Mark joined Carbon in 2020, bringing more than 20 years’ experience in financial technology working for high-profile blue-chip companies. In today’s feature, he discusses his role at Carbon, the development of our proprietary Graphene ecosystem, and what the future holds for our technology stack.
As Chief Technology Officer at Carbon, I’m responsible for overseeing and developing the company’s technology infrastructure and systems – providing our partners and underwriters with the data-led intelligence needed to effectively build portfolios and manage their books of business.
Given this remit I’m fortunate to be involved in so many of the exciting initiatives we are implementing across the business, building on our strong foundations as we enter the next stage of Carbon’s journey.
Carbon’s digital spine – supercharging our business with quality data
If you meet me or any of the Carbon team, we are almost certainly going to reference Graphene at some point during the conversation. Graphene is Carbon’s proprietary data ecosystem which acts as the backbone or ‘digital spine’ of the business, providing a large suite of ingestion, validation, and analytics capabilities.
In many ways Graphene is one of Carbon’s key USPs. There is not another solution in the market which can provide the real-time insight and value to both delegated authority partners and in-house teams offered by Graphene. Its ability to create and present a single source of truth in a digestible manner is unparalleled, while its predictive capabilities increase in value minute-by-minute and day-by-day.
A big part of our success in scaling Graphene is the lack of legacy systems in our technology stack. Many peers in the industry use infrastructure which is years if not decades old. Much of this tech is ill-suited to meet the demands of stakeholders across the delegated authority space in 2026, simply because the pace of innovation is so rapid. At Carbon, we’ve the distinct advantage of being able to pick and choose the right technologies and partners and integrate them seamlessly into our existing capabilities - supercharging our development and ability to disrupt pre-existing operating models.
The result: Graphene can provide our partners and underwriters with a 360-degree view of cross-class signals, allowing them to identify loss signals earlier, effectively adjust underwriting appetite, protect capital before deterioration embeds and spot opportunities early in the market cycle.
This isn’t just theory, we’ve fantastic case studies from across markets. For example, our Canadian property portfolio was experiencing a spate of fire losses near tobacconists due to gang wars related to illicit tobacco sales. By identifying this quickly via Graphene claims reporting, and by working closely with our coverholders, we could exclude risks next to tobacconists - the first market in our coverholders’ panels to implement these changes - removing losses related to tobacconist fires from our books.
Beyond Graphene – how our other tools add value
While Graphene is best-in-class, it’s not the only technology that makes Carbon unique. As well as Graphene, we use several tools to manage the portfolios of our underwriters and support partners.
Neo: agentic AI for portfolio rebalancing
Neo is one of these. It analyses current and previous performance trends across individual portfolios and uses this information to suggest rebalancing of portfolios where needed – enabling us to be agile and adjust our underwriting appetite. We’ve built Neo using agentic AI, and it’s a fantastic example of how our technology at Carbon is developing.
Pulse: a whole-book view of performance
Similarly, we’ve built a ‘Pulse’ tool which provides our CUO with regular overviews of Carbon’s entire book of business, allowing him to identify macro trends and if specific lines are starting to over or under perform. In today’s softening market this level of insight is critical in determining our future underwriting appetite and simultaneously informs our frequent conversations with our coverholder partners.
Building our moat and protecting our place in the market
Despite the best-in-class infrastructure we’ve built at Carbon, we can’t be complacent. The pace of innovation is so rapid that without constant improvements, technology that is market-leading now could easily become the baseline in just a few years.
At Carbon, we think of these improvements as building – or reinforcing – our moat.
Ever since the business was founded, we’ve relentlessly focused on solving the long-standing data problems within the delegated authority space, to give coverholders and underwriters the confidence to maintain underwriting profitability through market cycles.
Proprietary data at scale
Today, Graphene holds £6 billion of premium data. This incredibly rich dataset allows us to provide tangible insight to underwriters, with learnings taken from actual portfolio performance.
From insight to predictive intelligence
Similarly, Carbon’s consistent focus on interoperability of systems and strength in ingesting disparate bordereaux data means we’re in a fantastic position to take advantage of advances in generative AI to provide predictive intelligence to underwriters and partners.
Beyond the technology, our structure and culture also set us apart. Throughout the company we’ve a strong focus on giving our teams the tools they need to thrive and improve. One initiative I’ve pushed as CTO is the introduction of ‘AI champions’ across every department. These champions support colleagues in using AI, helping them enhance workflows, and they’re responsible for responsible use and governance of our AI tools. Their impact has been incredible, and I can’t wait to see how they take advantage of the further advancements coming down the track.
As well as Carbon’s AI champions, our Quant team have real impact, supporting our coverholders and internal underwriters. My colleague, Carbon COO Rebecca Ince, pointed out the quant team as one of the reasons Carbon is genuinely ahead, and I couldn’t agree more.
Altogether, our technology, incredibly rich data, and culture are elements which new entrants to the delegated authority market cannot replicate quickly and are why I’m so confident in Carbon’s success in the coming years.
What the future holds for Carbon
Looking ahead, we’ll continue to enhance our data ingestion, validation, and presentation capabilities – providing an even greater level of accuracy and higher level of insight for users.
Across the next 12 months, I expect Graphene to ingest more than 30,000 spreadsheets of bordereaux data. This is a massive amount of information which contributes to the knowledge we’ve built over the years, helping reduce the loss ratios across portfolios.
Our recent investment from FTV Capital will further supercharge our development. Notably, the company’s internal Propel team gives us access to seasoned AI specialists with incredible experience in utilising AI across FTV’s portfolio of companies. I’ll be working closely with them as we consider how to ensure Carbon takes advantage of continuous AI enhancements, maintaining our challenger mindset and our place as the global leader in portfolio underwriting.
2026 and beyond will be an exciting time for Carbon. The foundations are all in place, we have a fantastic technology stack and brilliant team, and the future is bright.
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