EPISODE · Aug 21, 2025 · 56 MIN
Yandy Plasencia: Data Reconciliation for the CFO
from Scouting for Growth · host Sabine VdL
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Yandy Plasencia, founder and CEO of DataHaven Software. In today’s conversation, we talk about Yandy’s journey and vision as well as how mid-sized insurance companies can explore and empower their finance teams, especially their CFOs, by automating data reconciliation and unlocking real-time insights. KEY TAKEAWAYS For the most part, it all comes down to the basic ledger/sub-ledger challenge. The core systems are transactional and contain all the information about what took place, which payments were paid out, when a claim came in, and everything needed to verify that a claim has coverage within the rules defined by the policy. If the data isn’t easy to extract and digestible for the right audience, it will be challenging for that audience to interpret, reconcile, and do so in a timely fashion. In smaller carriers, there will be more technical folks who are not necessarily business-oriented. There’s always a gap between what the business and technology folks are looking for, and although technology does a very good job of getting the data where it needs to go, it doesn’t always meet the needs of the finance and accounting folks. There an ongoing friction between both departments. You need to build an intelligence layer with well-defined relationships across every data point related to financials. If it affects financials, you need to have a relationship, ontology, or something that tells you how these data points are interrelated. If you don’t have that, then it’s only creating a problem for something else that’s going to come up very soon. The main issue with spreadsheets with visualisation tools is that those tools solve the problem short-term until they don’t, they are extremely helpful until they become painful, and they become a bottleneck for the organisation to grow eventually. The tools don’t have change processes in place as data sets grow and organisations expand. They also become a personnel risk because only 1 or 2 people in the company understand it. BEST MOMENTS ‘Data is a powerful tool, and it’s “make it or break it” for a lot of companies, especially in insurance, where the devil is in the details.’ ‘Being able to trace an expense back to the root system and getting a full transactional detail for that specific number is the most reliable way to do something.’ ‘It’s only labour-intensive if you try to do this completely manually and you don’t leverage artificial intelligence in the right ways, and if you don’t have a defined framework to do this, if you do, it’s much easier.’ ‘It’s not rocket science… It’s just data science.’ ABOUT THE GUESTS Yandy Plasencia is a visionary entrepreneur and software architect with deep expertise in AI, data engineering, insurance technology, and regulatory compliance. At DataHaven, Yandy and his team are creating an insurance-specific intelligence layer that automates reconciliation, accelerates financial analysis, and helps leadership trace changes in loss or expense ratios directly to operational events. LinkedIn ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]
What this episode covers
On this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL sits down with Yandy Plasencia, Founder and CEO of DataHaven Software, to tackle a challenge that quietly keeps CFOs awake at night: How do you run a modern insurance business when your financial truth is trapped across systems, spreadsheets, and “only Susan knows how this works” dashboards? This episode is a must-listen for mid-sized carriers, finance leaders, and transformation teams who want faster close cycles, cleaner reporting, and real-time visibility—without ripping out core systems. The problem: the ledger vs sub-ledger reality Yandy breaks down the root issue with sharp clarity: most insurance core systems are transactional. They capture everything—claims, payments, coverage decisions, timing, policy rules. But just because the data exists doesn’t mean it’s usable. If it can’t be extracted and made digestible for the right audience (especially finance), reconciliation becomes slow, painful, and error-prone. That’s where the classic insurance tension emerges: technology teams can move data around… but it often doesn’t arrive in a form that finance teams can actually trust and act on. The hidden friction in mid-sized carriers In smaller and mid-sized insurers, Yandy observes a common pattern: highly technical teams running infrastructure, and business teams trying to manage results. That gap creates constant friction—especially between IT and finance. And the CFO is stuck in the middle, expected to deliver fast insight with slow tools. The fix: an insurance-specific intelligence layer Yandy’s solution is not “another spreadsheet.” It’s building an intelligence layer that defines clear relationships across every data point that touches financials. He emphasizes the importance of an ontology—meaning the system understands how pieces connect: If it affects financials, it must have a relationship model behind it. Without that framework, you’re not solving the problem. You’re just postponing the next crisis. Why spreadsheets and dashboards stop scaling Yandy doesn’t attack spreadsheets because they’re useless. He attacks them because they’re dangerous at scale. Visualisation tools often solve the problem—until they don’t. As datasets grow and organizations expand, they become: bottlenecks change-management nightmares and a huge personnel risk (when only 1–2 people understand the logic) That’s not “agile.” That’s operational debt with a prettier interface. The CFO advantage: traceability and real-time clarity One of the strongest takeaways from the episode is the power of traceability: being able to trace an expense back to the source system and see full transactional detail is the most reliable way to reconcile and act. This is where automation and AI become a strategic edge. Yandy makes the point: reconciliation is only labour-intensive if you do it manually—or without a defined framework. With the right structure, AI can automate the grunt work and unlock real-time insight. And his closing line is as bold as it is true: It’s not rocket science. It’s just data science. Why this episode matters now For insurance executives, this conversation is a roadmap for building finance agility without destabilizing operations. Because in insurance, “the devil is in the details”—and the companies that win won’t be the ones with the loudest dashboards. They’ll be the ones with the cleanest financial truth, fastest reconciliation, and the ability to explain performance in real time—before the board asks twice.
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Yandy Plasencia: Data Reconciliation for the CFO
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