productI have a friend with considerable experience in insurance underwriting.
He’s developed Insurance Products for several major Insurers.
He’s holds a JD(Law Degree) as well as an MBA and MDiv(Morality / Ethics)
What kinds of positions should be look for if he was interested in moving into Tech / Startup companies?
In a startup developing insurance products for which your friend has domain expertise. Perhaps he could be a consultant.
However, as Blunders said above, it’s unlikely that an individual with such experience would be a good a fit for your average startup. If he wants to get into technology he would be a better fit for a big team management company like Accenture.
I think the biggest thing to think about is what interests him.
If he is interested in applying the skills from his JD, MBA, and Mdiv maybe it makes sense for him to find a company or role that will suit that.
If his underwriting experience is passion maybe it makes sense for him to pursue growing insurance companies, it seems like there is a small move towards online versions or branches of larger insurance companies that might be looking for those skills.
Alternatively, legalish startups might also benefit from that background. Companies that might not be ‘startups’ anymore but that come to mind are ones the offer legal service templates or advice . There are probably also other related areas for him to apply his JD, he just needs to seek out companies developing products who need his expertise.
But there are also lots of interesting legal questions being defined at the moment like if the adaptation of public parking spaces into a privately sold commodity should be legal. Or if Uber drivers should face certain requirements. Lots of questions like that and this article goes into some other ideas pretty well - http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/04/why-startups-hire-their-own-lawyers/
Hope this helps! I can edit it a little more if you add more specifics about his interests.
I don’t think your question has a direct and meaningful answer, so I’m going to get as close as I can.
Your friend has the domain expertise to draw out a map of the insurance industry, to make educated guesses at the problems faced by participants in different areas of the map, and to write down the names of a few people who would share some insight and experience.
Doing this work is preparation for founding a startup. But it’s also a way to become super useful to existing startups. “I’m interested that you’re delivering X. I carried out a study, and that came out as the fourth most important problem. I’m not suggesting you change what you’re doing, but based on my experience I can see a way that would make your value proposition more compelling to Y. I wonder if you’d be willing to spare me ten minutes to outline my suggestion?”
So I would start reaching out, but I would also start pitching an idea. Some hard-to-reach, super-connected people pay attention to pitch events, and may say, “I’m not sure about your idea, but Z is doing something in that space, you should meet them.”
The result could be a consulting gig, an internship, some due diligence, a report that could be sold, there are any number of possibilities. The secret to opening doors is (1) find doors, (2) try the handle.
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