Inez Cooper
Inez is the founder of William Russell, so she’s involved in all aspects of the company since the very beginning. She chose to trade a career in the City of London to start up in a new niche: ‘expat insurance’. Now that niche is worth $12bn each year…
It’s almost 30 years since I started William Russell from my attic in a very small house. My 6 month old son William’s bedroom in fact. He had to move in with me until we moved to our first proper office.
During that 30 years the world – and the business world – has changed. The internet was just coming, but in those early days we relied on fax, post, and the telephone.
The business flooded in– so needing help, I asked my brother James to join me. James joined as Sales Director and we established connections with brokers and customers around the globe – many of whom we are honoured to call customers to this day.
Right from the start we wanted to provide a highly efficient service, with fairness as its underlying principal.
Inez Cooper, Managing Director
Sparked probably by our love of travel, and of course the locations of our customers, we quickly established connections in expat haunts such as Dubai and Hong Kong.
I don’t quite know what has happened to the last 28 years – they have flown by, and the business has flourished. We have a very strong partnerships with Allianz, since 2000, and other insurance companies around the world.
Today, Will, who was evicted from his bedroom at an early age, is also involved in the business and is at the forefront of our ambitious plans for the future in this digital world.
We still care passionately about service and fairness, and we care about our staff, many of whom have been with us for years.
It is wonderful to see the business being energised and thriving thanks to our talented and enthusiastic technical teams, and our naturally helpful and kind customer facing staff.
Together we are creating a business for our customers, for now and the future.
