Keylane CEO: ‘We aim to become the market leader in insurance and pensions’

This article was originally published on AMweb and written by Aäron van der Sanden.

John Reynders, CEO of industry-leading platform provider Keylane, believes the company can achieve a market-leading position in both P&C insurance and pensions. He also expects further consolidation within the insurance software market.

Why do I instinctively want to pronounce his surname the American way (‘Rainders’)? The CEO laughs but cannot give me a definitive answer. Is it the ‘y’? Or perhaps the fact that he spent 15 years working at Microsoft?

Leading hypergrowth at Visma

During his 15 years at the US software giant, Reynders progressed from engineer to a position on the Western European leadership team. He also led a period of ‘hypergrowth’ at Norwegian business software company Visma in the Benelux, where the number of employees increased from 200 to 4,000 in just four years.

Today, he is based in a modern office building on the outskirts of Utrecht, literally just across the road from ASR. When Reynders was offered the role of CEO at Keylane, a platform provider for the insurance and pensions industry, in October 2025, several things that matter to him came together.

“Business-critical software for major brands operating in highly regulated industries,” he explains. Industries such as insurance and pensions.

Private equity with a long-term perspective

The size of the software company, with approximately 1,100 employees, is also a good fit for him. “Keylane is large enough to make a real impact, but small enough to remain fast and agile. And we have an owner that takes a long-term view,” says Reynders.

British private equity firm Pollen Street acquired Keylane from Waterland Private Equity in August 2024. Although private equity is often associated with short-term thinking, Reynders says Pollen Street takes a distinctly long-term approach. Its expertise in both software and financial services also gives the firm a deep understanding of Keylane’s markets.

Becoming the market leader in P&C and pensions

What was Reynders brought in to achieve? Above all, to build on Keylane’s strong foundations by making full use of the software and industry expertise already present within the company.

Keylane sees an opportunity to become the market leader in both Property & Casualty insurance and Life & Pensions across Europe and North America. The company already holds this position in the Dutch P&C market.

Achieving that ambition will require both acceleration and continued innovation. “But we will make absolutely no concessions when it comes to compliance,” Reynders emphasises several times during the conversation.

A series of acquisitions

During the first few months after Reynders joined Keylane, the company acquired UK and US pensions software provider Heywood, Belgian company Vereycken & Vereycken and UK-based claims technology provider 360Globalnet.

However, this should not give the impression that Keylane’s growth ambitions are primarily focused on acquisitions as part of its buy-and-build strategy.

“Our focus is actually more on organic growth, particularly in the markets where our core platforms Axon, for P&C customers, and Plexus, for Life & Pensions customers, have already proven themselves.”

No turnaround required

When competitors ANVA and CCS appointed Max Mouwen and Jack van der Velde, respectively, both had to carry out a degree of repair work alongside driving innovation.

Reynders insists that this is not the case at Keylane.

“Our roots lie in anticipating major technology trends at an early stage. For example, we were one of the first platform providers for P&C insurers, pension providers and life insurers to bring Software as a Service in a sovereign cloud environment to the market.”

A sovereign cloud environment helps ensure that customer and end-customer data remains protected from external influence and legislation. Demand for this is only increasing in Europe, particularly in today’s geopolitical climate.

Significant investment in AI

As soon as one wave of innovation is underway, the next is already emerging. One of Reynders’ first actions after becoming CEO of Keylane was to secure a “significant investment” in a dedicated AI team.

Artificial intelligence will fundamentally change how insurers, pension funds and pension administrators operate.

“Processes that were traditionally completed step by step by people are evolving into processes in which activities take place in parallel, carried out by a combination of people, AI agents and models,” Reynders explains. “Together with our customers, we want to turn these new ways of working into reality.”

‘We want to become the leading AI platform provider’

Keylane’s ambitions in this area are considerable.

“We want to become the leading SaaS and AI platform provider for Life & Pensions and Property & Casualty insurance in Europe and North America,” Reynders states unequivocally.

The first versions, or Minimum Viable Products, are already being introduced, and Reynders says customers have responded with great enthusiasm. A broader launch is planned for the second half of the year.

In the meantime, Keylane continues to innovate in close collaboration with its customers. Reynders also feels a responsibility to help customers build their understanding of AI.

“The EU AI Act is coming. If you fail to embed its principles into your approach while pursuing innovation, you risk serious problems and significant fines.”

Consolidation in the insurance software market

Keylane’s platforms are compliant by design. This means that regulatory requirements, including those arising from legislation such as the EU AI Act, are incorporated from the earliest stages of development.

“Compliance is fundamental to our existence. It is our licence to operate.”

At the same time, Reynders expects increasingly complex regulation to create further movement within the insurance software market.

“I expect the market to undergo a significant shake-up. Customers in the life and pensions market are genuinely concerned about their current providers. That is understandable, as software companies such as Visma Idella are withdrawing from the transition required by the Dutch Future of Pensions Act. We are increasingly being asked whether we can provide a Plan B.”

Keylane’s revenue grows alongside its customers

In the P&C market, larger insurers continue to acquire portfolios from smaller providers.

“We have worked for many years with customers such as the company just across the road,” Reynders says, referring to ASR. “When they make an acquisition, we help them migrate the acquired portfolios to the Axon platform.”

This is one of the ways in which Keylane achieves organic growth of more than 10 per cent each year.

Reynders’ eyes light up when he talks about the extraordinary pace at which AI is developing. He keeps up with the latest developments in the evenings and at weekends, alongside his responsibilities as CEO. At the moment, he is exploring Codex, OpenAI’s coding agent. Before that, it was Claude.

Not because he has to, but because he wants to. Deep down, he is still the same curious engineer.

“I feel genuinely fortunate to have such a strong passion for technology.”