Headquarters:

Mississauga, Canada

Year founded:

1997 (Ricoh Canada)

Number of employees:

3 partners, 4 employees

Phone:

1 800 263 8537

Email:

clientservices@ricoh.ca

Website:

www.ricoh.ca/legal

LinkedIn:

linkedin.com/company/ricoh-canada-inc-

“We prioritise embracing cutting-edge technologies, creative problem solving and continuous improvement to enhance our premium funding solutions and provide exceptional value to our clients”

Brett Bastow, IQumulate Premium FundinG

Jonathon Shea

Vice President, Legal and Managed Services

Sean Lynch

Director, Client Solutions – Legal Services

Mike Fast

President and Chief Executive Officer, Ricoh Canada

Leadership

Jonathon Shea is a seasoned executive with over two decades of experience. He joined Ricoh in 2019 and has consistently demonstrated a commitment to driving success through thoughtful leadership. He has a strong track record of building and leading effective sales teams, streamlining operations, and fostering Ricoh’s culture of excellence.

Vice President, Legal and Managed Services

Jonathon Shea

Sean Lynch (BA, JD, LLM) is the director, client solutions, legal services for Ricoh North America. A former litigator, he has worked in the areas of eDiscovery, proactive data management, and information governance for more than 10 years. As a subject matter expert for Ricoh’s eDiscovery and data management service offerings, Lynch advises a range of clients – from sole practitioners to multinational corporations – on how to best manage data and reduce financial and reputational risk. Lynch’s areas of focus during law school were intellectual property and North American cross-border legal issues. In his LLM, he focused on international cross-border litigation, judicial review, and human rights, writing on the dialogue theory of judicial-legislative interaction. Professionally, his interests lie in legal privilege, machine learning, and bias in artificial intelligence systems, among other areas. He regularly speaks at industry events and conferences on the usefulness of machine learning, the purpose and importance of information governance strategy, cyber security/breach response, AI, document review, and litigation preparedness. Lynch is a member of the Ontario Bar Association, the Sedona Conference (working Group 6), and the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium. He is called to the Bar of the Province of Ontario (non-practicing).

Director, Client Solutions – Legal Services

Sean Lynch

Mike Fast was appointed president and chief executive officer of Ricoh Canada in April 2021. In this role, he has overall responsibility for the leadership of Ricoh’s Canadian operations. Fast leads the Canadian team in their mission to “empower digital workplaces”. Most recently, as chief operating officer of Ricoh Canada, Fast was instrumental in advancing the team’s journey to becoming a digital services company while concurrently transforming the Canadian organization’s operating model to become efficient and streamlined. Fast led the Canadian organization during the most unprecedented, unpredictable event in the company’s history – from the onset of COVID-19 and throughout its many varying stages to date. With over 30 years of professional experience, all of which have been dedicated to serving Ricoh Canada, Fast has shaped Ricoh’s transformation into a services-led organization. Prior to becoming the chief operating officer, Fast served as vice president, services delivery. With over half the Canadian organization reporting through him, he led the team through a number of strategic changes to enable the organization to exceed customer expectations in a rapidly changing marketplace. This included the strategic redesign of the service delivery model, founded on the principles of “one team” to support the end-to-end needs of the customer. Fast’s passion for customer service has entrenched a “customer first” model within Ricoh. He was one of the early champions of Ricoh’s net promoter score program. This highly successful program continues to provide the organization with important customer feedback.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Ricoh Canada

Mike Fast

BRETT BASTOW, IQUMULATE PREMIUM FUNDINGs

Leadership

“Our clients can expect IQumulate to support their business in several ways, providing an understanding of what premium funding solutions are available”

GRAEME GORDON, IQUMULATE PREMIUM FUNDING

BRETT BASTOW, IQUMULATE PREMIUM FUNDING

Leadership

Jessica Lockett

Director, Revenue and Growth, Legal Services – eDiscovery

Jessica Lockett is an experienced lawyer who has spent the last 10+ years working in the eDiscovery arena and has overseen teams to successfully complete eDiscovery projects over a wide range of industries and in relation to large-scale and complex commercial litigation and arbitration, class actions, investigations, and productions for regulatory requests. As the past director of review services for Ricoh Canada, Lockett leveraged her expertise to develop and launch Ricoh’s Intelligent Review service offering – a unique, analytics-driven, customized approach to document review. As the current director, revenue and growth, she works to establish senior-level partnerships and continues to provide both internal and client support and consultancy on leading-edge solutions and expanding Ricoh Canada’s Intelligent eDiscovery service offerings, including its Intelligent Review. Prior to entering the field of eDiscovery, Lockett practiced law as legal counsel to TD Bank, where she provided legal, regulatory, and risk management support to its wealth and investment lines of business. She received her legal training at Goodmans LLP, a leading national business and transaction law firm, and was called to the Ontario bar in 2009.

Director, Revenue and Growth, Legal Services – eDiscovery

Jessica Lockett

Helen Johnson

Partner – Tax Advisory

Helen Johnson leads the PwC Legal tax practice and the New Zealand international tax team. She advises clients on all aspects of New Zealand tax, with focus areas including cross-border and domestic property and infrastructure investment, tax rulings and disputes, structuring and capital raising. Her clients include corporate groups, managed funds and high-net-worth family groups. She is also interested in tax policy. Johnson is a member of the New Zealand Law Society's Tax Law Committee and regularly presents at industry seminars. She previously worked at top-tier law firms in New Zealand and London.

Partner – Tax Advisory

Helen Johnson

Stevens & Associates Lawyers is a leading and trusted employment law firm based in Sydney known for delivering high-quality legal expertise in the area of employment law and industrial relations across Australia, alongside a proven track record of effectively and swiftly resolving a variety of workplace law issues. In the past year, the firm’s growth has been notable. It has: • experienced a 213% growth in the number of client matters, increasing from 149 client matters in the 2022 financial year to 390 client matters in the 2023 financial year • improved its online visibility, leading to over 50 online enquiries each month and a conversion rate of client leads of up to 40% • significantly expanded the breadth and type of matters that it advises on day to day, which has increased the firm’s skillsets, diversity and resilience • expanded its community outreach by collaborating with local Sydney venues for client seminars and continuing active participation in a Sydney small/family business group Stevens & Associates Lawyers has adapted to digital trends by implementing an effective strategy with SEO and web design, resulting in a structural shift that has seen increased representation of employees where the firm previously mainly advised employers. The firm’s recognition as a “Fast Firm” attests to its momentum in the employment law space.

“IQumulate is on a technology journey, and we’re just getting started”

Wayne Tower, IQumulate Premium Funding

Chris Baldock

Partner – Employment

Thierry Pascal

Head of Credit and Legal

Cemal Akgul

Head of Risk and Collections

Stephen McMillan

Commercial Manager

Chris Baldock leads the PwC Legal employment practice in New Zealand. Taking a highly commercial approach, his team helps employers navigate the nuances and challenges of New Zealand’s unique and evolving labour law regime. Baldock has worked with some of New Zealand’s largest organisations and advises on all manner of workplace legal issues, including statutory compliance, M&A people matters, workplace safety, disciplinary and performance issues, complex restructuring and change processes, Holidays Act compliance, collective bargaining and industrial action, and regulatory investigations and prosecutions. With a commercial litigation background, he has appeared regularly before the Employment Relations Authority and the courts.

Partner – Employment

Chris Baldock

Thierry Pascal has over 13 years of experience in business and corporate banking in various financial/credit analytical and relationship management roles with the NAB and CBA. After a career break to undertake postgraduate studies, he joined GE Capital as a senior risk analyst in premium funding in 2010. Following the divestment of the premium funding business to the Macquarie Group in 2015, he joined Macquarie Premium Funding and was promoted to credit risk manager, where he led the credit underwriting team. Following the re-branding to IQumulate Premium Funding, Pascal was recently promoted to head of credit and legal, a role that sees him manage the credit underwriting team as well as oversee IQumulate’s in-house legal function. Pascal holds undergraduate and postgraduate tertiary qualifications in accounting and law.

Head of Credit and Legal

Thierry Pascal

Cemal Akgul sees the head of risk and collections role as pivotal in guiding and influencing business decisions. He has more than 15 years of experience across financial and government services, most recently with the NDIS, where he was the leading consultant driving the Risk Management process’ nationwide. Prior to that, he served various roles at BMW Finance across the United States, Hong Kong, Germany and Australia. During Akgul’s tenure at BMW Finance, he predominately worked in risk management, guiding the organisation through seismic changes between 2016 and 2018. In his time prior, he was based out of New York, leading BMW Finance’s American subsidiary's market risk and data analytics teams between 2011 and 2016. Akgul values a balanced approach to business, encourages a positive work culture and is passionate about teaching and guiding the business and individuals at IQumulate.

Head of Risk and Collections

Cemal Akgul

Stephen McMillan first entered the financial services Industry when he joined GE Capital as a finance analyst in 2008, from which he progressed through roles working both onshore and offshore. From there, he moved into Pacific Premium Funding as a financial planning and analysis leader in 2012 and was a key resource in the evolution of the business, first with the successful sale to Macquarie Pacific Funding and then the following progression into IQumulate Premium Funding, where he is now the commercial manager. As commercial manager, McMillan leads a team that is responsible for commercial analysis and business support, identifying and reporting improvement initiatives, and the securitization and treasury functions of the business.

Commercial Manager

Stephen McMillan

One culmination of these efforts has been the real-world, needs-based IQEdge solution. A one-stop online quoting tool designed for both the Australian and New Zealand markets, IQEdge delivers quotes in under 60 seconds. Plus, the solution offers quote comparison and quote versioning capabilities, enabling users to review vital historical and financial data in a single page view. IQEdge can streamline and automate application processing, underwriting document verification and payment collection, cutting the need for manual labour and minimising processing errors. A digital “self-service” platform, IQEdge, reduces the need for customer and administrative support. Meanwhile, borrowers can access their accounts, make payments and manage their policies independently and through sales and support teams, which are always available for further assistance. “We’ve created a quality platform that simplifies the quoting process yet amplifies the customer experience,” says Gordon. “It’s a real game changer.” IQumulate offers an online digital quoting tool to clients. The best-in-market solution enables IQumulate to tailor funding offerings to brokers that align with their prefered distribution channel.

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Small business

Brokers’ Pick – Professional liability

Broker's Pick – Personal Accident and Illness Insurance

Turnaround time – claims

BDM support

Broker communication, training and development

Overall service level

BDM support

Medal

Overall service level

Broker communication, training and development

BDM support

Turnaround time – claims

Broker's Pick – Personal Accident and Illness Insurance

Brokers’ Pick – Professional liability

Small business

Medal

Overall service level

Broker communication, training and development

BDM support

Turnaround time – claims

Broker's Pick – Personal Accident and Illness Insurance

Brokers’ Pick – Professional liability

Small business

What does IQumulate have in mind for the future? “IQumulate is on a technology journey, and we’re just getting started,” says Wayne Tower, CEO. “Through continuous engagement with our clients, partners, marketplace and industry, we will listen to the needs as they arise and position our business to be agile and respond to changes as they occur. “Faster decision-making innovations such as AI-powered decision support systems can expedite the underwriting and approval process, leading to quicker responses to clients. This can improve client satisfaction and potentially attract more business, with the potential to allow IQumulate to capture a larger market share, whilst continuing to deliver service excellence to clients.” “As forward-thinkers with a digital and ‘do it better’ mindset, we collectively and proactively look to learn and improve on our customer experience for our clients, paving the way for successful business outcomes for our clients and our business in the coming years ahead. “We’re excited for the future and look forward to what’s on the horizon.”

https://iqumulate.com/

IQumulate invests in education and people, which are vital to attracting new business and talent to the company. “We have long tenures for several of our key staff, including some in leadership positions, and this sound working knowledge of our business, practices and industry provides great insights and a wealth of experience to offer our clients,” says Bastow. “Our new head of sales, Graeme Gordon, formerly manager for New Zealand, joins us in Australia to drive our sales strategy and lead our team to successful outcomes for our clients and our business. We look forward to great things ahead with Graeme as he continues to be active and present in the New Zealand market as well as building sound working relationships and new connections in Australia.” Clients can also expect a lot from working with IQumulate. “Through active engagement with our trusted broker network, IQumulate provides relevant information, education and training content,” says Graeme Gordon, head of sales. “Our clients can expect IQumulate to support their business in several ways, providing an understanding of what premium funding solutions are available and how IQumulate can spread the cost of insurance and help borrowers get the right level of insurance cover to free up their cash flow for other expenses or business growth opportunities. Premium funding is often considered a tool for those who simply cannot afford to pay their premiums in full. While this is certainly a significant driver for many, it is also successfully used by profitable companies who use premium funding to manage their cash flows more wisely or better manage their liquidity.”

What does IQumulate have in mind for the future? “IQumulate is on a technology journey, and we’re just getting started,” says Wayne Tower, CEO. “Through continuous engagement with our clients, partners, marketplace and industry, we will listen to the needs as they arise and position our business to be agile and respond to changes as they occur. “Faster decision-making innovations such as AI-powered decision support systems can expedite the underwriting and approval process, leading to quicker responses to clients. This can improve client satisfaction and potentially attract more business, creating a competitive advantage with the potential to allow IQumulate to command premium pricing or capture a larger market share. “As forward-thinkers with a digital and ‘do it better’ mindset, we collectively and proactively look to learn and improve on our customer experience for our clients, paving the way for successful business outcomes for our clients and our business in the coming years ahead. “We’re excited for the future and look forward to what’s on the horizon.”

Claire Watson

Product Manager

Claire Watson

Commercial Manager

Stephen McMillan

Claire Watson

Product Manager

Claire Watson

Product Manager

Claire Watson

Similarly, brokers can expect:

top-in-class service fast response times competitive financing options annual re-marketing of policies to get the best deal hassle-free claims experience dynamic brokers eager to impress who do not take the business for granted

“Our brokers understand their clients’ business needs and pair them with the right product and appropriate level of cover for any foreseeable risk or contingency”

Cynthia Yap, Dynamic Insurance Services

“Our brokers are encouraged to ‘specialise’ in a market niche because it allows them to negotiate an insurance scheme with the underwriters for the most competitive insurance premiums”

Cynthia Yap, Dynamic Insurance Services

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Ricoh is a Canadian leader in delivering innovative eDiscovery solutions that bring together best-in-class technologies with expertise to provide secure and timely access to relevant information. Servicing both Canadian and international markets, we take a consultative approach to help clients navigate their most pressing data challenges and have built a strong reputation for unparalleled customer responsiveness, high-quality deliverables, and knowledgeable professional services. At Ricoh, we’re empowering our customers to respond to our changing world with actionable insights. We believe having access to the right information translates to better business agility, more human experiences, and the ability to thrive in today’s age of hybrid and borderless work. Through our people, experience, and solutions, we create competitive advantage every day for over 1.4 million businesses around the globe. To us, there’s no such thing as too much information.

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the best mentorship and support for whatever stage of their business or clientele one of Australia’s most attractive commission rates

Ms Yap’s own experience drove her to devise a viable broker model and commission structure that can support many startup brokers with a fast-growing clientele. This allows for a greater number of authorised representatives who are incentivised to target particular industries to maximise economies of scale, while a robust IT and support system ensures that brokers can offer the best possible service 24/7. “Our clients never have to wait longer than two hours for a response, and our brokers are contactable over the weekends for urgent claims,” says Ms Yap. “Our brokers understand their clients’ business needs and pair them with the right product and appropriate level of cover for any foreseeable risk or contingency.” The firm has made extensive efforts to refine its offering, and in 2019, it commissioned a comprehensive competitor review of the broker network market and found several gaps in the support for smaller independent brokers. This resulted in a significant investment in IT infrastructure to onboard brokers from anywhere in Australia. The tiers in the commission structure were simplified to make it more attractive for the smaller independent brokers to join while providing them Steadfast member benefits.

Dynamic Insurance Services is also continuing to boost its growth with initiatives such as:

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a 12-month branding and marketing campaign investment in digital assets and content that can support the marketing efforts of brokers strengthening their stable specialised insurance schemes to offer even better value for money for clients

Ms Yap says, “We have a supportive work environment with an emphasis on mentorship and wellbeing. This is especially helpful for female insurance professionals, who often have to balance professional goals with family duties. We actively encourage brokers to break new ground by establishing market niches and insurance schemes that best leverage their experience and contacts.”

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