Both start-up veterans joined at the end of February
Insurtech start-up Quilt has welcomed two new key hires to its team. Nichole Mace and Tytana Yap, both veterans of well-known Boston-based start-ups have joined the online insurance platform to help spearhead the company’s digital insurance revolution. For those unfamiliar with Quilt, the online insurance platform is a new venture which launched last year and is focused on creating a family of mobile-first, digital insurance products aimed at the millennial generation.
Nichole Mace
As Quilt’s senior vice president of product and customer, Ms. Mace will oversee the company’s efforts on helping change how customers buy and use insurance. More specifically, she has been charged with bringing Quilt’s vision of simple, streamlined digital insurance to life.
Prior to joining Quilt, Ms. Mace was most recently the vice president of product and member experience for Zipcar. During her tenure at Zipcar, she headed the company’s global product strategy which involved overseeing the creation of Zipcar 2.0., a project offering new services and a new user experience to the company’s one million users. A graduate in both business and art history from the University of Delaware, Ms. Mace also holds an MBA from the Franklin W. Olin School of Business at Babson College.
Ms. Mace, who began her career as the product manager of Quicken’s first online insurance venture, was also one of the first 20 employees of Constant Contact. As the director of product management at Constant Contact, she was instrumental in helping the Waltham-based email marketing company’s product department from its inception through to its Initial Public Offering in 2007.
“Quilt has started with the customer and built a business around their needs. That philosophy has guided my career and is the primary reason I decided to come here,” said Mace. “Changing a well-established industry will be challenging, but the stars are aligned and now is the time to make a great leap in what insurance is.”
Ultimately, Ms. Mace’s main goal is to remove the friction and anxiety from the insurance-buying process, in order to make it a more enjoyable customer experience. “Quilt understands that it’s about solving the problem of loss in a world of changing customer expectations,” said Ms. Mace. “At Zipcar and through my YouTube work, I learned how expectations – especially for people in their 20s and 30s – have changed. Instant and digital are key to today’s customers, and that’s what separates Quilt from the pack.”
As for Quilt co-founder and CEO Blair Baldwin, he concurs. “Bringing Nichole onto the team was a natural extension of Quilt’s mission to build a customer-centric experience. Throughout her career, she’s been tremendously successful at finding elegant solutions to complex problems. We’re thrilled to have such a high-caliber executive here to make the Quilt vision a reality.”
Tytana Yap
After a traumatic experience trying to obtain life insurance for herself, Tytana Yap realized the importance of having a positive insurance buying experience. “Getting life insurance was a nightmare. It took six months. I’d like others to have a much better experience.”
Now as the new director of marketing for Quilt, she is focused on delivering the company’s marketing message that a positive insurance experience is possible as she leads the insurtech’s customer acquisition efforts. Mr. Baldwin says that Quilt has found the perfect person to relay its message that there is a better way to do insurance. “Tytana has both a wealth of digital experience and an authentic voice. We’re elated to have her on the team.”
Ms. Yap comes to Quilt directly from TripAdvisor, where she was the manager of global traffic acquisition. Prior to her time with TripAdvisor, Ms. Yap also worked at Vistaprint, where she oversaw the company’s customer acquisition in Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. Ms. Yap says this prior experience will be valuable as she takes on the new challenges involved in helping Quilt grow. “Marketing has changed so much, so fast. It’s become more technical and more programmatic, but the creative and messaging continues to be powerful and can’t be ignored,” said Yap. “I’m glad I was exposed to the best of both worlds.”
A graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, Ms. Yap obtained her MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management in Sydney.
More about Quilt from the company itself…
Quilt offers a family of mobile-first, digital insurance products that make it easier than ever to cover the things that matter. Quilt takes the hassle out of insurance with an intuitive buying experience and simple, easy-to-use policies designed for people who live online.