FINANCE MONTHLY GLOBAL AWARDS 2021 www.finance-monthly.com 19 to me: “What does that guy do?”, to which he replied: “Insurance or something like that”. So after nearly three decades in Insurance, I can confidently say that – the industry called to me when I was still a teenager – working in the tobacco fields. It just took me another decade to answer that call. What made you fall in love with the job? From day one of answering the aforementioned ad, I was hooked. I couldn’t read enough, learn enough and I couldn’t stop telling people about insurance. The sophisticated risk transfer features we use, the joy of packaging up legal contracts and offering them to the public, all of it, everything from our rich history to how our industry impacts so many parts of the world for good and social betterment. What has the COVID-19 pandemic been like on the insurance industry in North America? Certainly, the past couple of years have impacted everyone in different ways. Personally speaking, the entire event drastically changed my leadership style. Pre-COVID, I was hyper-focused on goals, targets, revenue improvement and of course expense management. During COVID, I had to pivot and become more emotionally engaged and compassionate. Maybe our goals had to be dialled back, but our staff needed adjustment time, mental breaks and check-ins to make sure everyone was ok. I don’t think anyone came out of COVID with the same leadership skills they entered it with. We all had to change. How could we not have and be relevant? What are some of the challenges you’ve been faced with and how have you adapted to them? I think that every firm is wrestling with talent issues. Recruiting new staff, keeping existing staff, fine-tuning a more balanced workplace that is compatible with a shifting expectation. Firms that want to remain relevant have to adapt, enhance offerings, improve messaging and become engaged in not only re-recruiting their existing staff but continually identifying what the next wave of onboarding insurance geeks wants work to look like. I would submit to your readers that it most certainly begins with a “remote first“ offering where workers may choose to live and work anywhere they want. "After nearly three decades in Insurance, I can confidently say that – the industry called to me when I was still a teenager – working in the tobacco fields. It just took me another decade to answer that call."
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