Creating value through health and innovation: interview with Justin Skinner, Group CFO of Vitality

For Justin Skinner, Group CFO of Vitality UK, value isn't just about financial performance, it's about improving health outcomes, fostering a purpose-driven culture, and making a lasting impact on society.

As part of a global health and life insurance provider, operating in 41 markets and impacting 42 million lives globally, Justin sees finance as the driver of both innovation and long-term change. From customer engagement to corporate strategy, he shares how Vitality's approach to value shapes every aspect of the business.
 

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Hi Justin, tell me about Vitality and your role as CFO?

Vitality has been in the UK market for about 15 years and currently covers 1.9 million lives in the UK market. Compared to our competitors we’re still a relatively new player, but we’ve grown fast. We’re now the third-largest PMI business, and our health division has expanded five times faster than the market over the past five years. On the life insurance side, we’re a top-three provider, and last year, our sales grew 11%, compared to just 2% market growth.

I've been with Vitality for about eight years now. I initially joined as Chief Risk Officer, coming from a risk and compliance background. I spent four years in that role, then stood in as interim Life Management Director during the pandemic, before stepping up to CFO. I’m not an accountant by background, rather I’ve learned on the job. But while that might seem like a disadvantage, I actually think it’s been really valuable to bring a different perspective to the role.

How broad is the remit of the finance team?

All executives are encouraged to be engaged across the business. We have weekly meetings which the CEO uses as both a team briefing and a way to bring diversity into decision-making.

We’ve always had a strong culture of getting people involved, and my background pushes me to take a broader view of the organisation. Of course, this also benefits the wider finance teams, allowing them to get involved in all areas of the business – marketing, people, premises, services, operations, change, new business, sales, retention, IT. We get to see it all.

When it comes to supporting growth, would you say you’re more finance or value driven?

They feed into each other for sure, but ultimately the success of the business is down to a clear, purpose-driven mission, which has remained unchanged for over 30 years.
 

Our core purpose at Vitality is simple: to enhance and protect people’s lives. That’s been our guiding principle since day one, and it continues to shape every strategic decision we make.

Unlike traditional insurers, we don’t just sell insurance and pay claims. Our whole model is based on helping people lead healthier lives. This means we don’t just focus on risk and pricing but on actively improving the health and well-being of our customers.

This has created a culture where everything we do is centred around engagement – getting people involved in their health and wellness, rather than just being passive insurance policyholders. This engagement-driven model is what makes Vitality different from our competitors and is something we live and breathe from the inside out.

You mentioned engagement is key. How does that translate into financial success?

At the heart of our strategy is a concept we call shared value, which means that when customers engage in healthy behaviours, everyone benefits. We’ve seen clear evidence that engaged customers have: 13% higher physical activity levels; 20% improvement in healthy eating habits; 4.8 years longer life expectancy for highly active members; and 28% lower healthcare costs.

The financial impact is significant. Healthier members claim less on their insurance policies, which lowers our overall costs as an insurer.

But instead of just keeping those savings, we reinvest them into incentives – rewarding people for making healthier choices. This creates a positive feedback loop, where people are motivated to stay active and improve their health, leading to even lower claims, greater engagement, and long-term business sustainability. It’s not just good for our bottom line. It’s good for our customers and for society as a whole.

What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve overcome in the finance function?

One of the biggest challenges is the constant need for innovation. In a fast-moving, tech-driven company, the pace of change is unbelievable. Every function in the business has to keep up, and finance is no exception. For us, the challenge has been ensuring we can be agile in how we operate.

Over the past few years, we’ve spent a huge amount of time automating systems and processes, integrating partners directly into our systems to reduce the number of manual steps we need to run. A massive part of this has been focused on data, analytics, and automation.

Personally, I enjoy working in an environment that’s constantly evolving. I thrive on change, and so from a leadership perspective I’ve made sure my finance team has free rein to innovate, so we’re not just reacting to change, we’re evolving alongside it. That way, finance can be a driver of innovation, rather than just keeping up.

How does the finance team contribute to innovation within the business?

Our role is to support the business in making innovations happen – ensuring that investments are financially viable, assessing risk, streamlining processes and providing data-driven insights to guide decision making.

That said, when it comes to testing innovation, the whole business gets involved. For example, last week, we announced a new corporate challenge capability for companies, which uses technology together with the concept of competition, to support people to be more active within their organisations. We actually got to be the guinea pigs for this back in December, giving feedback on the user experience, which then fed into the product design process. This gives everyone at the company the chance to play a key role in implementation and testing, which is quite fun because you get to see new things before they hit the market.

With the company constantly evolving, how do you ensure the finance team keeps pace and evolves alongside it?

The key is making sure we’re hiring and developing the right people – not just those with technical finance skills, but those who can adapt, think critically, and embrace change. Our approach to recruitment isn’t just about qualifications. Of course, numerical ability is essential, but beyond that, we focus on mindset and cultural fit. We need people who can handle ambiguity, because when a business is growing and evolving at speed, not everything fits into a neat process. While financial reporting has to be structured, much of what we do outside of that requires flexibility and innovation.

We also like to make sure the team is exposed to different areas of the business, whether that’s through cross-functional projects, automation initiatives, or direct involvement in testing innovations. This gives our teams a greater understanding of where they fit into the wider picture.

Would you say data is one of your key value drivers?

Absolutely. Our ability to access and analyse data is a real strength and makes a huge difference to overall the value we create. For example, we’ve developed a Habit Index using seven years of data and 465,000 data points, which revealed that habits control 40–50% of our daily lives and take 7–15 weeks to form. This insight is game-changing for us as an insurer. We found that members who shift from an inactive to active lifestyle reduce their mortality risk by 57% and gain nearly five years of life expectancy.

We've integrated this into our valuation models, meaning we assess policyholders based on their habits. Healthier behaviours lead to lower risks, which allows us to reward members for positive choices while benefiting the business financially. Our research, conducted with the London School of Economics, suggests no other insurer is doing this at scale. We openly publish findings to drive wider societal benefits, helping individuals and corporate clients improve long-term health outcomes.
 

So, data isn’t just driving better decisions, it’s shaping our products, pricing, and purpose while delivering real impact for both customers and the business.

We’ve touched on a few of your core value drivers: customer, community, people, data and innovation. How do you prioritise these values?

It’s hard to rank them because everything is so interconnected, but if I had to choose, I’d put customers at the top. Without engaged customers, we wouldn’t exist. Our ability to drive societal impact, support employees, and create financial value all stems from that.

Beyond customers, our employees are deeply aligned with our purpose, which is why retention is strong. And this in turn impacts the wider community. I’ve signed off around 100 donations to local sports teams and charities that are direct requests from our employees for teams or organisations they are involved with. It’s all part of a broader cycle: by encouraging healthier habits and engagement, we improve lives, create a stronger business, and positively impact society.

And how do you balance short term and long-term goals within the business?

In many ways, they’re aligned. Short term, we focus on managing investor expectations, but what our investors really care about is long-term growth. They want us to keep scaling, continuing what we do best – encouraging healthier lifestyles.

Thirty years ago, this focus on health and well-being wasn’t as mainstream as it is today, but we recognised its potential early on, as did our investors. They’ve been with us on this journey, and if you look at Discovery’s (our parent company) financial performance and share price over time, they’ve done well by backing this long-term vision.

What are the biggest risks and challenges you see for the business and the finance team?

What concerns me most is the risk of becoming a typical finance team – one that stifles innovation by saying no too easily. It’s easy to reject projects where the return on investment isn’t immediately clear-cut. But not everything can be quantified in numbers. Some initiatives drive brand value, have societal benefits, or contribute to long-term growth in ways that aren't always measurable upfront.
 

The key is to take a broader, long-term perspective rather than defaulting to a rigid financial view. My biggest challenge as a finance leader is ensuring we don’t fall into the trap of rejecting ideas just because their impact isn’t immediately tangible, when in reality, they could be hugely valuable to the business.

And finally, what is the key to fostering a purpose-driven organisation?

Culture is key, it permeates everything we do. We genuinely live and breathe our core purpose, and that shapes how our team operates. For example, at one point, our CEO challenged all ExCo members to reach the highest tier of our health and well-being status. I was already there, but for some, it required real change. They embraced it, which reinforced the culture we’ve built.

When people truly understand the long-term "why" behind what we do, they’re more engaged and less likely to fall into short-term, risk-averse thinking. Ultimately, we mitigate the risk by hiring the right people and fostering a culture that aligns with our purpose. We were extremely proud to be ranked as one of the Sunday Times’ Top 10 Best Places to Work for 2024. That recognition really reinforces what we’ve always believed – when you build a strong, purpose-driven culture, success follows. It’s not just about policies or strategies; it’s about people who are genuinely invested in what we do. And that’s what keeps us moving forward.
 

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