Becky Downing, the founder of buzzvault and former COO of By Miles, has joined Genasys as Chief Operating Officer.
The appointment is the latest senior addition at the policy administration platform as it expands its international footprint and broadens its client base across insurers, MGAs and brokers. Downing reports to Group CEO Andre Symes and leads operations across the business, with responsibility for delivery, customer success and operational scaling across the UK, Africa and RoW. She works alongside the existing executive team to strengthen delivery, deepen customer relationships and build operational infrastructure for the next stage of growth.
Downing has spent over a decade as an insurance operator and founder. At buzzvault, the connected home insurance proposition where she was founding CEO, she raised one of the largest insurtech seed rounds in European history from White Mountains Insurance Group, and led the business through commercial partnerships that included one with Munich Re Digital Partners. After buzzvault she was Venture Director at Admiral Pioneer, the venture-building arm of Admiral Group, where she seeded and scaled new businesses inside the group. She was named Insurance Leader of the Year at the 2020 Women in Finance Awards and is a co-author of The InsurTECH Book. She arrives at Genasys from By Miles, the UK pay-per-mile motor insurer, where she was COO with responsibility for customer experience, operations and people.
Policy administration platforms sit at the centre of how insurers, MGAs and brokers run their books. Legacy systems have historically dominated the mid-market segment, with long implementation cycles and limited configurability. Newer cloud-based platforms have begun displacing those incumbents in the mid-market, attracting insurers and MGAs looking to launch products faster or move existing books off ageing infrastructure. The shift toward modern platforms has accelerated in the past few years as insurers and MGAs face pressure to launch products faster and reduce the cost of maintaining legacy stacks. Genasys is one of the platforms competing for that business, with a client base that spans the UK, Africa and other international markets.
Downing said of her move: “Genasys is one of the few insurance technology companies actively displacing legacy vendors in the mid-market. A lot of platforms claim that. Genasys is doing it. The opportunity to scale that operationally, and to build the kind of culture that lets a fast-growing business keep its edge as it grows, is what attracted me to the role.”
Andre Symes, Group CEO at Genasys, said: “Becky is exactly the kind of senior operator we want around the table as we move into the next phase of growth. She has a depth of experience across insurance and technology that few people can match, and she joins at exactly the right moment to help us turn momentum into scale.”
The COO appointment follows other recent senior moves at Genasys, including the non-executive director appointments of Gavin Routledge and Hugh Hessing announced earlier this year. The business is also preparing for BIBA 2026, the British Insurance Brokers’ Association annual conference, where it will meet brokers and MGA partners alongside its existing client base.
Genasys is a cloud-based, no-code policy administration platform built for the full insurance lifecycle. The platform’s configurable workflows, automation and open API architecture help insurers, MGAs and brokers optimise their processes, launch products at speed and connect policy, claims and billing in a single system. Downing’s arrival adds operational experience to the executive team as the business continues to grow its UK and African operations and expand its presence among international insurers, MGAs and brokers.
