Sabine VanderLinden

Activate Innovation Ecosystems | Tech Ambassador | Founder of Alchemy Crew Ventures + Scouting for Growth | Chair, Board Member, Advisor | Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow-Bayes Business School

I don't just talk about innovation, AI, workforce or digital transformation— I build the bridges that make things real.

As Founder & Venture-Client Partner of Alchemy Crew Ventures, I run global R&D + Adoption Labs that connect Fortune 500 insurers and corporates with the most brilliant tech ventures on the planet. Think of us as the “fast lane” between startup brilliance and enterprise adoption. My themes include FinTech/ InsurTech and deploying AI at scale responsibly. 

What this looks like in numbers:
📍 Accelerated 160+ ventures and sourced 55,000+ startups worldwide
📍 Invested in 35+ early stage startups
📍 Delivered exits like FitSense → Zurich (2018), MyFutureNow → L&G (2019), and Tia Tech → Sapiens (2020)
📍 Created Insurer-led Acceleration and Scaleup programs that turned pilot purgatory into scalable commercial success

But the real story? I help founders land their first million-dollar client, build authentic personal brands, and help corporates cut through the noise to adopt tech that drives real growth.

My world revolves around:
📍 Venture Clienting 2.0 & Corporate Innovation Frameworks
📍 AI (ethics, adoption, emerging risks)
📍 Climate Resilience, Risk Futures & Sustainability Transformation
📍 The Future of Work (where humans + tech thrive together)

Beyond Alchemy Crew:
📍 Co-editor of the bestselling INSURTECH Book
📍 Wrote forewords for the Future of Insurance and Momentum
📍 Lecturer on Corporate Venturing at Bayes Business School
📍 Board + advisory roles across VCs, Scaleups (The CareVoice), foundations (Women to Watch), standards (ACORD Solutions) & global insurers
📍 Top 10 Business Podcast "Scouting for Growth" 
📍 Recognized with 10+ awards, including Most Influential CEO – Insurance Corporate Ventures (2024/2025)

My channels beyond LinkedIn:
x.com: @SabineVdL
instagram: @sabinevdlofficial
Medium: @sabine_vdl
Podcast: Scouting for Growth and Beyond Tech Frontiers
Newsletter: alchemycrew.ventures

What drives me?
Creating value where others see friction.
Turning hype into measurable outcomes.
And making sure technology becomes a force for good, not just another buzzword.

Award List (10+): Insurance Times-Tech & Innovation Awards Winner (2018), Grant Thornton-Face of a Vibrant Economy (2018), Business Insurance-Women to Watch Honoree (2019), Corporate Vision-Venture Validation Firm of the Year (2021), Finalist Women in Insurance Perseverance Award (2021), Awarded Perseverant Company to Watch in (2021), ACORD Awards (2020/2023), Most Influential CEO-Insurance Corporate Ventures (2024/2025).

Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer & Venture Partner

Delivering venture labs that accelerate, industrialize and democratize the way tech ventures engage with corporations. These labs apply acceleration, co-creation, and commercialization techniques to de-risk the way insurers and financial institutions collaborate, grow, and scale their venture-led growth initiatives.

Also, systematizing for a select group of growth ventures the way their engagement with corporations.

You can find out more 👉🏽 https://alchemycrew.com/

🌟 As we stand on the edge of a new year, it's clear the last 12 months weren't about smarter dashboards or louder chatbots. 💫

They were about a fundamental shift in what AI can do.

Our journey with SAS into Trustworthy #AgenticAI has been a revelation. Across every conversation, case study, and poll, the same powerful signals emerged—pointing to a future where AI doesn't just analyze. It acts. Human-led and agent operated. 

If you missed parts of the series, this thread connects it all. If you've been with us the whole time, this is the blueprint for what comes next.

The 5 Big Takeaways:

🤖 Action over analysis. Intelligent decisioning is already stopping fraud and rerouting claims in real-time. Decisions in motion—not data on a screen.

🔒 Trust through transparency. Governance and human oversight aren't optional. They're the entry ticket.

🧠 Smarter AI from synthetic data. It's how AI learns faster, safer, and in ways real-world data never could.

👫 Human + AI = Dream Team. The most powerful applications are human-in-the-loop. AI handles speed and scale. Humans provide judgment and ethics.

🚀 Autonomy is here—prepare now. Leading companies aren't asking if Agentic AI matters. They're asking how fast they can operationalize it responsibly.

Agentic AI will reshape organizations. The question is: who can deploy it with confidence? Which of these five insights resonates most with your 2026 strategy?

Happy New Year 2026.

#BusinessTransformation #FutureOfWork #Leadership

SAS - The 5 Big Takeaways

As the festive cheer of Christmas settles into a quiet hum, I find my thoughts drifting back to a truly magical experience on Faena Beach. 

You will find there on the beach Es Devlin’s breathtaking installation, “Library of Us,” that offers the most profound gift of the season: perspective.

Imagine a towering, mirrored library, shaped like a pyramid, rising from the sand. Inside, 2,500 books stand as silent storytellers, their spines a kaleidoscope of color against the endless blue of the Miami sky. The structure itself is a masterpiece, its reflective surfaces blurring the lines between the tangible and the infinite, the sky and the sea.

At the heart of this installation appeara a quote from Jorge Luis Borges: 

“I am not sure that I exist actually. I am every book I’ve ever read.” 

“Library of Us” is a physical embodiment of this idea, a testament to the fact that we are all, in essence, a collection of the stories we’ve absorbed, the perspectives we’ve encountered, and the lives we’ve touched.

In these quiet moments after Christmas, a time for reflection and connection, this installation feels particularly poignant. It provides an invitation to see the world through the eyes of others, to find connection in our shared human story, and to recognize the beauty in our collective diversity. 

We have to admit that this is a powerful reminder that even with our differing points of view, we can coexist in harmony, much like the thousands of books in that library on the Feana Beach.

As we step into the new year, let’s carry the spirit of the “Library of Us.” 

It’s a reminder to stay open, to listen, and to remember that every person we meet is a library of stories waiting to be read. 


What a beautiful way to begin a new chapter.

Credit: Art

🌟 The ground just shifted beneath the world of risk! And most leaders missed it.  Here is why...💫

Did you see this? Last week, Munich Re began insuring AI model errors for mortgage lenders. While this certainly demonstrates that AI is becoming a more prominent emerging risk in our lives, it also signals a seismic shift: the #AgenticFrontier is no longer a theoretical future—it has arrived.

For years, we've talked about transformation. Yet Boston Consulting Group (BCG)'s data shows a stark reality: while 78% of P&C insurers are “dabbling” with AI in the claims process, only 4% have successfully scaled it. Imagine what this means across the insurance operations and the overall enterprise.

The rest are caught in the “pilot trap,” a sinkhole for laggards.
The gap between the talkers and the doers has become a chasm. The 4% are fundamentally redesigning their businesses around AI.

This is no longer about whether you'll embrace #agenticAI. It's about how you'll lead the transformation. For corporate leaders, the mandate is clear. For founders, the 18-month enterprise sales cycle is now optional for those who can provide de-risked, insured solutions.

Here is the playbook for those ready to move from ambition to action:

1️⃣   Stop the science projects. Pick one end-to-end process—claims, underwriting, finance, customer support—and commit to a complete, AI-driven redesign. The real ROI is in redesigning the unglamorous, high-impact back-end operations, not bolting AI onto broken workflows.

2️⃣   De-risk your transformation. AI error insurance is now a board-ready mandate. Use it to turn AI from a high-risk experiment into a scalable, enterprise-grade asset.

3️⃣   Reframe the protection gap as an innovation mandate. The same creativity used to insure algorithms must be turned toward insuring humanity against Nat Cat/ extreme weather risks and other systemic risks. This is the largest market opportunity of the next decade.

The uninsurable world is a choice, not a necessity. The leaders of 2026 will be those who use the tools of the agentic frontier to rewrite the rules of risk.

What is the most fundamental “gap” you see in your organization’s AI strategy right now? Please share...

Is it the tech, the talent, or the trust?

And enjoy this week's newsletter. 👏🏽

#CapacityGap #TrustbyDesign

The Week That Changed Everything Last week, while most of us were winding down for the holidays, the ground shifted beneath the world of risk. Munich 

Open article: The Frontier Is Here: Your Top 10 Insurance Trends for 2026 by Sabine VanderLinden • 10 min read

The Frontier Is Here: Your Top 10 Insurance Trends for 2026

I could not resist! Even dogs know: transformation takes teamwork, patience… and a lot of kneading. 🐾🍞

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a 2026 filled with ideas that rise beautifully—especially the bold ones.

🎄 Three days before Christmas is a funny time to talk about Agentic AI.
But it’s actually the perfect one. 👇🏽

Because right now, leadership teams aren’t buying tools. They’re quietly asking a more complex question:

“What do we trust our AI to do in 2026?”

Over the past weeks, one message kept surfacing — across exec conversations, real use cases, and your feedback:

👉🏼  Agentic AI only scales when trust is designed in.
➡️  Not later.
➡️  Not after the experiment or going into implementation.
➡️  From day one.

So as we close the year, here’s a practical recap — the checklist enterprises should take into 2026:

📌 1. Explainability is non-negotiable: If you can’t explain a decision, you can’t defend it to regulators, customers, or your own board.
📌 2. Clear autonomy boundaries beat “AI optimism”: Define exactly what AI can decide, when humans intervene, and how edge cases escalate.
📌 3. Human fallback is a strategic feature, not a failure: The most resilient systems assume exceptions and design graceful handoffs to experienced humans.
📌 4. Ethics isn’t a policy, it’s a process: Regular, diverse review of autonomous decisions keeps bias and blind spots from compounding.
📌 5. Continuous monitoring protects trust: Drift, anomalies, and unintended behavior don’t announce themselves. You have to watch constantly.

This is why I keep saying:

Don’t build GenAI foundations on quicksand. The organisations that will lead in 2026 won’t be the ones with the flashiest demos.  They’ll be the ones who can let AI act responsibly.

My question for you, as we head into the holidays: Which of these five will be your biggest focus in 2026 — and why?

👇 Drop it in the comments. Let’s compare notes before the year resets.

#AgenticAI #TrustedAI #SASViya

MASTER COACH 💪 | Leveraging Lived Experience in 🌪️ Trauma Recovery, 🧠 Resilience & Mindset Transformation | 💥 Overcame Homelessness, Addiction and PTSD.

My name is Corey Preston,

Personally, I have undergone a vast transformation over the past eight years, escaping homelessness on the streets, drug trafficking and three suicide attempts. Previously diagnosed with CPTSD/PTSD, but now mostly symptom-free due to a lot of hard work and commitment. I'm a true Phoenix who has escaped hell and was lucky enough to find my purpose in serving community.

I'm the Founder of Mental Health Simplified. An organization that provides Mental Health Coaching and Motivational Speaking seminars. Our Coaches all have Lived Experience. Meaning they have overcome Mental health & Addiction related challenges. This allows us to better connect and relate with our clients to support their needs. Not just guiding someone from a text-book, but by actually showing them the way from experience.

Corey Preston

Smashing beers and chain smoking joints was my past mental health routine. When I really wanted to escape, I'd lean hard on cocaine and a cocktail of uppers and downers. If I felt sad or uncomfortable, I always had tools to make myself feel "better."

That was until the high went away, and I ended up feeling even worse than before. I was so stuck in trying to survive day to day that I didn't even know what I was fighting for. In fact, I didn't even know that there was any hope. When you're in the shit, you don't think about sunny days. That only made me more angry because I was in such a dark hole.

Eventually, I got so sick of drugs and binge drinking. Whenever I had the thought of getting wasted, I would think of all the shameful memories I had made. It would bring a certain type of inner disgust that I felt in my stomach. Each impulse I had to do drugs was met with significant discomfort. I'd visualize the worst moments of my life each time.

This actually reprogrammed my mindset with addiction. Previously, I would feel happy at the thought of getting high. But slowly, as I met each toxic thought with this approach, my desire for getting loaded began to fade. I replaced those self sabotaging impulses with healthy ones.

I'd work out, read books, watch personal development podcasts, and created a foundation of tools like grounding exercises, affirmations, cold showers, and practicing gratitude daily. I celebrated every positive action I made, telling myself that I'm proud of my efforts each time an action was achieved. Eventually, the monster within turned into an inner guardian. My inner voice no longer wished to hurt me, and I broke free from survival mode.

If youre struggling with addiction. Don't give up. Replace those negative impulses with healthy habits. Celebrate each win you have with gratitude. You'll shift your addictive mind to crave healing and growth. 

Sincerely,
Corey Preston,

To sign up for my 1 ON 1 or 4-WEEK Group Coaching program PM me to REGISTER 🙂🙏 OR TEXT 778-330-0437 - Corey@mentalhealthsimplified.ca 

#healingjourney #overcome

undefined undefined

Master Coach | Trauma Recovery & Burnout Resilience | Helping High Achievers Move from Survival Mode to Sustainable Success 🧠

Id like to celebrate a major victory. After 11 years I finally got my full license back. I was previously homeless on the streets doing tons of drugs. And my life was a complete mess.... 

I was medically suspended because I was hooked on drugs and made a lot of bad decisions. I was suicidal and burned my entire life down to the ground. Picking up the pieces has been a challenging journey. I healed my PTSD from my childhood. I let go of toxic people. And I also stopped hating who I am and learned to love and appreciate myself. Today was the last piece of the puzzle of reclaiming my independence. 

I cannot express how grateful I am to see my entire life finally move forward. For anyone struggling with Mental health or Addiction. I know things can feel hopeless. But we create hope by taking action. The biggest reason I was able to overcome my circumstances was because I accepted responsibility for my life. I stopped being a victim and put maximum effort into getting better. We can all OVERCOME if we put our full heart into growing beyond our past. Dont give up. ❤️

Sincerely,
Corey Preston,

MEN, Youre not WEAK for having EMOTIONS or getting HELP. I hope this message inspires you to WAKE UP!!! 

#mensmentalhealth #healingjourney #selfresponsibility  #childhoodtrauma 
#personaldevelopment

Stop COMPARING and COMPETING with everyone in your life. For this is what TRIGGERS your INSECURITY. Then your "Im not Good Enough" Story will continue. And guess where that leads to? Only more suffering... F*ck living like that. ❤️

Stop RUNNING and turn towards the STORM. ❤️ You have the capability to OVERCOME any challenge in front of you. 

#traumarecovery #healingjourney #wellness #resilience #mentalhealthawareness

Trauma isn’t pretty. It’s ugly. It f*cks your life. It makes you question your existence and your self-worth. That’s exactly why we have to fight for a better life.

Because what happened was sad and terrible. Many of us grew up in unsafe environments, where we literally developed as humans under significant stress and pain. Our survival responses become entangled with our personality.

So we’re not just healing emotional wounds. We’re actually rebuilding an entire identity system of who you are. That is a lot of work. And if we don’t accept this journey and only put in minimal effort, you will unfortunately remain trapped in your trauma story.

Those who actually break free from their past all have one thing in common. Their WHY was bigger than their HOW. Where so many remain stuck is that they look outside of themselves for answers and fear opening the door to their wounded heart.

Yes, it feels painful to feel and experience the grief you avoided for most of your life. But we need to feel those emotions to access our WHY and move forward. Your pain is what actually sets you free.

After my breakdown, I felt significant suffering. But that pain woke me up to the truth. It motivated me to get better and change my life.
Being stuck is not because of your trauma. It’s because of avoidance of facing your trauma.

Sincerely,
Corey Preston,

For my 4-WEEK Group Healing programs. Private message me for details. 🙂

#traumarecovery #childhoodtrauma #hope #personalgrowth #personaldevelopment

My family is going through some darkness right now. It is not easy seeing your wife/family watching their people get massacred in Iran. And you cant do anything but VOICE awareness so hopefully something changes for the better...

Their people are fighting against oppression and for their freedom, while the Islamic Republic traumatizes and kills innocent people.
Witnessing and feeling this collective trauma has been challenging, to say the least. 

I have many people who count on me for support. I lead a large mental health organization. My schedule is packed. But if I did not utilize my self-care tools, I would fall apart.

Emotional strength is not some mystical thing. It is discipline and routine that get you through the darkest moments. Anytime I feel stressed, I stop. I take care of myself, and then I increase my emotional capacity.

Eventually, it becomes instinct. You put on the brakes when necessary, and you keep pushing hard when you can move forward. This was the greatest lesson my healing journey taught me.

No matter what happens, I can trust myself to navigate crisis and turn it into an opportunity to grow. Even the most painful experiences in life can help us become a better person.

Please pray for my family and the beautiful Persian people. May they find the freedom they so deeply deserve. 

Free IRAN from the dictatorship. 🙏

Sincerely,
Corey Preston,

#IranProtests #freeiran #iran

HOW to UNF*CK your LIFE with LIVED EXPERIENCE wisdom.

#healingjourney #personalgrowth #personaldevelopment

My wife’s people are being massacred for demanding freedom. 

There are millions of Iranians protesting in the streets across the country. They are being brutally beaten, arrested, and tortured for standing up against oppression. The Iranian regime has shut down the internet to control, silence, and suppress the Persian people. This is a tactic they used during the uprisings in 2019 and 2022 to stop the world from seeing what is actually happening.

People often associate Iran with terrorism. Did you know that 80% of the Persian people want to see regime change? They do not want to live under dictatorship. They do not want to live under tyranny.

I have a Persian family. They are kind, loving, and peaceful people. They do not want war. They do not want violence. They just want their freedom.

For over four decades, the Islamic Republic, under the rule of the Ayatollah, has brought fear, repression, and darkness upon the Iranian people. The world looked away in 2019 when security forces killed hundreds of people. Peaceful protesters were imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared for demanding basic human rights.

The Islamic Republic has systematically violated international human rights laws, including the right to life, free expression, and peaceful protest, and must be held accountable for these atrocities.

So how can you support the Iranian people? Share this video. Tell your friends and family. Spread awareness. Stand with the Persian people in their fight for freedom.

Let’s give the beautiful people of Iran an opportunity for peace in the West. We have millions of Persians who have created innovation in our marketplace. They have the greatest food. They are wonderful people. Let’s stand with them so that they may become free and have an opportunity to feel the security, peace, and stability that we all take for granted.

#IranProtests #FreeIran #IranRevolution #iran

Life will HIT you like a fu*cking TRUCK. When life squeezes you with pressure, it exposes your true vulnerability and reveals holes in your foundation. 

So many of us feel strong when things are going well. We feel resilient, like we can take on the world. But the moment something goes wrong and things start falling apart, we break. We shut down, sometimes for months, sometimes for years..

Then we get back up. We work on ourselves for a bit. We start feeling good again. We feel resilient. But more bullshit comes our way. Stress spikes, and before we know it, we crash again. 

We keep cycling through these extreme highs and lows, not because life is unfair, but because we have not truly faced our past or dealt with our emotional scars and wounds.

The more pain you carry through life, the heavier the backpack becomes. And the heavier it gets, the weaker and more fragile you become. Real strength came for me when I stopped running. I had to feel the pain, write it out, say it out loud, get help, and actually understand what was happening inside of me.

Eventually, I realized something important. I deserved self-compassion for the cards I was dealt, instead of only judging, hating, and shaming myself for suffering. Most people do not see the light in themselves because they do not seek answers. The most powerful thing you can do to become emotionally resilient is to return to wholeness.

Last year, I almost died, and instead of letting it destroy me, I experienced post-traumatic growth. It sucked, but it taught me patience, acceptance, and love. I chose not to let my trauma turn me into a victim. 

I became a guardian of my pain, because pain is a garden and we reap what we sow. If your life is full of peaks and valleys, it is not random. On the other side of the storm, there is not just hope. There is possibility. Move through the struggle with compassion, curiosity and courage. You will break free soon after. 

Sincerely,
Corey Preston, 

For our 1-ON-1 and Group Mental Health Coaching programs please Private message me for details ❤️

#responsibility #resilience #healingjourney #wellness #mentalhealthmatters

Not LETTING GO of RESENTMENT is Self Abuse.

#anger #resentment #healingjourney #personaldevelopment #childhoodtrauma

taplio

The Battle

Sabine VanderLinden

Corey Preston

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreSabine VanderLinden's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreCorey Preston's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Sabine VanderLinden

Corey Preston

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sabine VanderLinden's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreCorey Preston's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSabine VanderLinden's LinkedIn Performance