The chilly February Court Meeting is always the first of the new calendar year, and so the February Supper which follows has traditionally become an antidote to damp dark weather, and the last of the long winter gloom.

So it was that a sold-out February Supper brought the Company together on 19th February at Cutlers' Hall for an evening of fellowship, candlelight, and a compelling address on the City's readiness to support scaling enterprise.

 

"Do It in London": The Master Insurer on Scaling with Confidence

The highlight of the evening was an address by Sara Fardon, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Insurers, who responded to the Company's 2025-26 theme of "Scaling Enterprise, Funding Ambition" with a clear and encouraging message: the insurance and professional services sectors are ready to support ambitious founders, and they are moving.

London, she argued, remains the most connected business ecosystem in the world. Nowhere else brings together insurers, investors, technologists, consultants and professional advisers with such density and immediacy, a proximity that accelerates decision-making, clarifies risk and gives scaling businesses a launchpad with global reach.

On insurance specifically, the message was one of rapid evolution. The UK is now home to one of the world's most active insurtech communities, driving new approaches to pricing, automation and data-led underwriting. Insurers are not only protecting businesses but actively helping them secure investment by making risks clearer, more transparent and more manageable.

Professional services, from legal and actuarial to consultancy and analytics, were described as the engine of scale, the disciplines that help founders demonstrate governance, resilience and investment readiness. Together with insurance, they create the conditions that allow enterprise to grow.

Echoing former guest speaker Robert Hiscox's call for a more "creative relationship with risk," the Master urged the City to ensure the runway beneath entrepreneurs is long enough, strong enough and flexible enough for them to take off. Creativity, he stressed, is not reckless. It is the courage to design solutions for new technologies, new markets and new business models.

The address concluded with a characteristic touch of levity: "Entrepreneurs move fast and break things. Insurers move carefully and price things. It is amazing we get on at all, but when we do, the results are spectacular."

 

An Evening of Fellowship

Guests enjoyed mulled wine and fruit punch before sitting down to a supper of pies, puddings, and cheese in the candlelit surroundings of Cutlers' Hall, the coziest of fayre for a bleak February evening.

The Master, Alderman Alastair King DL, had early admitted seven new Freemen to the Company. He expressed the warmest of welcomes to them, and offered his thanks on behalf of all members and guests to the staff at Cutlers’ Hall, and to City caterers Life’s Kitchen for the magnificent food.

The event sold out well in advance, a reflection of the growing appetite among members and guests for the Company's programme of suppers and formal dinners. The February Supper 2027 is on Thursday 18^th February.

 

Scale-Up Capital

This speech by the Master Insurer, supports the Master Entrepreneur's year-long "Scale-Up Capital" programme, which continues to build connections between scaling businesses and the investment, insurance and professional services communities of the City of London. You can read the full text here.

 

Photographs by Jason Gutwin 2026