Benenden Health CEO Tom Woolgrove oversees a provider which covers more consumer lives than any other in the UK.
As a former rugby union and league amateur player, it’s no surprise when Tom Woolgrove, CEO of leading healthcare provider Benenden Health, says that leadership “is a contact sport in many ways”.
Woolgrove has had a varied career at the top end of the financial sector over 30 years and has packaged a smorgasbord of leadership traits into his own authentic style. One that led him, last October, to take the helm at the not-for-profit, mutual healthcare provider serving nearly 900,000 members.
“You need to be visible, you need to be out with your customers, with your frontline colleagues, to understand how the business is operating,” says Woolgrove. “Don’t sit in your ivory tower and you will be much more successful moving forward.”
Woolgrove is based in St Albans but spends a majority of the working week at Benenden Health’s headquarters in York or at the firm’s main internal hospital in Benenden, Kent — originally a tuberculosis sanatorium — with the company now set to celebrate its 120th anniversary in 2025.
“I think it’s true of a number of mutuals, there is real history and values of a member-centric organisation that has been around for as long as we have,” he says.
“That is a positive and a strength and the size and scale that we are. You are a guardian of that history and there is a certain responsibility to make sure we are here for another 100 years.
Benenden Health's main hospital is in Kent, while members have access to over 500 hospitals for diagnostic services and over 40 for treatments. ·Air Video UK
“The challenge is to innovate, change and grow. Just because we have been successful in the past doesn’t mean you will drive forward.”
As a CEO who has been in the job for six months, Woolgrove admits his current outlook is about “evolution rather than revolution”.
“Fundamentally our membership is changing,” he adds. “We want to attract new members, probably different demographics to what we have had previously. It’s balancing the history and being forward looking.”
Woolgrove’s extensive career includes positions as CEO of Premium Credit, CTO for the Bank of Ireland, MD of UK Personal Lines at Direct Line Group (DLG.L) and the same position at Halifax Insurance. He has also served as president of the Chartered Insurance Institute.
“In some ways I’ve learned to adapt my leadership style to different organisations and how you deliver within those,” says Woolgrove, noting that his visible leadership style came to the fore while at Halifax.
“A lot of the successful retailers have that connection to frontline colleagues, who understand what their customers want, are strongly engaged and it stood me in good stead to come here and understand what our members want.
Benenden Health are involved in variety of team community events across the UK.
“Mutuals are just as commercial as any other business. The way we measure success is different but fundamentally you have to be commercial, and we have to be custodians of our membership funds.”
Woolgrove is also driving awareness of the Benenden name against its bigger competitors and believes its membership offering “is a very strong and affordable proposition”.
“A corporate could pay the same price, basically £15.50 a month for their employees, and that gives them access to GPs 24/7, diagnostic tests and treatments.
“We don’t medically underwrite if you make a claim, premiums don’t go up but we are there in that mutual idea of providing affordable healthcare to all.”
Inclusivity is also at the heart of Benenden Health’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) awareness, implemented before Woolgrove came into the post. He will, though, continue to build on being an inclusive employer, a practice which US president Donald Trump has called an end to stateside in the federal government.
“The UK on balance is a very diverse and inclusive country and my sense is that the US has become divided and gone too far with the pendulum,” says Woolgrove.
“We don’t operate in the US but it’s interesting for those businesses who have US subsidiaries and how they are reacting. It’s a core part of our mutuality that we are inclusive and serve a diverse membership base.
Benenden Health's CEO is at the helm of an organisation committed to building on its DE&I strategy.
“Creating a diverse and inclusive workforce, you want them to feel connected and serve the organisation.”
Woolgrove then highlights a company value — ‘bring all your staff to work’ — during his four years at Direct Line. “What we really wanted was for people to feel comfortable but to bring their big characters and not be afraid to mask it,” he adds.
“It’s about getting the most out of our colleagues but we should reflect our diverse membership internally as well.”
With digital sales now accounting for 80% of Benenden’s new business, the healthcare provider, which employs 800 staff, is now aiming towards 1 million members.
“It's about allowing the organisation to deliver at pace and also attempting to identify the opportunities,” says Woolgrove. “One of the challenges is visibility and awareness and it’s how you enforce our challenger status.”
CEO SAYS: Tom Woolgrove on…
Understanding leadership
I nearly went into the Army and a strong view there is that leadership is about servant leadership and you are empowering everyone underneath you.
Tom Woolgrove, pictured middle at Benenden's main hospital in Kent, is a 'visible leader'.
My first job in industry was at Halifax Bank of Scotland. Andy Hornby [former HBOS boss] has had a mixed press in how he worked, but the one thing you learned from him is the visibility he had in all the branches, the way he understood what was and wasn’t working and he then took that back into head office and really drove change. It was all about making the experience better for customers.
It was quite a flat organisation, very much about empowering each of the business units to deliver and that has really stuck with me today.
