A Closer Look: Steve Aldrich, MBA 1995

Photo by Regis Lefebure

MOST BUSINESS SCHOOL grads dream about that big idea, the one that will spark the interest of investors, big business, and the general public. When Steve Aldrich dreamed, he spurred personal finance software giant Intuit to make a successful purchase bid before the dust had started to gather on his diploma.
       Entering the Business School in 1993, Aldrich was fresh from a stint at Alex. Brown and Sons insurance group, where he'd learned about the insurance industry from the investment banking side. He'd taken a shine to the industry, and the experience inspired an idea that would become InsureMarket, Intuit's Web site that links consumers with 16 insurance carriers.
       Aldrich's plan began to take shape while he was participating in a GSB mentoring program, where he worked with Enterprise Integration Technologies on the formation of CommerceNet, one of the first commerce-creating ventures on the Web. With help from fellow students, he came up with a business plan for an insurance company with distribution over the Web. Associate Dean George Parker was impressed but noted that the proposal wasn't "quite there" yet.
       After Aldrich did a bit of tweaking, Parker encouraged him to shop the idea around. "He told me, 'If you fail, you'll be that much closer to your goal,'" Aldrich recalls. So, at Parker's suggestion, he submitted the idea to Steve Gluckstern, MBA '82, of Zurich Reinsurance Centre.
       Gluckstern liked the concept as well, and with what can only be termed kismet, took the plan to Peter de Vos, Aldrich's old boss at Alex. Brown. Together they convinced Aldrich that what the industry needed wasn't another carrier but a new distribution mechanism, a way to show consumers the best options culled from a bevy of participating carriers.
       During the next several months, Aldrich teamed up with partners Mark McCrery and Robert Freeland II, and the three established Interactive Insurance Services, a company designed to help steer consumers toward the best-fitting insurance coverage. By July 1995, Intuit offered to buy the company.
       What's next for a 29-year-old who seems to have fit an entire career into his first years out of business school? "If I can come up with another good idea, I'd like to become a senior manager at Intuit," he says, adding, "I'd like to help Intuit become a multibillion-dollar company." -- PETER CALLAHAN