Rising risk pros share their experiences in the field
As a career, risk management offers a number of attractive opportunities and a diverse range of specialties.
The world of risk management is many things.
It’s broad and complex as it spans across all industries. Yet it can be niche and precise, as specialized roles and subject-matter experts can be found throughout the field. It’s routine, as the same risks and challenges persist. Yet it’s ever-evolving as new risks emerge and rapid technological developments provide new solutions to old problems.
As a career, risk management offers a number of attractive opportunities and a diverse range of specialties, encouraging continuing education, job transferability and financial security.
Highlighting careers in risk management, NU spoke to six risk professionals in the P&C industry under the age of 40 to discuss exactly what it is they do and why they chose to pursue a career in risk management. They identified the challenges they face and provided insight on the future of insurance and risk management. There was some overlap in titles, but at a closer look, each one demonstrates the range of roles and experiences that a career in risk management offers.
Michelle “Nikki” Ingram, CISSP
Cybersecurity Risk Engineer, Zurich North America, Schaumburg, Ill.
Nikki Ingram grew up in a military family surrounded by law enforcement and technology. One grandfather was a U.S. Navy veteran, and the other was a police officer who built computers in his spare time. Their influence would later shape Ingram’s career. She has now spent more than a decade working in law enforcement and cybersecurity.
In 2006, Ingram earned her bachelor’s in electronics engineering technology from DeVry University. That same year, she enlisted in the Navy to pursue a career that would merge her two passions: law enforcement and technology.
Ingram served eight years in Navy Law Enforcement and Force Protection as a Master-at-Arms Petty Officer First Class. In her time with the Navy, Ingram climbed the ranks to serve in five different roles centering around law enforcement and protection initiatives. As a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Ingram regularly conducted operational risk and security assessments, information assurance training and compliance reviews. She also provided IT support and wrote post-incident, after-action reports.
Ingram left the Navy in 2014. In 2016, she brought her security and cyber talents to the corporate world. She earned her master’s degree in cybersecurity at Excelsior College, and entered her current role as a cybersecurity risk engineer at Zurich North America, based in Schaumburg, Ill.
A cybersecurity risk engineer fulfills two roles, Ingram explains. First, she and her peers support the underwriters who write the business to help them understand their customers’ risks. At Zurich, Ingram works primarily with security and privacy underwriters, evaluating the cyber-risk conditions of customers in the retail, health care and construction industries.
The second primary role of a cybersecurity risk engineer — and the part Ingram says she most enjoys — is to provide support to customers directly to improve their information management practices, and help them define, manage and mitigate their exposures.
“I’m a problem solver,” Ingram explains. “I love to have puzzles to figure out and to dig for clues to solve the Rubik’s cube that is security. It’s a constant process and challenge that I really enjoy.”
In the world of cybersecurity, there is certainly no shortage of puzzles.
Ingram says some emerging cyber risks she’s seeing involve the major data breaches of the last few years, which exposed private information, passwords and credentials. Attacks on devices also are a recurring theme in her work.
Among other major risks in her field, Ingram identifies one that is familiar to the insurance industry as a whole. On a corporate and cultural level, Ingram says an existing talent gap in cybersecurity persists. As a result, risk professionals are often tasked with working across multiple departments and providing an array of services to an even broader range of clients.
This results in challenges, but also opportunities for both risk professionals and prospective employees to transfer skills in an evolving workspace. As Ingram notes, this flexibility in career roles presents great opportunities.
“There are many paths in risk engineering,” she says. “It’s fortunate that not only do I get to work in a line of cybersecurity that I enjoy, but it’s also a career path that has a lot of flexibility for me to either stay or move on as my desires may change.”
For now, however, Ingram plans to stay right where she is, in a role that allows her to work in her two passions, and help people at the same time.
Katie Ward
Manager, Consulting & Client Services, AIR Worldwide, Boston, Mass.
Katie Ward could have taken different paths with her environmental science degree. But after graduating from Northeastern University in 2012, she found herself in catastrophe modeling. Ward worked for Lexington Insurance Company before moving to AIR Worldwide in Boston, where she has spent the last seven years as a risk analyst and consultant.
Now, she works with AIR’s reinsurance clients to perform catastrophe loss analyses, interpret model results, and optimize the use of AIR’s software and models.
Ward identifies emerging markets like casualty and cyber, as more opportunities have opened up internally for risk managers to become modeling experts in these fields. “The need for this internally is driven by the industry,” Ward said. “Companies are increasingly trying to diversify their portfolios while becoming leaders in new markets, and they’re relying on probabilistic modeling in these emerging fields to help them do that.”
“In the reinsurance industry, we see clients increasingly flirting with the ILS [Insurance-Linked Securities] market and leaning toward less traditional reinsurance,” Ward said. “We’ve noticed this in our consulting team, as we’re split up by market segment.”
She adds: “I see the industry tackling technical hurdles to optimize workflows, because people need an edge in this industry… Streamlining or automating portions of workflow can allow a company to cut down on costs while increasing its agility in the decision-making process.”
Will Lehman, MBA, CPCU, ARM
Risk Manager, Corporate Insurance, Cook Group Inc., Bloomington, Ind.
As a Corporate Insurance risk manager at Cook Group in Bloomington, Ind., Will Lehman’s primary responsibilities include contract reviews, insurance procurements, coverage analyses, loss control and claims management for clients working in life sciences, business services, resorts, property management and medical devices.
In his personal life, Lehman, already a CPCU and ARM, is a committed student, and the work he’s done in the early stages of his career demonstrates the immense opportunity for risk professionals to pursue a range of paths to continue their education.
Lehman earned his MBA last September from Olivet College. He’s currently pursuing a master’s of risk and insurance at Butler University. Looking ahead, Lehman’s next goal is to achieve The Risk Management Society’s (RIMS) Certified Risk Management Professional (CRMP) Certification.
Along with school and a full-time job, Lehman serves on the board of the Indiana Chapter of RIMS, and is vice chair of the Rising Risk Professionals Advisory Group.
Outside of average day-to-day work obstacles, Lehman says the biggest challenges involve recruitment and the evolving, expanding role of risk managers. “The role is broadening from a traditional risk-management function,” Lehman observes, “to truly being a trusted risk-management resource that supports all business functions and entities.”
Lehman adds that there will always be a need for the technical risk transfer piece, but he points to a growing opportunity to partner both internally and externally to mitigate risk. This cross-functional team collaboration is becoming more frequent, as he and the other interviewees pointed out.
As a result, Lehman stresses the importance of building relationships not only with risk owners, but also forming strategic partnerships with risk professionals who can help provide clients with the best solutions.
Regarding the industry’s stagnant talent issue, Lehman boasts about the field’s varied job opportunities and the support for continuing education.
“I think there’s a job opportunity in the industry for every personality type. Back in the day, individuals saw insurance and risk management and thought that meant a personal lines sales occupation. But once you learn about the fields, you find out there is the broker side, the carrier side, the risk management side, and within each of those dozens of additional positions exist. There’s a high job placement rate, and there’s a job for everyone.”
Lauren Tredinnick, MBA, CPCU
National Accounts Underwriting Manager for Alternative Markets, Munich Re America, Madison, Wis.
When Lauren Tredinnick, MBA, CPCU, isn’t managing a $65 million book of business in her role at Munich Re, you might find her working with the Wisconsin National Guard, where she holds the rank of Sergeant First Class and serves as her chapter’s safety officer as well as the band’s saxophone player.
As the national accounts underwriting manager for Alternative Markets at Munich Re Specialty Insurance, Tredinnick manages a team of four public entity underwriters who provide insurance and reinsurance solutions to schools, cities, religious institutions, transit and other non-profit organizations. Prior to joining the team, Tredinnick rotated through Munich Re’s risk analyst program.
Between her roles at Munich Re and as safety officer with the National Guard, Tredinnick is always managing risk.
Asked to identify some of the biggest risk topics in 2019, Tredinnick points to evolving technologies and the changing work structure among risk professionals.
To meet the demands of customers, Tredinnick says she and her peers have had to move away from traditional solutions to providing more services. “I think that’s something that’s resounds throughout our organization and the industry,” she says. “Companies are looking to provide more in the way of service to do our traditional work better, and to create and foster long-term partnerships with our clients.”
Pointing to areas of success, Tredinnick and her team are working on strategic relationships with their clients in the service industry to provide specific services that cater to their unique risk exposures.
An example of such a partnership focuses on “athlete intelligence,” which has provided several safety initiatives to schools. One initiative involved hosting a safety symposium for their school clients to discuss emerging risks and best practices. On the tech side, Tredinnick and her team also have introduced technologically advanced helmets equipped with sensors to monitor concussions and traumatic brain injuries.
“Sports are a big part of these school communities,” she says. “For us to provide a solution for them to mitigate traumatic brain injury is a big win for us and our clients.”
Jaci Mennenga
Risk Manager, County Financial, Bloomington, Ill.
In her decade-long career, Jaci Mennenga has notably diversified her professional portfolio. She entered the industry as an underwriter and went on to be a broker. Mennenga moved to enterprise risk management at State Farm and to a more traditional risk management role at the company.
Now, Mennenga is a risk manager at Country Financial. Although she plans to stay in a risk manager role for the remainder of her career, Mennenga already has another change in mind: earning her J.D.
“Your work can align with your other interests,” Mennenga says. “In my case, I enjoyed financial analysis, so I got a job as a D&O [director & officer] underwriter analyzing financial statements of companies and their stock performance everyday. That was a natural fit for me.”
As for challenges, Mennenga says managing the pace of change has proven difficult at times. “Things are changing very quickly, with a lot of new emerging risks.”
Some of the biggest emerging risks in 2019 Mennenga cites are drones and fallout from the #MeToo movement. As a result, Mennenga says she believes the industry will increasingly rely on data.
“The data will tell you the most effective retention for your program and how high your limits should be,” she says. “The relationships in the industry will still be important, but data is going to play more of a role and make some of the decision-making process more objective.”
Amy Jones, ARM
Corporate Insurance Manager Arcosa Inc., Dallas, Texas
After earning her bachelor’s degree in risk management, insurance and financial services, Amy Jones worked as an insurance analyst for an oil and gas company in Dallas, Texas. When the oil industry took a dive in 2015, Jones decided to explore her career options through the help of a risk management-specific recruiter, Questpro.
That’s how she wound up in the construction industry, landing a risk management position at developer Trammell Crow Residential. In her three-year tenure, Jones worked with brokers and managed contract reviews, providing insurance and risk management assistance to all divisions in the organization. Jones left the company in February.
Now, just weeks into her new job, Jones is the corporate insurance manager at infrastructure manufacturer Arcosa. She provides technical support for the company’s domestic and international customers in the construction, energy and transportation industries, where manufacturing risk exposures are plentiful.
Jones can attest to the bountiful job market. “One thing I love about this industry is that the language is universal,” she says. “There are so many industries you can specialize in, and it allows you to really dive deep and become an expert in your field.”
As for any obstacles, Jones says, “One of the biggest that I and a lot of my friends personally face is overcoming the challenge of being a millennial in an aging workforce.”
She believes the path forward will combine new ways of business with traditions.
“Each generation has different perspective and strategies on how to overcome an issue,” Jones says. “As you have young professionals who are actually specializing in the risk management and insurance space, it’s an invitation to have a new risk management culture full of innovation and new ways of looking at things, while pulling from the knowledge and experience of long-term career professionals.”
Looking ahead
In NU’s conversations with rising industry leaders, they each highlighted the numerous opportunities through their different roles and experiences. They also identified several popular trends and some common themes related to the job market and emerging risks and exposures.
They agreed that the future of risk management and the insurance industry will be dominated by a few popular topics. Risks revolving around cyber, InsurTech, autonomous vehicles, drones, and other emerging technologies will continue to challenge risk professionals in 2019 and beyond.
Another major theme across all six conversations was the transferability of roles in risk management, the diversity of careers, and the strength of the job market. As as noted by Will Lehman, the typical role of risk managers is broadening. Collaborations across teams and departments are increasing, and as a result, so are the job responsibilities and skill-sets of risk managers.
These are important notes for recruiters and human resource managers, as the talent gap continues to affect companies across the insurance and risk industries.
For students, our interviewees offer some solid advice.
“There are many different positions,” Lehman says. “With a high job placement rate, I would highly recommend (risk management) to students and recent graduates.”
Mennenga adds, “I would tell students the insurance industry is an area where you are going to learn a lot. There are so many opportunities for growth, and every day is different.”
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