How women insurance leaders can topple the gender gap
Women leaders in the insurance industry have tackled the lion's share of work and employee support during the pandemic.
Whether investing in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts or managing remote work challenges, senior women insurance leaders historically provide more support than their male counterparts.
However, women still haven’t progressed leaps and bounds in terms of representation in the corporate world.
Here’s how women can change that and break through the gender gap.
Bring uniqueness to the C-suite
A gender gap persists. The disparity between men and women is apparent in opportunities, compensation and attitudes. There are many nuanced reasons why this gap exists including access, hiring bias, education, status and so on.
However, as a woman and senior leader, I encourage other women to approach this stubborn dynamic armed with solutions. For example, consider what addressing the gender gap issue means for staff dynamics and company culture.
Many people characterize women as hard-working yet some organizations tend to overlook the abilities of their female staffers. But that’s exactly what we bring to the table: Unique skills. Plus, women don’t have to be executives to aide the C-suite nor do women have to mirror the way others have climbed the corporate ladder in order to be successful.
According to Harvard Business Review, organizations with higher percentages of women senior executives are more profitable, socially responsible and customer-focused than their competitors. In short, better business outcomes frequently accompany more diverse boards and top management teams.
Play to your strengths
Some people wonder whether men and women vying for the same executive positions is an “apples to apples” comparison. Of course, it’s not. However, very few things in life are equal comparisons — not even apples! So instead of women getting caught up in what we don’t have, let’s play to our strengths.
For starters, many successful women leaders have found a healthy balance between traits pegged as feminine (i.e., kindness, compassion) and masculine (i.e., firmness, competitiveness). Remember, we don’t have to follow in the footsteps of a male leader. Instead, let’s reimagine what leadership is. Redefine what trickles down to our employees and share what we hope to impart on others.
Inc. recently featured four women CEOs and their approach to making a meaningful impact, specifically what they hoped to teach their daughters. These women advised ‘speaking from the heart’ and ‘cultivating the whole self’ instead of chasing perfection. While these aren’t traditional executive traits, they play to women’s strengths and have catapulted women to professional success.
Lastly, contrary to others’ advice, breaking through the gender gap isn’t about working harder than the men. Forget about Kim Kardashian’s advice for women to “work harder.” Instead, handle those comments like beloved actress Dame Judi Dench did at the Oscars and laugh it off. Women do work hard enough; we recognize the hustle. We have to excel at working smarter!
Embrace meaningful goals
It’s not uncommon for men and women to develop a company mission statement and core values or even establish goals for the organization. These objectives might include sales, retention and customer satisfaction. After all, without such goals, companies are flying blind.
In addition to standard metrics and benchmarks, consider how you can create meaningful goals for your organization. Perhaps my experience can provide some examples of how meaningful goals might look.
In 2017, after joining Founder Shield, a tech-enabled commercial insurance broker, I grew the Customer Success team from four to 10 in less than two years during one of the most competitive hiring landscapes in the industry. Amid onboarding and training many new hires, I positioned and championed the team to hit peak performance targets, frequently accomplishing 20-30% YoY revenue increases and more than 90% retention each month — unrivaled metrics at other brokerages.
While these are tremendous results, I’m also proud of the transformation in the team. Since becoming Managing Director of the Customer Success team, my group is 40% people of color (POC), and 50% of team members identify as female. Upon taking the role, the team was 15% POC and 15% female. As a woman of color in a senior position — unrelated to human resources of formal diversity initiatives — my existence as a leader contributed to DEI in insurance. Plus, it helped to break through the gender gap.
Champion your niche
There’s a common misperception that women are reserved for supporting roles. But diverse boards often have better corporate governance than all-male ones. Much of this success is due to how women champion their niche. Just like the c-suite benefits when women play to their strengths and pursue meaningful goals, carving out a niche also will produce a highly impactful outcome.
For example, years before they became major players, I supported and partnered with new cyber market entrants such as Coalition, Cowbell and CFC. I served as a “guinea pig” and sounding board as they developed their products, providing the influence to tailor products to fit the ideal Founder Shield client. And it paid off.
Although women only run roughly 8% of Fortune 500 companies, our presence on corporate boards and senior leadership has increased. As of 2021, women held 31% of all S&P 500 board seats, which is a steady increase from 22% in 2017, according to Bloomberg. This is proof that we can continue to break through the gender gap and positively impact our organizations as well as the world around us.
Rachel Jenkins is an insurance leader with more than a decade of experience in the industry. After launching her career as a management liability underwriter at AIG, she spent several years as a client advisor for the Financial Institution Group at Marsh. She joined Founder Shield in 2017 as a Senior Account Executive. She now leads the company’s Customer Success team. Rachel focuses on client advising, improving policy language for venture-backed companies, including financial institutions, ecommerce, and SaaS companies, and developing new tech to continue driving innovation in the insurance industry.
These opinions are the author’s own.
See also: