and devices. “The science; agronomy and biotechnology allow us to renew completely our portfolio of raw materials,” noted Lavernos. “Green sciences are at the heart of the exploration of our innovation when it comes to product. Then with the exponential advance of tech, we think we are unlocking new breakthrough algorithm-based services and products. That is the idea of combining research and innovation—our roots, our DNA—with this revolution of technology. We look forward to developing innovation that pushes the boundaries of science and reinvents beauty rituals thanks to technology.”
Lavernos is passionate about what she refers to as BeautyTech. She defined the term as, “exponentially augmenting L’Oréal’s science that we have rooted [in] cutting-edge technology at scale.” She added that the company has the advantage of 112 years of knowledge and data about beauty rituals related to skin and hair. One of the biggest changes in recent years has been the focus on personalization. “In the past, most of the companies provided global products that [were believed to] suit everyone,” Lavernos said. “Today, we [have the capacity to know consumers] in real-time, to know their expectations, to know their environment, to know their skin because with virtual reality, with virtual try-on, we can have this dialogue with our consumers.”
By way of example, Lavernos highlighted an offering that was introduced at CES 2021 with the company’s Yves Saint Laurent brand. It is called Rouge Sur Measure, and it is a smart at-home method for consumers to create their own personalized lipstick, choosing from thousands of shades with one single touch. It is done through an app that can be installed on a smartphone or on a tablet. The app leverages artificial intelligence to allow the consumer to explore and try the color or the looks they want. Also, a consumer can take a picture of a pair of shoes or a handbag and match a lipstick color to them.
A second example that Lavernos offered is Lancôme Custom Made Foundation, which offers Le Teint Particulier, meaning a unique tint. It is a patented technology that creates a foundation that matches the skin tone of each individual. “The experience starts with taking a scan of the consumer’s skin, and it is done at the point-of-sale with three different places to have the perfect skin tone,” Lavernos explained. “Then this data is interpreted by the highly sophisticated algorithm, which predicts the ideal color using those three measurements taken from your skin. The algorithm goes on to determine the correct amount of each ingredient required. Then you have the mix of those ingredients. 20 minutes after, you have the perfect foundation you are dreaming of!”
Lavernos also highlighted that consumers today are much more interested that in the past about the ingredients in the products they use but also where they come from and how they are sourced and manufactured. L’Oreal now provides QR codes that provide product origin, production, manufacturing conditions, sourcing, supplier details, and the like.
Customers are also more interested in the environmental impact of the products they use. L’Oreal has established a partnership with Gjosa, a Swiss innovation and environmental company that integrates technology into everyday products to make them more environmentally friendly. The partnership has developed a multi-channel showerhead that integrates Gjosa patented In-Flow technology, that will make it possible for beauty salons to use 80% less water when washing customers’ hair. Lavernos indicated that a version for consumers to use at home is in the offing, as well.
The pandemic has pushed some consumers who had little or no experience with virtual try-ons for make-up, for example, to use the latest technology to do so. Many have enjoyed the experience so much that Lavernos believes many will continue to interact with the company virtually for try-ons even when the health crisis subsides. In 2020, more than 25% of L’Oreal’s revenue was derived via digitally via e-commerce. That represented an increase of 70% over the prior year. “Here again, there will be no way back,” said Lavernos. “Not to say that people will not come back to physical shops, but they will go to physical shops for other experiences [than in the past]. Here again, technology will play a key role for entertainment, for precision advice, for our professionals taking care of them [personally].” She believes that e-commerce sales will eventually behalf of the company’s overall sales.
Lavernos believes that her ascent to the Deputy Chief Executive Officer role at L’Oreal was aided by her background in technology. “Technology is business today,” she underscored. “My appointment in this position is really only the translation of this belief…. [technology] became fully, completely strategic, let’s say, eight years ago when we transformed into Industry 4.0, when we entered this digital shift and more and more IT came into everything. When you speak about advertising…it is tech-based today. When it comes to innovation…it is about technology. When it comes to supply chain e-commerce, it is about technology. Finance? If you are not real-time, at scale, capable [of leveraging] AI, how can you properly manage your Finance [function]?”
Therefore, Lavernos believes that her journey will be replicated many times over, as technology and digital leaders increasingly are seen as ideal candidates for the top ranks within companies. She provides a remarkable case-in-point for others to ponder and emulate.
Yasir Anwar is the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Digital Officer of Williams-Sonoma. He refers to the company as a house of brands, which include Williams-Sonoma, Williams-Sonoma Home, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Teen, Pottery Barn Kids, Mark & Graham, and Rejuvenation. Technology and digital are the central nervous system of the company, Anwar notes. “We are the world’s largest digital-first, design-led and sustainable home retailer. For that, you have to bring the whole world together to serve the customer needs.”
Anwar sees the evolution of the head of technology role as key in this transformation. He notes that “traditional” CIOs have an internal operational focus. The merging of technology and digital in his title and responsibilities implies a focus on technology projects but also on outcomes. What value is being driven? “It always has to start with the customer experience,” Anwar says. “This is the merger of the technology strength, powered and coupled by customer experience, digital experiences, and the power of digital that has been unleashing in the world as we speak.”
The results speak for themselves. Williams-Sonoma has a 70% e-commerce revenue penetration, Anwar said, up from 58% prior to the pandemic. Achieving that from a technical perspective begins with a global multi-tenant platform and a modern e-commerce platform. “We are building on top of not just microservices, but micro front-end, which would allow us to have more nimble, small, modular services,” noted Anwar. This allows the company to go to market much more rapidly. The platform is used across all of the company’s brands, which gives the company an edge when it comes to innovation. The platform allows the company to test a new idea or feature on a single brand, gather data, and quickly roll it out to others if it is successful.
As with many other companies, the pandemic accelerated digital innovation. For example, Williams-Sonoma associates use a tool called Room Planner to help advise clients on what furniture fits best in which rooms. The pandemic pushed for a faster release of a customer-facing version of the tool, which enables a customer to use the measurements of a room in their house, and then fill the space with furniture from across Williams-Sonoma’s brands. This proved to be a game changer at a time when so many people focused on updating and upgrading their homes to make them more conducive to both work and personal life. The tool also provides a connection to a professional when a customer wishes to get advice or ask questions.
When asked for Williams-Sonoma’s points of differentiation, Anwar believes one of the biggest examples is the company’s in-house design. “Many other marketplaces…sell home furnishing items,” he said. “They [typically procure] those items. They’re sourcing those items from different vendors across the world, but they do not own the design of those products.” By contrast, each of the Williams-Sonoma brands have high-performing, passionate and inspirational designers. “We own and we design everything and then we work with our in-house manufacturing locations, which we have here in the U.S.,” said Anwar, “We make in America, and then we also go to our partners, wherever we need to get the quality and diversity of design manufacturing…. I don’t think there is a company that could claim that they have such a deep ownership of the design, freshness of the design, and then the quality of the design.”
Anwar and his team have focused on two key cultural pillars in their transformation. First was moving a culture of “managers managing managers” to “experts leading experts.” This entails upskilling the team dramatically to greater levels of depth of knowledge. The second was going from a focus on output to a focus on outcomes. The result has been a transformation from a traditional retailer to a true hybrid between traditional retail and retail tech. “Our business is completely running on the rails of technology,” Anwar said. “Our goal in the next few years is to [reach a point where] tech front-loads the business propulsion and growth.”
The “house of brands” approach works for Williams-Sonoma because each brand serves different phases of an individual or a family’s life. The stores, themselves, reflect those nuances. A Pottery Barn Kids will have a different look and feel from Williams-Sonoma. That said, there are many commonalities and best practices that the unified Stores team can apply across the brands. Technology reflects a similar strategy. “If you have brands which are running on different platforms, different versions, there is a ton of costs,” he said. “If you have tested something great in one brand, you cannot go live [with] another brand because there are so many nuances.” Anwar noted that at least 85% of the company’s technology stack is common for all the brands.
Each of these trends served Williams-Sonoma well, and the stock price of the company bears this out, as it has risen more than 450% since March 20, 2020, from roughly $36 per share to the current price north of $164 per share.
Anwar is proud of the degree to which the tech and digital team fostered nimbleness in the company. “The teams were ready, the infrastructure was ready, the websites were ready, the supply chain fulfillment operational teams were ready,” noted Anwar. “It is a unique situation for all [retailers]. As they say, everybody is going through the same storm, but on different types of ships.” Anwar and his team have helped Williams-Sonoma build a ship to withstand the storm, steering more readily toward opportunity and away from danger.
Subway restaurants announced that Donagh Herlihy has joined the company as of May 3 as its new Global Chief Digital and Information Officer. In his new role, Herlihy will oversee the company’s global technology teams and initiatives to deliver modern, timely and effective platforms for Subway franchisees and guests.
Herlihy has held technology, digital and e-commerce executive roles at companies like Bloomin’ Brands, Avon Products and the Wrigley Company. His expertise includes digital innovation and strategy, guest-facing technology and international growth.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Donagh to the Subway team,” said Subway Chief Executive Officer John Chidsey. “His extensive knowledge and understanding of QSR brands and restaurant technology will allow us to accelerate our digital transformation, ultimately resulting in a better guest experience as well as revenue growth and operating efficiency for our franchisees.”
Herlihy left his prior post as Executive Vice President and Chief Information and Digital Officer at Bloomin’ Brands in February of 2020, and had been spending time on a portfolio of activities from investing in start-ups and serving on the boards of various companies. He was lured back into a full time role as a technology and digital executive because of Subway’s transformation story which is unfolding, including significant improvements to the digital experience for both guests and franchisees, enhancements to the Subway App & Delivery, the company’s loyalty program, and other digital platforms that will allow Subway to personalize guests’ experience over time. “My most immediate goal, in partnership with the technology leadership team and the broader organization, is to plot that path forward to ensure we meet the needs of our evolving business,” said Herlihy. “That being said, we also need to remain focused on simplifying and reinforcing the core systems that enable our Franchisees to run a smooth and efficient operation—that in itself is a significant effort given that we have nearly 40,000 stores in our system.”
Furthermore his interregnum between full-time roles started at the beginning of the pandemic through to last week. That gave him an opportunity to analyze the reset in consumer behaviors that has happened during the pandemic. As a result, he is a believer in serving Subway customers when, where and how they like, while equipping franchisees with the tools they need to drive traffic to their restaurants. “Before I arrived at Subway, the team drove incredible growth in our digital business with sales increasing over 115% year-over-year, and this momentum has continued as consumer behavior evolves even further,” noted Herlihy. “One component of this growth was the launch of Contactless Curbside Pick Up at over 14,000 of our Subway locations nationwide, at the pace of 1,800 restaurants per week—a massive undertaking from both a technology and broader operations perspective.”
When asked about his plans for the future, he noted that the company’s digital roadmap is focused on the guest with the priority of meeting customers where they are. “That means exciting non-traditional programs in the pipeline, efforts to bolster our loyalty program, which grew considerably in 2020 to more than 27 million, and significant enhancements to the ordering experience that are making it even easier for guests to enjoy their favorite Footlong,” said Herlihy by way of offering examples.
Herlihy has been based in Florida since joining Bloomin’ Brands. He will maintain a home there and split his time between is home office and the company’s headquarters in Milford, Connecticut.
Life insurance does not seem like the sexiest of segments. Most of the major players in the industry were founded 150 years ago or more. They often develop such scale and recurring revenue streams that they can develop a bit of strategic laziness, as well. These were among the reasons why entrepreneur, Peter Colis, saw opportunity as he evaluated the life insurance industry.
Colis had a job in advertising prior to attending Stanford Business School. When he arrived in Palo Alto, he met Lingke Wang, a computer scientist who also had an entrepreneurial bent. As they scoured industries that presented opportunities, life insurance checked a lot of boxes suggesting major opportunities. Investors have agreed, as the company has a stable of A-grade venture capital firms have invested in their company, Ethos Life, including Sequoia, (see my interview with Sequoia’s lead investor in Ethos Life here), Accel, and GV, Google’s venture arm. Additionally, Jay-Z and Kevin Durant have also invested in the company.
Life insurance was attractive for two reasons. First, the product is difficult to obtain. It is time intensive, confusing, and it requires many tests to validate coverage. Second, Colis highlights that the incentives for brokers, who are paid on commission, often lead to consumers purchasing coverage that is beyond their needs and their means.
In this interview, Colis describes his entrepreneurial journey, the growth and team composition of Ethos Life, as well as his thoughts on what is next.
Peter High: You are the Co-founder and CEO of Ethos Life, a San Francisco-based company that you founded in September 2016. Your organization has caught quite a bit of momentum, especially in the investor community. Could you talk about the business and the problem that you were looking to solve when you created it?
Peter Colis: My partner Lingke Wang and I started Ethos when we were roommates at Stanford Business School. I came from a background in advertising, and Lingke came from a technical background. Originally, we got interested in a different aspect of life insurance, and we learned a great deal about it. In doing so, we came to understand that life insurance is incredibly important. More than five percent of children in the U.S. are going to lose a parent by the time they turn 18, and 70 percent of families are so unprepared that if they lose a breadwinner, they would be in total financial ruin within three months. This data implies that Americans are vastly unprepared for the loss of a breadwinner. While this is an important industry, we realized that it is executed poorly by the existing players, so we saw an opportunity to dramatically improve how it is executed with technology.
Ethos is a modern and ethical life insurance company. Unlike the traditional life insurance experiences, with Ethos, you go to our website, you fill out an application online in ten minutes, and then you are done. There are no medical exams, no blood tests, no paper applications, and no pushy agents. We launched in early 2018, we are now processing thousands of applications per month, and we look forward to continued growth.
